Arsenal with an impressive display

First off, this blog deals with the ups and downs of my two favourite teams: the Toronto Raptors and Arsenal Gunners (of England). You may be wondering why I am supporting two teams in completely different countries, but I assure you I am not a bandwagoner. I live in Toronto and have followed the Raptors since I was 7 or something. Arsenal came as a result of my increasing passion for soccer. I have played house league soccer since I was very young and started to appreciate watching this truly delightful sport. I wanted to support a EPL team and luckily I was born in Northish / East London and it has been a treat to watch these gunners. I have been supporting the team since the year after the invincibles (yeah, lucky me) witnessing no league titles and watching the final in paris for the champions league was painful.

I promise to be as objective as possible when bringing out my thoughts and kinda understand how this thing works after reading dozens of arsenal blogs for the last 2 years or so.

Now onto more important stuff, Arsenal had a very nice bounce-back game against FC Porto today after that miserable display against Hull. (Hull played very well tactically and scored a truly wonderful goal from Geovanni to be fair) This was one of the most scantilizing displays of football I have seen from Wenger's men. The first twenty or so minutes were scary with good attacks from Porto but Van Persie opened up the scoring from a good ball from Adebayor. After this the team settled down quite nicely and Adebayor followed up with a goal from a corner ( I know its unbelievable but it happened) powering a header into the ground which bounced over the goalie and a Porto defender.

The second half began and this was one of the best attacking halfs I have EVER seen. Porto were under almost constant pressure the whole half. Van Persie scored his second goal with some strength and Adebayor finished up with a penalty goal from a foul on Bendtner.

It was a good display but we could have realistically scored 3 more goals easily. Walcott and Nasri both missed sitters from 6 yards out and there were countless other chances by the attacking players. It was a breathtaking display.

Now onto the thoughts of the players. Aluminia had a quiet game and didnt really get challenged much. I had my doubts when he was instilled as the goalie from Mad Jens, but he has proved to be a good solid player who rarely get beaten. Gail Clichy is one of my favourite players on the team with strong defensive positioning and the ability to get forward with ease. Sagna played well today, helping the attack. Gallas and Toure are both great players and played well today but I cannot see them working well together. This is an issue that Wenger will need to resolve as we constantly get beat by the high ball. Theo had a good game today with very direct running and generally good decisions. There was an incident where it looked like he was going to be muscled off the ball but remained composed and further shows his development as a player. However, he must figure out his decision earlier than he does, he possess all of the physical attributes but now must hone the mental aspect of the game. Fab had an okay game, alot of his passes were going astray at the end but we were 4-0 up.

Personally, I like the balance of the team with Nasri and Walcott on the wings, both offer good skill and speed which really gives us an element which we didnt have last year. Coupled with the attacking instincts of Clichy and Sagna, the attacks down the flanks are a major strength this year. Denilson is coming into his own as a make-shift defensive mid but still gives away too many cheap fouls.

The forwards were good in the sense that they both scored two goals, but there are times where I think that Vela and Bendtner are better options. I am going to wait and see but Vela has amazing skill and Bendtner has good link-up play but some of his touches are poor sometimes. Ade works hard but I def dont see him as a Wenger type of player, he is a good all-around player but in my opinion, I think Wenger prefers forwards with excellent skills and ball control and Ade's is just average. RVP is more of a Wenger player but he seems very detached with the team at times and that could be troublesome with a quick passing teamwork team that we have.

One final note to Eboue, who is possibly the funniest player i've seen. Capable of good skills one moment, doing 8 crossovers the next and losing possession, he is a frustrating player. It's all good when we are 4-0 up though.

So overall good result, good win.

Dino Gunners is a blog which specializes in Arsenal and Toronto Raptors analysis.' Arsenal, ARSENAL, Raptors, RAPTORS, gunners, raps, gooners, arsenal.com, blog, arsenal blog, raptors blog, arsenal analysis, raptors analysis, toronto, highbury, dinos'