Divers: Totti and most of the rest of his squad

Well, that was a difficult thing to watch, was it not? I’m glad I didn’t watch the whole thing. I didn’t realize it went to OT when I downloaded both halves of the match. I couldn’t bring my self to go and download the rest and sit through it, so I settled for going to the Arsenal site to find out the result and then seeking out the highlight reels.

There’s not a lot to say about the match itself. It was a tough thing to see. After going into the match with a one goal lead on aggregate and a clean sheet at home, I felt pretty good. But you could just tell by the way we started the match that it was going to be a rough road. And you just knew Roma were going to go for it. And they did. Replete with a lot of typical Italian cheating. My god, it doesn’t take a whole lot to make an Italian player fall down, does it? Every little bump and kick they get, the arms go flying with the accompanying pain stricken face and they go tumbling to the mat in a heap and begin the rolling around process. I’m beginning to wonder if Zidane didn’t just sneeze and knock Materazzi on his ass. Thankfully, the officials usually don’t fall for it. And Totti’s the worst of them. What a diving cheat. It’s nice to see someone like that get eliminated.It’s just too bad the poor fellow who was stabbed by the asshole Roma fans didn’t know it was so easy to knock these punks down.

Anyway, back to the match. It all looked like it was going to turn to shit for us, especially when Eduardo’s PK was blocked. But, amazingly, roma also missed two shots later, then again on their 7th and we’re through. That’s all that matters to me. We’re through. So are the rest of the Top Four. Yes, I still include us in the Top Four, until we finish a season outside of it.

Next up, the club my dog supports, Blackburn Rovers. Eduardo is out with a groin thing, but we’ll have Andrey back. Ah, back to the Prem.

Vela 25, Da Silva 53, Eboue 84 – Divers: none

The announcer just said, “And that’s the cheekiest volley I’ve seen in a long, long time.” And as such, Captain Eduardo Da Silva has put us up 2-0 at home in this round of the FA Cup.

I’m watching it on a 30 minute delay on the DVR, so I imagine in real time we’re probably in injury time about now. Earlier, at 25′, Carlos Vela put a beautiful little chip shot over the Burnley keeper to open the scoring. The match has definitely leaned toward us so far, but Burnley has not been without their threats. They’ve gotten into our back line a few times, with some clearances that would have made the Keystone Cops proud.

At the back, William Gallas is paired with Johann Djourou in the middle with Kieran Gibbs in for Clichy and the excellent Bacary Sagna in his usual position at right.  They’re doing well enough, but still have this troubling habit of leaving the door open. The middle started with Emmanuel Eboue, Abou Diaby, Alexander Song and Andrey Arshavin with Eduardo  and Carlos Vela up front. Just now, at 60′, Robin van Persie has come on for Vela. I thought I saw Theo warming up on the touchline, but he hasn’t come on as of yet. I spoke too soon… it’s now about 70′ and we’re just waiting for the ball to cross the touchline to see Theo. Aaron Ramsey has come on for Abou Diaby and the moment I’ve been waiting for, Theo Walcott has come on for Eduardo after three months out due to injury. I really hope his shoulder issues are behind him. RvP has taken the armband for the reminder of the match.

Theo just had a great chance to score, fed by Arshavin, but the Burnley keeper came out to stifle it. Theo’s looking good so far. He just fed a lovely little chipped cross into the box but RvP failed to volley it home.

Ok, the planets are clearly in line today and, here’s something I never thought I’d ever write: At 84′, Alexander Song does a lovely little backheel and Emmanuel Eboue buries it for a goal! Yes, read that again if you must. The celebration alone was worth the price of admission. Well done boys.

And there’s the final whistle. We’re off to the next round of the FA Cup. A dominating performance by The Gunners. Arsène Wenger is mixing things up pretty good with his line ups these days and it’s working well.

Bendtner 4, 44, Toure 38 – Divers: Robinson, Teixeria

Well, thankfully… Arsenal came through and I didn’t have to leap out the window. Just to be sure, I watched the second half of the match this morning in my basement. I’m going to try something a bit different with this post and just show you the notes I took while watching the match. It certainly won’t be as extensive as the typical live blogging post which seeme to be all the rage on football blogs these days. It’s just the thoughts I would jot down during the match.

Kickoff - Here we go. Andrey Arshavin starts up font with Niklas Bendtner. This should be interesting.

3′ – GOAL A soul crushing early goal by Niklas Bendtner. After a corner gets headed out, Nik collects, rounds a defender and rolls it slowly home. Very well done.

6′ – GOAL Unreal… ok, not as soul crushing as perhaps I first thought. The Baggies are level after a set piece by some bloke named Brunt just outside the area, 1-1. They shot right through our wall as if it weren’t there, totally fooling Almunia. Arsène Wenger just blew his first gasket of the evening. Pat Rice is on hand to repair.

13′ – Manuel Almunia forced to make a good save. Chances are coming from both sides, and so far the match is pretty well open. For the second week in a row, not what I expected. West Brom came to play. You have to respect that.

37′ – GOAL Arshavin takes a free kick from the left and Kolo Toure buries his first of the season. Well done, Kolo! 1-2

43′ – GOAL Toure longball to Bendtner who brilliantly collects it on his right thigh and then right foots it home. Now that was a first touch I’d like to see more of from Bendtner. 1-3

Halftime – Eboue is just one cock-up after another. I want him to redeem himself, I do. But it just doesn’t seem to be happening.

2nd Half Kickoff – It would appear that WBA’s resolve is now crumbling. They fought pretty hard the first half, despite the result so far. It’s actually been a pretty good match to watch.

58′ - Arshavin has had two very nice attempts on goal so far, fed twice by Bendtner. Who, by the way, is looking great today, even without his goals. He’s definitely showing what his true potential is these days. The feeling is that, given the time to grow,  he will eventually become a great striker. I say he’s on his way, and still at such a young age.

62′ - Emmanuel Eboue actually has a shot on goal! Not a bad attempt, either. Although Carson handles it with relative ease.

66′ – Aaron Ramsey comes on for Eboue.

67′ – DIVE - Paul Robinson goes in with two feet against Alex Song who simultaneously returns the favor. Song simply gets up and walks away, Robinson throws his hands over his face as if he were kicked. The replay shows him behaving almost as ridiculous as Clint Dempsey throwing himself to the pitch last week when he thought one of our players was on his tail but no one was there. I really wish this bullshit weren’t part of the game.

69′ – Another nice save by Almunia after a set piece. I’d say we’re a bit weak in defending those today. At least he collected this one.

74′ – Shot wide by Fortuné. They opened us up at the back again – this porousness needs to be addressed. If we keep our back door open like this against top half teams, we’ll pay for it. By the way, Kolo went out at the half with a tight calf and Song has moved back for him with Diaby coming in to fill the midfield vacancy alongside Denilson.

82′ – Fran Merida comes on for Samir Nasri. There’s been some grumblings that Samir has lost a bit of form of late. while that may be true, it’s should be noted he’s gone down from excellent to very good. And, he’s plays nearly every minute of every match in his first English season. You won’t hear a complaint from me. In terms of value to the team, he’s right up there alongside Bacary Sagna, who is also having himself another great performance.

84′ – DIVE – Texeira throws himself to the pitch after a love tap from Sagna. The resulting free kick is punched about 50 yards upfield by Almunia.

88′ – It’s probably a bit too early to be writing this, but if we end at 1-3 it definitely will not be a true reflection of the match. I’m getting tired of writing this over and over this season, but this match could have easily been 5 or 6 goals to the Arsenal. So many close calls that just didn’t find the net. Arshavin seems to be on the verge of a scoring run that could really help us see out this season. Come on Andrey!

89′ – Yet another good shot from Arshavin after a very nice feed from Aaron Ramsey. But it’s stopped well by Carson, who has seen 54 previous attempts at shot stopping whiz by his head.

Final – 1-3. As I said, not a good representation of hte play. Arsenal looked very good against a tougher than expected West Brom side. Many will say “It was just The Baggies“, but 3 points is 2 points more than we’ve been taking from matches of late, so we’ll take them. Overall, a very good performance from The Gunners.

Next up, we’re home for our next FA Cup tie against Burnley, who bounced us from the Carling Cup at Turf Moor in early December. Revenge, perhaps? I say hells yes. Trounce The Clarets!

UPDATE: Citeh beat the Villains! We are now only 3 points outside the Top Four! Onward!

So… we go to visit the Baggies tomorrow. I’m telling you right now, if we wind up in another 0-0 draw I’m going to jump out the nearest fucking window. With any luck, I’ll get news of said draw when I’m home, on the first floor, rather than at my 9th floor office in Manhattan.

I have a bit more confidence in Arsenal than my jest might suggest. But, it’s certainly gotten that ridiculous of late, hasn’t it? I’m only 80% confident that we’ll win this match, against a side that’s been laguishing in the basement for months. Even a poorly playing team can park the bus on their own pitch and expect a reasonable shot at getting a point off us lately. If we’re lucky, we’ll get an early goal, which will force them to open up. And, if they open up, we’ll probably eviscerate them. But, you just never know. I realize full well this is the team at the very bottom of the league. But, there really isn’t a whole lot seperating West Brom from some other teams we’ve either lost to or drawn with.

The only team news I’ve heard is that Gallas is out resting his ankle. Djourou will most likely be in for him, alongside Toure. I hope they have better luck keeping the back door shut than Gallas/Toure did last match. Because if we should lose this match, I will go to work, jump out the window and take out the hot dog vendor on the way down.

When I put my 6 year old son to bed last night, I still hadn’t seen the match. As I tucked the little bugger in, I said “I’m going to go watch the Arsenal match now, I’ll let you know how it turns out in the morning.” He asked, “Who are we playing?” I told him. He asked, “What place are they in?” I told him. Without hesitation he calmly said, “We’ll crush them.” And I really thought he was going to be right about it. How wrong we both were. I had to give him the disappointing news this morning that Arsenal had delivered yet another in a seemingly endless string of 0-0 draws.

At first the match seemed to be wide open, with good play on both sides of the ball. Definitely not the bus parking that a lot of people expected. Fulham were up for it, and so were the Arsenal. Our boys seemed to be working hard out there, and there were several very unlucky shots and good saves by the Fulham keeper. Honestly… I don’t have it in me to detail the match much more than that. I saw a lot of good play from just about everyone in the squad, I liked Wengers selection and its similarity to last weeks match, and was a bit disappointed how much Gallas and Toure were opened up at the back… but apart from that there’s not much to say.

Aston Villa drew with Stoke so they remain 6 points ahead of us. Still not an insurmountable gap with 11 games to play, but we’re definitely getting down to the wire here. Can we do it? I certainly hope so. But something needs to change. Now.