Manchester City (0) 1 - 2 (0) Arsenal
City of Manchester Stadium, Wednesday 27th October 2004
League Cup 3rd round
Arsenal:
Almunia
Hoyte Cygan Senderos Larsson
Pennant (Djourou 89) Flamini Cesc Smith (Quincy 61)
Van Persie Lupoli (Karbassyoon 82)
A terrific way to forget the events of Sunday, a day for looking
forward. The 49 game unbeaten run is over but the future is
looking bright. First Wenger signs up for another 3 years, and
then this... Wenger's youngsters showing not only that they
can compete with a Premiership team, but that a good many of
them are not just ready to play for Arsenal, they're
ready to play like Arsenal.
City started better, to be fair. The major incidents of the
first half were a great shot from distance by Wright-Phillips after
he'd cleverly created space for himself in the centre to receive
a cross from their left. But it was close enough for Manuel Almunia to
dive onto it. Then Fowler got behind the defence to
get to a good header-on by Sibierski. But he tried to toe-poke
with his left foot instead of getting his right foot round it,
and only skewed it wide of the post. Sibierski himself had the
best chance with a glancing header from Sinclair's cross which
Almunia stretched to save.
Towards the end of the first half Arsenal came into the game
a bit more, perhaps partly because City were running out of
ideas. The final ball was never quite right though, and on
occasion the forwards seemed to be trying too hard, trying
to do too much rather than keep it simple. But in the second half
we started to take control a bit more, and the Arsenal goals
came thanks to moves that the first eleven would have been proud of.
Before that, we had a goal wrongly disallowed when van Persie beat the
offside trap on the right wing. He chested on a diagonal cross and
fired goalwards. City's keeper parried it out to Lupoli who scored.
There was a moment of confusion as the ref blew his whistle while
the linesman (rightly) kept his flag down. But it turned out that the
ref thought van Persie had controlled the ball with his arm. Replays
in fact showed that, at worst, the ball had rolled from one shoulder,
and across his chest to the other shoulder.
The deadlock was broken on 77 minutes with a fantastic goal.
After a long long spell of possession football, Arsenal passed the ball
back up the left wing. It came to Flamini in the centre and he burst forward,
played a one-two with Lupoli to take him into the box, and then squared
for van Persie to knock in.
Right at the start of injury time Danny Karbassyoon made it 2 with a
terrific finish. After more nice possession, Cesc had got the ball in
the D. He waited patiently for an opportunity and Karbassyoon
provided it but dropping away from his marker Mills to Cesc's left. The
young Spaniard slotted the ball past Mills for the American to
run onto, and he whacked it in form a narrow angle when a cross might
have been expected.
There was still time for Fowler to get a consolation, from a free kick
on the edge of our box, after Justin Hoyte had brought down Wright-Phillips.
Fowler got a bit lucky actually, losing his footing over just before he struck
the ball caused him to slice it into the roof of the net right in the corner.
Lots of encouraging performances. Almunia looks a fine shot stopper but
there were a few communication difficulties with his defenders (not too
problematuc as it turned out, as the confusion only resulted in them
clearing the ball to safety when the keeper thought he had it under control).
Van Persie was a bit wasteful of possession I thought, but showed nice control
and positioning and willingness, and of course popped up with some key
attacking contributions in the second half. Of the others that I'd not
seen before, Senderos was solid and Larsson had a very close battle with
one of City's youngsters Willo Flood. But the main men for me were Pennant
and Fabregas, whose first team experience was evident in everything they did.
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