Welcome to the final Arsenal-Bolton post-match blog entry, The Final Thoughts. Another week has started and Champions League football is finally back! Well, we'll leave that to another day. This time around, we have another round of interesting points to talk about in this section. Scroll down for more.
The Positives
Extremely creative midfield the key...
The French tactician started the game with a creative midfield/attacking force of Fabregas, Rosicky and Arshavin. Song and Wilshere played slightly deeper roles but were still able to create chances from the middle of the park. As Bolton utilised a high line (probably due to the absence of Walcott's pace), Fabregas and Rosicky managed to carve out 3 to 4 defence-splitting through balls which weren't taken well on most ocassions by guilty party Arshavin, but Vela though did finish off a classy 24-pass move. Check out the video below.
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The return of Cescy football...
How Cescy? 3 assists in 4 goals scored by the Gunners. Superb ain't it? He made Koscielny's goal by bringing down Wilshere's cross perfectly. Then he sent in a quality cross which was headed in by Chamakha. Then he made the 23rd pass in the 24-pass goal by sending Vela THE killer ball. It is indeed the return of Cesc Fabregas especially after the summer-long Cesc-to-Barca saga. I don't see why he has to go back to Barca in the short term. Arsenal can provide almost everything that Barca can. Hmmm...
Alex sings THE Song again...
Enough said. I'm a huge fan of Alex Song. Biased? A bit I guess. Since the Fulham game in 2006 when he was substituted by Wenger during half time for a tremendously poor performance (and I bet he still remember it), this man here has come off leaps and bounds. His movement, ball control and etc. Wow. Against a slightly physical Bolton, he has shown extremely high maturity, even higher than last season, in terms of defending, protecting the ball and even attacking it. He said he would score in the game and he did in the end, which probably was a good thing for Alex.
Wenger hits the 1000-goal mark...
1001 goals. It's quite a magnificent achievement. It has been 14 years since Wenger first arrived at the Arsenal. It's good to recall the wonderful moments in the Wenger era. And my first season with the Gunners left an extremely awesome experience with the guys winning the Premier League and breaking the unbeaten-run record at 49 matches. Yes, season 2003/04 and 2004/05 that is. The current team has also come a long way since the departure of Patrick Vieira. Here's to Wenger with the hope of greater things to come.
The Average Fellas
Debut partnership with interesting outcome...
Squillaci made his Arsenal bow in a competitive match, starting alongside Wenger's other new signing of this season Koscielny. The partnership was shaky in short periods but overall it was solid. The typical nervy moments were there to see as this partnership was only like 1.5 hours old. However, I saw a few slightly worrying signs especially regarding Squillaci. The 30 year old seems to lack the pace and love to mark opponents tightly to the point of marking a Bolton player till the opponents' half. Maybe I'm just over-reacting.
Having said that, he was pretty good in the air and his awareness and determination were top-notch. There was one ocassion where the ball eluded him but he ensured that the ball did not reach the Bolton players by side-stepping the ball in quick succession even when he was already losing balance. Nothing much to say about Koscielny though as he was his usual self apart from the odd mistake that he made which led to Bolton's only goal.
Chamakh needs to learn how to finish off chances better...
Yup. He has scored 2 goals in the past 2 games. But those were headers. Call me fickle, but he definitely needs to improve his goalscoring touch. In the 2nd half, he was provided with a superb ball by the Arsenal captain but he didn't take it well. The conclusion is that he needs to score more goals from open play and be less wasteful. Other than that, Chamakh is superb.
The Poor One
"Hasty" Arshavin losing the edge...
I think the knives are now trying to find a scapegoat. The Russian knew it and even talked about it on his official website. On a personal note, I believe that he needs to up his game fast. The manager has given him numerous games to prove himself but he still couldn't deliver what the fans wanted, which is the consistent brilliance of Andrey Arshavin. He can be brilliant in a flash, but he seems to be anonymous for large periods in a game, which is quite worrying. However, there is definitely more to come from Arshavin. Just keep the faith.
In the End
Great day for football. 4-1. Cahill's red card didn't change the game much in my opinion. Nervy performance in defence though is still something that Wenger can do much to improve on. With confidence riding high at the Emirates, the team must show even greater desire to win a long-awaited trophy for the deserving Arsenal fans for sure. Next up, Braga in the Champions League!
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