The Emirates Stadium symbolises the tightly-wound tension in modern football almost perfectly. The structure itself, and often the football played inside, is jaw-dropping. But it's a giant shrine to football corporatism - its middle tier empties faster than Club Wembley at half time and most of the time the stadium struggles to top the decibel level of a morgue.
But make no mistake, those Arsenal fans can still raise a din when the moment calls for it.
I've been to a few Arsenal home games this season thanks to a couple of mates kind enough to send their spares my way. The Porto and Cardiff City matches were a little quiet, but last night I went along to watch Arsenal's Champions League last 16 first leg match against AS Roma. Much more like it.
The game itself was more exciting than I'd expected. Roma came with a game plan and it nearly worked for them, though more by luck than judgement. A poor referee tried his hardest to spoil the evening with the usual anti-England bias very much in evidence. Someone should tell him Arsenal have no English players.
Arsenal looked far, far more dangerous in an end-to-end first half and broke the deadlock a few minutes before the break. Philippe Mexes took a few seconds out from his moaning at the referee and putting his arm up for mythical offsides to topple Robin Van Persie. Calm as you like, Van Persie found the net from the spot kick.
In truth, the penalty decision looked a bit soft. But the referee was giving absolutely everything and there was contact, so no complaints about the decision from me.
In both halves, Arsenal had lots of chances and were, as Arsene Wenger has said, pretty wasteful. Nicklas Bendtner in particular was really very poor, but he wasn't the only Arsenal player who could have done better in front of goal.
Roma were as wasteful in possession as Arsenal were with their chances, and despite getting forward more towards the end produced limited chances. Marco Motta had a thunderbolt saved by the fingertips of Manuel Almunia in the first period, and John Arne Riise fired a viciously swinging shot past the post in the second, for which a corner was ludicrously awarded.
Overall, I got the impression Roma were happy with the 1-0 scoreline at times. They obviously fancy themselves in the return leg. That might be a big mistake.
(Photo: BBC Sport)
0 comments:
Post a Comment