Arsenal 3 – 0 Aston Villa : Closer to the top

Few would argue that the highlight of yesterday’s match was our half-fit Captain Cesc coming off the bench to score two goals which effectively helped Arsenal to a comprehensive win over Aston Villa at the Emirates Stadium. Indeed I’d agree to that. However, at the same time I wouldn’t put it as though Fabregas single-handedly won us the match because I truly feel the team had on a brilliant performance the entire match. Thomas Vermaelen was definitely right when he said this:

“For us he was very important on Sunday. He scored twice in 20 minutes so he was very important. I think before he came on we were the better team but we didn’t create too many chances and when he came on we controlled the game more and we created some more chances.

He played some good passes behind the defence, they were really dangerous. He has a great vision in the game.”

Still, no one can guarantee that we would have won without the introduction of Fabregas and as much as it was a risky gamble, I felt Arsene Wenger made the ideal decision at that time.

Arsenal were pretty dominant in the early minutes of the first half and Eduardo could have put us 1-0 up had his shot been more powerful and not directly targeted at the Friedel. At the back, Gallas and Vermaelen looked solid, our offside trap held up very well and in my opinion, Traore had his best game since replacing the injured Gibbs at left-back, including providing the pass which led to Arsenal’s second goal. Diaby also had a good game, running the show in midfield and attack, threatening in the box and being a menace to the Villa defence. His efforts were rewarded with a goal in the 90th minute, a shot at the edge of the area that ensured Arsenal’s comprehensive win over a very frustrated Villa side.

Alex Song looked a little out of sorts though and probably have at least committed 3 fouls worthy of yellows and I should say the ref was really lenient on him on many occasions. Eduardo too wasn’t at his best yesterday and his replacement in the 63rd minute, Theo Walcott, did a much better job, most noticeably racing up from midway of the pitch before setting up Cesc’s second goal.

Now the most concerning thing as a result of this match is of course the extent of Cesc’s hamstring injury which saw him limp off just after playing for 21 minutes. Initial reports say that he could be out for either a few days or  the period may stretch up to about 3 weeks. But so far, nothing is confirmed yet. Denilson also picked up a back injury but I’m not sure as to how bad it is but looks like Wenger is prepared for all possibilities when making this statement about incoming transfers:

“I’ve said we will keep our eyes open and if a good opportunity turns up we will do it. But at the moment I haven’t got any. I will have to look maybe as well at midfielders and how big the damage is. If we lose Denilson and Fabregas (and Song to the Africa Cup of Nations) we will be short there. I don’t know yet.”

We will definitely miss our captain if he’s out for 3 weeks but I feel the team currently has the confidence to cope especially with Chelsea and Man United looking so vulnerable in recent games. The fact that we’ve swept aside a team (Aston Villa) that has already beaten Chelsea, Man United and Liverpool surely counts for something and our 3-0 victory over Spurs before this too shows that we’re not one of those challenging for 4th place in the League anymore. We’ve shown we’re better than those teams and maybe now Liverpool can take over as the struggling one, hoho.

It’s tempting to think that we can move within a point behind Chelsea after playing our game in hand against Bolton but I’d rather not expect it to happen just yet. This may sound ridiculous but maybe because we did not expect Chelscum to drop points so soon after their convincing win over Arsenal, it’s actually happening and maybe if we hadn’t expect to win against Sunderland previously in our 1-0 defeat to them, we might have actually won that game. Nonsense? I’m just saying, Maybe.

So as optimistic as I am going into the games coming up against Portsmouth, Bolton, etc…etc…, I’m hoping we’ll be on top of the League in January (Chelsea will drop more points, almost lost to Fulham just hours ago) but I won’t expect it must happen.

So, if it’s not too early, here’s to a wonderful Year 2010 ahead for all you Gooners and Goonerettes, my Malaysian friends and of course to the Arsenal team we all love. Happy New Year from TheSilentGunner Blog (“,)!!!