English Premier League: Arsenal forgo opportunity at Wigan
Arsenal were on the back of a rocking 3-1 victory against the champions, Chelsea. Monday night saw Chelsea visit the Emirates Stadium in high hopes to redeem themselves and reinvigorate their season with a morale boosting win, but Arsenal ensured that it
would be anything but, as they put http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Chelsea-c38786 to the sword.
Two days later, Arsenal had to go to the DW stadium to take on a relegation threatened Wigan, and a win would see them become joint leaders of the Premier League, alongside Manchester United and Manchester City. Manchester United played the day before, away
to Birmingham City, and a late http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Lee-Bowyer-c21864 show ensured that the Red Devils would succumb to another draw, their seventh this season. United this season have only won once on the road, away at Stoke, the rest have all been draws.
As United dropped two points, Arsenal had the opportunity to capitalize and reduce the gap between the two teams. Against Chelsea, Arsenal’s top performers were http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Johan-Djourou-c18779, Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van
Persie. However, all of them were dropped for this game against Roberto Martinez’s men as Arsene Wenger looked to rotate his squad for the hefty schedule approaching. But eight changes is a wholesale change, and it was a gamble to believe the fringe players
could hold up.
http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Abou-Diaby-c3453 came back into the side after a lengthy lay off due to injury.
Fabianski continued in goal. It was a decent enough team, but one which hadn’t seen much game time and lacked chemistry at the moment.
Wigan started glowingly. They attacked Arsenal from the start and had the Gunners rattled, primarily through http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Hugo-Rodallega-c16414 and Charles N’Zogbia. In the 17th minute, N’Zogbia ran in through the left wing, and as he cut in between Emmanuel Eboue
and Laurent, Koscielny’s trailing leg caught the quick footed Frenchman, and he went down accordingly. The referee saw it as a foul and gave the penalty without hesitation, but replays showed that the contact was outside the box. http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ben-Watson-c7458 stepped up and
buried the spot kick as Wigan wheeled away with a 1-0 lead to protect. It was harsh on Arsenal, but all they could do now was respond.
Arsenal clicked into gear quickly, as they upped the tempo of their passing and made more runs, but every time they got the ball to Arshavin on the left wing, he would give it away. It was an indifferent start to the game by the Russian, and it looked set
to continue. Then out of the blue, the mercurial forward suddenly sparked into life by pouncing on a parried ball and scoring with an expertly applied overhead kick. The chance presented itself after Chamakh found Bendtner in the box, and the Danish forward's
strike was parried by http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Ali-Al-Habsi-c5041, but only for Arshavin to unleash his skill.
And then in the 44th minute, Arshavin turned two midfielders before threading a pass through to Bendtner who found himself one-on-one with the keeper; he calmly stroked the ball to Al Habsi’s left and into the net. Arsenal had finally managed
to turn it around and Arshavin was central to both goals that Arsenal scored.
After the break, Arsenal came out firing again and Al Habsi had to make a few saves to keep Wigan in the game. In the 78th minute though, http://www.senore.com/Football-soccer/Jack-Wilshere-c17463’s face and deservedly saw red for his troubles.
In the 81st minute though, the ten man Wigan pulled things level as they forced an own goal out of Sebastien Squillaci. Ben Watson’s corner was headed back into the danger area by Hugo Rodallega and as Caldwell and Squillaci jostled for position,
the ball found its way into the back of the net via Squillaci’s head. And that’s the way it stayed till the end as Arsenal dropped two valuable points.
Question marks will be raised over Wenger’s decision to make eight changes to his side that so aptly reduced Chelsea to ash. But, Wenger was right to point out that Arsenal’s players had only played 48 hours ago whilst the Wigan players had a rest of over
72 hours. Still, excuses are beyond Arsenal now as they again missed the chance to close the gap on their competitors. There aren’t too many points you can drop before you forfeit the title and Arsenal certainly do not have many get out of jail cards left.
The players have to get ruthless on the pitch, while Wenger has to get ruthless with his tactics.
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