Good Evening (Morning for our Australian readers)
Well I’ve had worse Mondays. So yesterday we took to the Wembley pitch to play Man City in The Community Shield or Charity Shield as I still call it. Didn’t we do well.
Both sides were missing key players from their line ups, and I thought on paper both sides lined up pretty evenly. For once I didn’t look at the opposition’s line up with dread. That’s no disrespect to City as their side as ever is full of quality, but our side for me looked frightening even without the Germans.
Although to all intensive purposes it was a friendly, it was a chance to fire a massive warning shot to the rest of the premiership, and that is what we did. From kick off Arsenal looked in control and City were up against it. Every Gunner on the pitch looked up for it, Jack and Rambo played pivotal roles, everything went through them. Sanogo was charged with leading the line with Sanchez floating behind him. The back line line had new signings Chambers and Debuchy included and on the whole looked pretty solid.
Every time we got the ball going forward you felt something was going to happen and after 21 minutes Santi opened the scoring after a driving run and lay off from Sanogo, Cazorla then turned the defender and fired a low shot into the bottom corner on the edge of the box. Its easy to forget what a gem with have in Santi Cazorla, its great to see him score and it’d be a travesty for me if we let him go.
Sanogo did a good job up top in the first half, he was a handful for a rusty City defence and played a big part in the 2nd goal aswell just before half time. It was really exactly what we wanted to see as we swept up a half chance from City in our own box with ease calmly playing it out to Sanchez in our half still. Sanchez then used the space in front of him before taking out a defender with a great pass to find Sanogo on the edge of the City box, then in a gangly fashion drawing out 2 defenders and laying off once more this time for Ramsey to somehow give himself another yard of space with a world class dink before despatching into the bottom corner. Our messiah looked fresh and better than ever, an all round great goal.
So 2 nil at half time so far so good. That must have been a very straight forward team talk for the boss, not so straight forward for Pelligrini who’s team were still stuck in the traps. That was all from Sanogo as he was replaced by Giroud for the 2nd half. Not a bad performance at all from the former postman and hopefully we see more of the same, as he certainly proved he can be a handful.
The 2nd half proved to be as easy as the 1st, as City rarely threatened, I don’t know if they weren’t really taking it seriously but their heads certainly weren’t in the game. Or perhaps we were just too good. Either way I don’t think that will be the City we will see in the forthcoming season. The game was sealed for us on 60 minutes when we saved the best til last. Substitute Giroud was clearly playing for his place in the starting line up and from out of nowhere looking to pose no danger looped a shot from 25 yards over an out of position Caballero. Giroud was by no means in a goal scoring position surrounded by blue shirts but showed his class moving the ball onto his trusted left foot before letting rip. Amazing what a bit of healthy competition can do.
On the whole it was a great game for Gooners, whether it was a friendly or not, every single player in a red shirt took it as a chance to prove their worth, and to send a signal of intent to the rest of the Premier League. The new boys looked like they’d been here for years. It looks like we have a big deal on our hands with Chambers, he looks like he has everything, and I bet if they were honest Debuchy, Per and Kos would tell you they are worried for their place. That is how it should be though, and that is what drives success. Sanchez just looks a cut above but we knew that anyway. I’m convinced he will become a hero up there with the likes of Bergkamp, Pires and Henry.
With the German contingent signing back in today, we are looking like we mean business. Of course the other sides are strong and have the quality and money to win the league, but there is just this feeling now that this is our time again, and again if honesty was compulsory, other fans, players and managers will fear us more than any other team right now.
Happy Monday.
@Northbankmen
A Gentleman's Arsenal 