Justice Is Served

Take that Pepe Reina. That's what you get for being a dick, when you tried to humiliate my boy Cesc. Now who looks like the knob?

I was meant to write about this yesterday, less than 24 hours after the game, but I had to suddenly go to work and it messed up my plans. So here is my brief, and late, match review of Arsenal's opening game of this Premier League season, against Liverpool at Anfield. From what I can remember of Sunday's game, we didn't play very well overall. Arsenal dominated large periods of the game, where Liverpool couldn't even get out of their own half. This was encouraging, to dominate an opponent such as the mighty Liverpool. However we never looked likely to do much when we had the ball. Attacks seemed to fizzle out; Arsenal just didn't look very dangerous when we got into the final third. I don't remember us testing Reina until Rosicky had an effort saved late on in the game. Maybe it was just the first day jitters.

Now on to Joe Cole, and his red card; I think he thoroughly deserved it to be honest. The challenge was dangerous and idiotic, he was nowhere near the ball and I don't understand why Cole would make a tackle like that in such a meaningless area of the pitch. The way he lunged at Koscielny, he was practically begging to be dismissed. I don't care if its the first red he's received in his career, if you're going to be a moron and chuck yourself in like that, then you deserve whatever you get. It's just lucky Koscielny wasn't badly hurt, as I feared the worst immediately after it happened. So I was happy to see him return for the second half, as when a guy gets stretchered off he normally doesn't come back for a very long time. Unfortunately we never took advantage of having the extra man, and just a minute into the second half Liverpool took the lead. Ngog's goal was well taken, but I've heard a few say that if we had a top class keeper in goal, then Ngog doesn't score (Andy Gray is one example). I haven't watched the goal again, but my first reaction was that Almunia didn't stand much of a chance. The ball was hit right up into the top corner, and I'm not blaming Almunia at all as I don't think many keepers in the Premier League would have got to it. Manuel actually had a good game I thought, and made some very good saves throughout. However he still looked uncertain against Liverpool's set pieces, flapping at thin air on a number of occasions. So the jury is still out on Almunia for now, and I'd really prefer we bring in a top class number 1 shot-stopper quickly, but I have a feeling Wenger won't.

Eventually we managed to get a goal back in the very last minute, much to my relief. A simple cross came in and Chamakh managed to get to it first but could only direct the ball onto the post. Then Reina handed us the draw when he couldn't gather the ball and instead pushed it into his own net. The twat. Cheers Pepe. Roy Hodgson isn't blaming the result on his keeper, but I bloody would!

All in all, I'll settle for a point away from home, especially at Anfield. I still believe Arsenal are the better side and hopefully we can go on now and get into our flow and put together some wins. Blackpool are our next opponents, as they travel to the Emirates this Saturday. They will come into the game high off their success against Wigan, but realistically we should have no problem beating them, and I'll be a bit disappointed if we don't score multiple goals. If we lose... God, it's too terrifying to imagine.

Thanks for reading.