Win Marred By Wilshere's Loss

Wilshere Will Be Badly Missed

It was a resolute performance for the 1-0 win from Arsenal yesterday. We were able to cling on to the one goal lead ,especially when we were under immense pressure in the second half after we lost Jenkinson to a red card. The win was more important as it meant we are still in the race for a top four finish after Spurs had earlier won their match against Newcastle.

We witnessed some excellent football in the first half from Arsenal. Wilshere and Cazorla were involved in most of the attacking threats that we had against Sunderland. The only downside in the first half was that we could not score more goals when maybe we should have because the slim lead placed us under immense pressure in the second half. The second half did not start well. We lost Wilshere, our main man, on 50 minutes to injury. And then Jenkinson got sent off for a second yellow following a rash challenge. We had to play the last half an hour with ten men and just about hung on for the win. We missed very good chances to go up 2 or 3 goals up and had to thank Szczesny and Sagna for helping us keep a clean sheet.

The good thing to come out of the match is that we were resilient as a team and were hard to break down even after being reduced to ten men. But the biggest loss is undoubtedly Wilshere. He will be a big, big loss. He has been such an influential player for Arsenal. I wonder how we will cope with his loss. His loss could be season defining for Arsenal, such is the importance of this player. Lets just hope we perform well without him and pray for his quick recovery.

After the match, our players were looked extremely tired and fatigued.Our next opponents are Blackburn at home in an FA cup tie on Saturday, which means our players will get some well deserved rest. Thank god we don't have Champions League match this week!

Arsenal Top of The League And Sunderland Vs Arsenal Preview

To Start off with, it has just been revealed that Arsenal would be joint top of the league if we were to remove the first half of matches! Here is the link to how the table would look.

The race for the top four is hotting up. Arsenal are five points behind third placed Chelsea and four behind fourth placed Spurs. Everton are just a single point ahead of us at fifth.  The first team to blink will be left behind.

Arsenal, needless to say are placed much worse than the other three above us.Such is the situation that Arsenal  put themselves in that anything less than three points will pile more pressure on us as we will slip further behind in the table which could open the doors for Liverpool to take over us!.

The team news ahead of the game is not encouraging too. Vermaelen and Koscielny are out and it could mean Sebastian "What is defending?" Squilachi will start in defense alongside Per Mertesacker.We have  been leaking goals even with Vermaelen or Koscielny in defense. With Squilachi, we are most certain to do it!

We have seldom performed well immediately after an International break. Fatigue will be an issue as most of our players played over 60 minutes during the break. Lets hope a certain "Wilshere" will bail our team again.

CHIT-CHAT

Today is a very important day for Arsenal FC. An important player of our squad,Jack Wilshere is playing tonight for the Arsenal reserves after a 14 month injury layoff that saw him miss the entire season last year.

It will be some time before he makes the first team.But non the less, it is an important step towards making it to the first squad.His return is good news for Arsenal who could benefit from the return of the outstanding player.His return is now more important as Diaby is out injured and we need that "assured" type of player in our midfield like Wilshere who can dictate the pace of the came while also creating countless scoring opportunities.

Midfield however is not at the top list of my concerns because it is a position where we have surplus replacements, also rightly claimed by Le Boss.My main concern is the striker's position. I do not(sadly) see any player in that position at Arsenal who is capable of scoring 20+ goals this season.Even more worrying is the fact that there are 20+ goal scoring talents at clubs that have traditionally been labelled as clubs below Arsenal. Everton have Anichebe and Jelavich (maybe Fellaini too),Sunderland(Fletcher),Aston Villa(Darren Bent),Tottenham(Jermain Defoe,Adebayor and maybe GarethBale), Southampton(RickieLambert), Reading (Shane Long).A club like Arsenal must have a world class striker,I don't see one at the moment. Gervinho could surprise me and score 20+ but he seems to be scared too many times to score especially when it matters(misses against Man City and Chelsea this season).Giroud too seems totally lost at Arsenal.He is already a flop to me.He missed  two chances that could have given us 4 points.Although, I will add that this is his first season and he will take time to settle.Maybe next season he will do better.But I would suggest Arsenal fans not to expect many goals from him this season. Podolski is a great finisher no doubt, but the manager is playing him at the left where he will not get many opportunities to score.And who is our other option?Chamakh? I think the manager knows how "good" Chamakh is.So he would prefer to use a false striker maybe like Barcelona and more recently by Spain.This could be a good option but what we must realize is that WE ARE NO BARCELONA or SPAIN.Our other option,Wallcott is pacey but too "lean" to be a striker in the Premier League.

The way I see it, I think Arsene should mix the "false striker" and the traditional number 9 kind of play with Gervinho upfront and maybe Giroud once in a while.It will be more likely for us to get goals then....ofcourse, from one of our midfielder!