3 points and we are back in the mix!

Apologies for no game preview blog yesterday. My internet connection was acting up yesterday and that put paid to any attempts to get anything up . Was a bit of a laboured Arsenal performance yesterday at Upton Park. All three points nevertheless and that's all that matters.

We started brightly enough in the opening minutes yesterday, enough for the Arsetard to think that we were going to run riot. But that was not how it panned out. Van Persie and Theo came close on occassion and Almunia had to make a fine save off Bellamy who was put in by Scott Parker I think it was, to completeley open us up. Another shot from distance brought about another fine save from our number one. A super run by Theo on the right channel ended up with him in the box and hitting the bar. Another time we came close was when Fab floated a ball in for RVP in the box to beautifully chest down for Theo to beat the keeper, but Green pulled out a decent save to deny us. A couple of half chances for us and some pops from distance from the home team meant that the half time score remained at nil. I think it was more a case of us being less penetrative than West Ham being overly good. We did pick up the pace towards the latter stage of the first half, but nothing was forthcoming. Our central defensive pairing of Silvestre and Gallas did have theior "moments" but I would have to admit it was much better than most.

We failed to pick up from where we left off in first, we were bossing the possesion but failed to produce too many clear cut chances. RVP hit the post from a free kick and that was pretty much it until Ade who came on in the 67th for one of the two wingers who were both substituted, the other player to come on was Diaby. Ade danced his way into the box, past a couple of defenders to put in a cross/shot which Faubert turned into his own net for the opener. And you will have to admit it, Ade was the spark we needed to get the win and he proved it with a well worked second after a sublime pass from Bendtner, who didnt have his best game by any stretch of the imagination.A more detailed match report is here.

After the game Arsene remarked that we couldn’t afford to drop points today

“It is a big win for us because if we had come out of it with a frustrating 0-0 draw, we would have felt that we had wasted an opportunity to get closer to the top.

For us it was important not to make a mistake and to take one of our own chances. We gambled a lot and fortunately we had some strikers on the bench and in the end that made the difference.

We knew before the game that we couldn’t afford to drop points today but I must say that West Ham can feel frustrated because they defended very well and gave absolutely everything today. In the end we got a little opening, maybe they got a little bit fatigued in the last 20 minutes.”

So three vital points it was, especially since two of the usual suspects dropped some this weekend. We are now 4 points behind Liverpool who conquered the Russians in their own backyard, 1 behind the Russians and 1 ahead of the Manks who dropped two points at Goodison on Saturday.That puts us right back in it. We did drop points early on this season but we are hanging in there, tough games await us and we will have to step up.

Before that howeever its the rejuvenated Spuds up next at Ashburton. Our meek North London rivals picked up their first win and will be rearing to go when we take them on this Wednesday. More on that later.

So long mates!

Cheers!