aborted notes from arsenal & spurs

aborted?

because i left the pub after 80 minutes, the first time i've ever done so, as i was so depressed. great stuff (and i mean that both sarcastically and honestly, if that's possible).

my thoughts (up to that point):

- gael clichy and bacary sagna were really inconspicuously excellent; clichy, in particular, was absolutely great. they are without question the best full-back partnership in the premier league, some way beyond the pairing of cole & bosingwa.

- luka modric flickered, but demonstrated real quality at times. with slightly more license to roam, and the security of huddlestone and jenas behind him, he linked the play very well when spurs (rather sporadically) ventured forward in any numbers.

- gomes was just not good enough: by my reckoning he was at fault for 2 of the 4 goals. the first one was obviously his fault as he lurched into a punch he was never going to make, and the second he should have been able to save, getting in position but basically not getting his bottom hand low enough to keep the ball out. he dropped at least one other cross if my memory serves me correctly, and just didn't convince.

- woodgate and corluka were actually really good - adebayor in particular was kept remarkably quiet and only really threatened when mistakes allowed play to break down. in the end, spurs conceded 4 goals and some fatuous criticism will probably be levelled at the defence, when in actuality it was more a combination of gomes and a little incompetence from hutton that really made the difference.

- the latter sort of leads into my next point: arsenal were actually struggling to create real chances and relied broadly on spurs' errors; i can't remember a time apart from the third goal when spurs were dissected by arsenal's passing. also, it should be underlined - what a great pass for arsenal's third.

- bale really was anonymous; assou-ekotto looked a little better in terms of positioning but his distribution and touch were frequently poor. i still think bale needs to be groomed chiefly as an attacking full-back.

anyway, i just watched match of the day and the moronic pair of hansen and shearer suggested it was back and forth and both sides deserved something - nonsense. arsenal were the better side for the majority of the game, dominating possession and territory. certainly, they created little, but its not like spurs could say anything different, and they all too often combined basic errors in defence with an unnecessarily reluctant attitude towards attacking. that spurs eventually scraped the draw is fantastic for me as a spurs fan, but let us not delude ourselves that this was some sort of magic footballing spectacle - it was essentially a freak end to a match that generally would have ended as a clear arsenal victory.