We eventually lost!!
It started from a hitting a 7 goal festive past a startled Slavia team, before we went there and found impenetrateable hard working group who were threatening to break our good records of scoring in every game and not conceded a goal in this season's champions league. At last they managed breaking one of those, which was holding our toothless strike force that could not find a way past a five-man defense in Czech. So, one record gone, another yet to be broken. It was a matter of time before we know how long it will last.
For the second time, this Carling cup team has not delivered the results in Europe, and this time round, they failed badly to an extent of breaking our own two other records. The Arsenal is blooding great talents in the names of Armanda Traore, Justine Hoyte and Nicklas Bendtner (This guy has debouched to be an understudy to Adebayour, and he is doing his job nicely that you cannot stop admiring him), all who are super talented and ready to work for our team, but I supposed at champions level it was such a baptism by fire for the boys. The Sevilla team is a team which had a mind of revenge, a mind of making sure that the world knows they are not UEFA cup holders for fun or coincidence and luck, but through hard working and team spirit. They were determined to show that they can be a force in champions' league stage. When you send them a Carling cup team, they not only feel very happy and determined to do as they wanted but also they have the confidence to run at you at any time. It's very hard for a 17-year-old Armanda to be tasked to one big guy like Luis Fabiano. Its more hard for that 17 year old to have a striker- I mean a pure striker in the name of Eduardo - to be his winger. Eduardo has no defensive instincts and can not be expected to protect a full back. Rosicky could have worked there better with Eduardo partnering Bendtner up front.
Am not trying to say Arsène made a mistake, it's my desire that we could have finished on top of that group to avoid pooling teams like Inter Milan, Barcelona, Manure, AC Milan, and such like. We could still had an advantage of playing the last game at home- which last year never gave us any advantage though as that was where we went out of the competition. It will be very hard to take the first slot in the group now that we are stuck at 10 points and Sevilla at 12 which they can make 15 or 13 or very hard, 12. We may make 13 points at most which means we will be group leaders if they fail to beat there next opponent by 6 goals to nil. The prospects of having two strong teams that will comfortably play in Europe was dashed and now back to what we know. Like Chelsea who play Carling cup teams from championship with there strong first team, we need to do that in Europe every other time to avoid demoralization and break up of winning streaks up to at least May?
It would be my delectation to see this team assembled cheaply to work there to great heights leaving our haters perplexed and hating us more. But still its time to realize any team cannot go all seasons minus a loss. At least they need to lose some games to make up competitions- otherwise it will not be competition. I know whether we had all the top players we had, it still could be hard, as it was seen at the
Emirates Stadium last time we met. They can score, defend and work you out any time. They are a good side if at all they can get rid of 'Ebouesim', they are nice. Talking of the Ebouesim, why are those guys from Sevilla diving and faking injuries at that rated uncontrolled?
I'll research on that, and tell you, have a nice time as I continue kicking the dog here.
Betty C.