♪ What a diff’rence a day makes, 24 little hours ♪
Oh how I wish Dinah Washington remixed it to “What a diff’rence 4 days make, 96 little hours”, it would’ve been so so much more fitting.
Can we all just for a moment cast our minds back to the mauling we took at the hands of our eternal nemesis Mourinho and Chelsea in the Credit Cup no less..? The gnashing and wailing of teeth, the woe betide, the woe is me (from certain quarters). The ‘end of the affair’ with the feel good factor which had started to look uneasy against Dortmund.
“We still can’t beat a big team though!!”
Yes, our exit from October (as in the exit from the Credit Cup) seemed to carry a terrible foreboding.
Lying in wait the SAS and a rejuvenated Liverpool led by former Mourinho protege, MiB Brendan Rodgers. The jury was out. This, not the Spud smasher game, not the Napoli game was another big team 2nd in the table, who we might not beat.
More pressure was applied first upon hearing the unexpected Chelsea defeat to Newcastle, then at 4.50pm hearing the Manchester clubs smash a combined 10 goals past their hapless victims.
My hands were silently, pensively wringing. Beads of sweat betraying the otherwise haughty disposition of my forehead. My scouse loving brothers had looked into their crystal balls and predicted another Arsenal defeat. Just how was this to turn out?
Well it seemed as though the players sensing my quiet apprehension had decided to allay those fears. Wave after wave of pretty red patterns weaved an intricate tapestry every bit as beautiful as the Bayeux.
The goal when it came was the result of not only the excellent Arteta but our full backs. Gibbs was the one who’d began the attack by gaining possession in our half before Arteta found Sagna to assist the mercurial Santi to apply an unerring finish.
Cazorla – If at first…
Yet as all Gooners have come to expect 1-0 is never enough. Still we expected the highly exalted SAS to crank into gear. But as much as they tried to spring the trap the more they fell deeper and deeper into the pockets of Kossie & Perteception.
Gerrard the midfielder of a generation wasn’t affecting the play and was being soundly outshone by the effervescent Rambo. Brendan Rodgers’ highly acclaimed ability make fluid formations was being tested to the full. 3-5-2 or was it 5-3-2? Whichever permutation you applied it looked anything but fluid.
The second period began as the first had gone, Arsenal passing, weaving, knitting, creating but never quite able to put real daylight between us & them. Someone on twitter had said “I’m not going to survive another half hour if we don’t get a second”.
Fear not….
With his 4th assist of the season already Ozil picked out an open Ramsey 25 yards from goal. King Kolo obviously no longer follows The Arsenal as he gave Rambo the freedom of Islington to tee up a magnificent dipping drive over Mignolet’s despairing hands (only serving to make a fantastic prop) as the ball continued on its trajectory arcing just as the crossbar came into its orbit.
Ramsey celebrates the clincher and his 6th in the league
That was Ramsey’s sixth in the league and already represents a greater haul than any in his previous 5 seasons.
Szczesny who seems a different beast this term celebrated signing his new deal by keeping Liverpool’s sporadic forays at bay and even had time to reprise his role of court jester by nearly gifting them a way back into the match…
But this way our day. Our finest performance since the Napoli match. My hands had long since turned into pumping fists, my forehead glowed with satisfied smugness.
The host of Sky Saturday Night Football had said November was traditionally the month Arsenal lost the most points. “Nervous in November” he’d taunted.
As the game ebbed into its final throes I wondered whether that bitter twisted Scot would make of the dismantling of his beloved Liverpool? Just last week he chose to back up an argument by recalling our defensive failings in 2010.
What evidence might he use to qualify this week’s dismissal of Arsenal’s credentials?
Unfortunately MOTD decided to spare him derision.
Oh well. Roll on #Morevember.
Many thanks to ‘The Gooner Ramble’ for standing in for the absent Matt Littlechild and reproduced with king permission from his own blog.
Follow him @gzagee
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