Of the top teams in action on Saturday, Arsenal faced arguably the sternest challenge. Away at Blackburn, with Sam Allardyce’s teams becoming something of a stumbling block for Arsene Wenger in recent years, this could have well be a taster of the season to come for North London’s much maligned football purists.
Wenger faced something of a three-pronged assault in the build up to the match with Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose Mourinho, and Big Sam all putting in their pennies worth as to Arsenal’s failings and their manager’s foibles.
So it will have been a great relief for the Frenchman that his Arsenal side saw off a Blackburn team 2–1 that displayed not only the customary strength, pace and physicality, especially at set pieces, but also a fluid and precise counter attack that was so effective for their equalizing goal.
All in all, Arsenal looked good for their money, despite a few grisly moments in defense, particularly in the last 10 minutes when attempting to pass their way out of Blackburn’s last ditch efforts to achieve a second goal.
Theo Walcott again was excellent, scoring a superb opener to add to his three against Blackpool last weekend. Cesc Fabregas showed glimpses of his immense talent and vision, and Robin Van Persie looked incisive before being withdrawn in the first half after tweaking his ankle.
Blackburn were worthy opposition, and made for a riveting game. Their equalizing goal was excellent with Chris Samba striding out of defense with purpose and conviction, releasing El-Hadji Diouf, who showed great strength and pace to outstrip Laurent Koscielny to then square the ball perfectly through the tightest of angles for Mame Diouf to finish with aplomb.
But it was Arsenal who came up with the goods, Andrey Arshavin striking the goal which sealed the victory and brought three precious away points at a tough North-Western side.
Spurs Slip
The same sort of accolades could not be granted to Tottenham Hotspur, who slipped up at home to Wigan Athletic. Wigan had conceded 10 goals in their opening two games, including shipping four at home to Blackpool on the opening day.
Spurs were fresh from their mid-week victory which saw them qualify for the group stages of the Champions League.
However, it was Roberto Martinez’s side that looked the sharper throughout the match, and were deserving of their 1–0 victory. Wigan had three chances inside two minutes at one point in the second half.
Hugo Rodallega put in two superb crosses from the right hand flank. On the first one, Antolin Alcaraz missed an open net, and on the second, Jordi Gomez could have scored.
On the third chance Rodallega scored himself, a decent enough shot, which Carlo Cudicini should have saved.
This is the first time Wigan has won at White Hart Lane, and is an early indicator of the difficulties of sustaining competitive domestic and European campaigns.
Spurs boss Harry Redknapp said after the match, “We started the game sloppily and never got out of it. Credit to Wigan, they worked hard and pressed us and closed us down. We ran out of ideas about how to break them down. It was a rare bad day for us.”
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