Oh! No. Fabregas gets a finely threaded pass by Hleb, instinctively thinks about passing, but then decides to have a go. His angled shot beat a Schmeichel who till then looked like he was going to go another game without conceding a goal.
It was the best decision for goal in a long time for Arsenal who should have gone up a goal with RVP’s penalty kick. I think if Cesc had decided to go for another extra pass the ball would have wound up on Richard Dunne’s foot.
The return of Gilberto was key as he was the catalyst for Arsenal’s moves from deep within as well as his defensive flair in denying Elano and Petrov from building up steam. I think Wenger did the right thing by starting Almunia. The Spanish goalie made sure that he did all the small things right and came up with two great saves, one against Mpenza and the other one against Kasper Schmeichel’s header, to keep a clean sheet. He looks much steadier controlling and clearing balls unlike Lehmann who always causes some hearts to stop. Adebayor with his height and length caused all sorts of problems round the goalmouth but to be fair Richard Dunne also stuck out an opportune foot to deny him on a number of occasions.
I think there is nothing more satisfying than seeing Arsenal score after creating chance after chance. But this was very sweet seeing Fabregas taking matters into his own hands and score. As I have said Arsenal’s goals will have to come from different players as Eduardo da Silva comes to terms with the vagaries of Premiership soccer. So far Hleb and Fabregas have produced.
This Arsenal side took the ball away from the Man City players and won the 50-50 chances. I think it was the closest you can come to seeing total football as even RVP and Adebayor drifted in deep to deny the Man City players.
The one thing that Arsenal can do better is to get more effective positioning of players up front to take advantage of the chanced near goalmouth. There were at least three chances with Adebayor angling the ball and RVP arriving a fraction late and then RVP doing the same with Adebayor pulling up. That is where we miss Henry. I think Hleb’s patience operating on the right side paid off with the Fabregas goal but the Belarus midfielder was also guilty of wasting chances pulling the ball to his left foot giving Dunne and Richards more time to close out.
Sven Goran has some questions to answer. His side did not have much possession even with Elano who always looked a step quicker than the rest of his players. Their best player today was Kasper Schmeichel who looks like a chip of the old block. I think giving up that goal infuriated him so much that he almost got one back in Man City’s last gasp approach.