Great 3-0 win against Fulham on Saturday. Back to basics, playing our usual stylish sexy football, and scoring two somewhat unusual goals for us.

Adebayor scored two towering headers in which he jumped around 30 feet in the air and placed the ball perfectly both times. The first was a cross from Clichy on the left, the second was Hleb from the right. If you read my post about last game, my main concern and criticism was that we did not utilize the width of the field and kept it very narrow, which made it pretty easy for Birmingham to defend. I’m glad Wenger read my post and told the boys to push forward and use the flanks! We have Adebayor and Eduardo, who are both excellent headers of the ball, why waste that perfect opportunity. Also, Wenger pushed Adebayor in the middle apparently, and after the game said something which was great to hear and I hope all the Adebayor haters read it -

“He is also the main striker now and he gives us an added dimension with his headers.”

Its official, Adebayor is the main striker. I really doubt a fit Van Persie would take over that mantle, and with Eduardo playing well, it would be hard to see where Van Persie would fit in the starting 11. Wenger could use him like Van Basten does on the right wing, but I don’t see that happening. He would probably fit in better in our 4-5-1 formation just behind Adebayor, where Hleb plays.

Rosicky scored the 3rd after some nice play by Eduardo and the game was quite comfortable. Our away support was incredible, the best I’ve ever heard (on tv). The one song that kept going on forever after his two goals was Adebayor’s, here it is -

Well done everyone! Ade, the team, the fans … thumbs up to everyone!

Just a couple of notes on the game. First, although we did play well, Fulham were absolute shit. Almunia had 0 shots on goal all game. Second, and more important in my opinion, we won comfortably and played well even without Fabregas having a great game. He was ok at most, and we still dominated, this is always a good sign!

Ok enough about the game. Now to the ‘other things’ section of the post.

Loanees and Ex-Gooners watch -

This has been a good week for gooners and ex-gooners apparently. Pires was excellent in Villareal’s 3-0 over Valencia, and scored a beautiful goal. Henry scored a header for Barca! Merida debuted as a loanee at Real Sociedad and apparently did very well according to some reports out there as they won 3-1. Carlos Vela our Mexican wonderkid also had a good day, scoring for Osasuna their second goal -

Thats it for now, today will be the first piece of action for our boys in the African Cup of Nations as Ivory Coast meet Nigeria in what is considered the game of the first round with so many quality names - Toure, Eboue, Y Toure, Drogba, Kalou, Yakubu, Martins, Obi Mikel …. and so on.

The most talked about position at Arsenal this year has been the goal keeper. Fighting over the position, talking to the press about the other players, and now transfer rumours in and out are being associated with the goalkeeper position.
Let’s take a look at what has happened this season -

We have had our German Mad Jens in goal for the past 4 seasons. This year started just like the seasons before, but only 3 games and 2 big mistakes into the season, Lehmann was dropped because of ‘injury’ and replaced by Almunia after the Blackburn game.

For the next game against Man City, this is what Wenger said -

“Jens is out and he will miss two weeks, maybe more. He is going to see a specialist in Germany. He had this injury before but it has got much worse. Apart from the mistakes, he had good games. The first mistake he changed his mind and he was caught and the second one maybe it was the flight of the ball. This is the first time I have seen him make this kind of mistake. With his feet, things can happen but with his hands he is usually 100 per cent secure. I am convinced that he is still top drawer.”

So Almunia was in for now, and started well with 2 clean sheets in a row. He actually had 6 clean sheets in his first 8 games in goal.

Come October, Lehmann is fit enough to play for Germany. After the game, he says :

“I am fully fit now and expect to be back against Bolton. I expect him [Wenger] to play me. So no worries.”

So he automatically expects to start again, which is understandable being the #1 keeper for 4 years. What I don’t understand is why players say such things to the media. Saying such things to the press is an indirect way of putting pressure on the coach and setting up for a confrontation. Wenger’s reply? Not even giving Lehmann a seat on the bench for the Bolton game!

“Jens has to be a little bit patient. Patience? Yes, that is not his first quality, but he has to fight and be patient and be ready. In our job you always have to fight hard and cope with any situation. At the moment Jens has to deal with that. And I’m sure that he is strong enough to do that. I just decided to leave him out for this game. I decided to go with Almunia, but the next game after that we will see.”

Only a few days later, the turning point in my opinion of the whoe ordeal happened. In an interview with German television said the following -

“It could be that at some point I feel like commenting on the whole issue, but right at the moment I just accept everything as part of the humiliation. You have to let it happen,”

“But I think - and this is directed towards my dear coach - that you should not humiliate players for too long. I am an Arsenal player and I will not just fade away quietly.”

“I am convinced I will soon be playing again. Almunia hasn’t shown that he can win us matches just yet. I have been through this situation once and know how the other keeper is situated mentally. I can’t imagine he will handle this.

“Wenger has spoken of three world-class goalies. I guess I must be one of them. The others have proven their class by winning titles? I’m just thinking about it, and I can’t recall any. But yet today they are considered world class.”

The last two paragraphs ended his Arsenal career in my opinion. Saying that you expect to play is one thing, saying that you expect to play because your teammates are shit is a different story. The young team Wenger is building is based on a very good team spirit, and stupid comments like that from senior players are obviously against everything the team is about this year.

The way Almunia responded goes perfectly with what Wenger expects -

“I will stay positive. The goalkeeping position is a difficult position. I’ve been here almost three years without playing in the league. It’s normal for people to assess the situation

“I forget the past now I’m playing. It’s not a problem. I don’t care about pressure. I only want to play well. If I read the papers and listen to what other people say about me, then I’d will turn crazy. I don’t want that.

“When I’m playing well I honestly don’t mind other things that are happening. Maybe if I was playing badly I would be more worried. But now for me life is fantastic and I want to take my chance.”

Very well said Manuel. Now that Lehmann is considering leaving, things are turning out to be not in his favour. His reputation is probably the main reason now why Dortmund fans don’t even want him back in their team! Funny how everything you do and say comes to bite you in the ass at the most critical time of your career. He’s 38, he needs to play to retain his place in the German team according to his coach. Since being dropped, he only played 2 games, an easy home game against Bucharest in the CL and the FA cup game against championship Burnley.

There are many factors that combine to make his Arsenal career over. He is 38, his body and reflexed may not be as good as younger player, and the mistakes he did could prove that. Almunia has been doing a decent job as the #1 keeper. And most importantly in my opinion is his talk.

Now to the important factor - numbers. Lets compare their numbers -

These stats are up to 1/1/2008

All these numbers are for games in the premiership only, and I did not include seasons where one of them played 2 or 3 games.

Looking at these numbers, apart from his first season, Lehmann’s numbers are almost equal if not less impressive than Almunia’s.

The % of clean sheets shows Almunia having a better overall percentage, and this year’s goals against is much better than Lehmann’s past 3 seasons.

Obviously the team’s defending has alot to do with this stat. I honestly believe that when players like Gallas and Toure are not 100% sure about the goalkeeping, they will step up and make a better effort of making him work less, which is a good thing.

We lost our lead in the premiership after today’s game. Our game against Birmingham at The Emirates ended 1-1, and was “very frustrating” as Wenger said. ManU won their game against the managerless Newcastle 6-0, which gives them a 7 goal advantage on us for the lead.

We played a very good first half, but didn’t capitalize on our dominance. We should have been 2 or 3 up and to be honest it looked to be a very comfortable game until their goal. Our passing was good, we had shots on goal, everyone was doing it right (except for Walcott). We scored our goal from a lucky penalty call. Adebayor got his 13th goal of the campaign.

Only 3 mins into the second half, we were caught from a corner, which is unlike us this season, it is very last season of us. This whole game was actually very similar to a couple of games from last season where we dominate and don’t win. We had 16 corners, they had 3, we had 16 shots, they had 2. Their goal came from a corner which was deflected by Fabregas.

The rest of the game was just annoying. I do want to discuss few points though -

• Waclott was out of sync and on a different wavelength the whole time. Most of our fluid game was disrupted when the ball went to him. This was the perfect game for him to start though, at home against a team 2 points away from the relegation battle. Unfortunately, this is another below average performance from our young Theo.
• Senderos did very well again following his good game in the cup. Our future captain was solid and hopefully can make the most from his opportunity as a starter.
• Fabregas had an average game, but what really bothered me about his game today was his delivery from corner kicks. We had 16 corners, all of which were useless. Taylor went and grabbed most of them easily. That was a very frustrating part of our game today.

I believe we missed Eboue today. I think he is a quality player who gets way more criticism than he deserves. He would’ve helped today at least in one aspect, our width.

Birmingham were able to defend well because we gave them the space to defend. Whenever Walcott got the ball on the right, he would cut inside. We were very narrow in our attack, which makes the defenders’ job much easier. Hleb used the width of the field once or twice and Clichy was there with him. Our best chance of the game came from Hleb’s cross from the left which Eduardo headed straight to Taylor. On the right however, there was a whole section of the field that was not used.

This is where Eboue would’ve helped. He stretches the defence with these runs, which gives our strikers more chances with less people surrounding them. When Walcott was taken off, Bendtner went up front, Hleb switch to the right, and Eduardo went left. In his short time on the right, Hleb created a nice opportunity. Eduardo kept cutting in like Walcott did but had Clichy running on the left which gave him some space.

When fans talk about getting a winger, I think someone who adds width is what comes to mind, and in our squad currently, Hleb is the only true winger we got. Rosicky plays behind the strikers for the Czech national team and I think that is his preferred position. Funny enough, when we see the young players who left in recent years, most of them are decent wingers (but crap mentality) - Bentley, Pennant, Reyes … The one player who I believe could’ve helped us perfectly would have been Ribery, who is doing wonders for Bayern. He’s not available now obviously, and Wenger doesn’t think we need to buy anyone now. Wenger knows, and I’m not being sarcastic.

Speaking of buying players, Wenger was asked if he will look for defensive cover during the transfer window, his response was - “If there is no additional injury, we don’t go on the transfer market.” That settles that then.

Very weird game.

As usual, Wenger fielded Arsenal’s second team for the first leg of the Carling Cup semi (also known as the Kiddy Kup). Van Persie was one surprise inclusion, but in my opinion that only means that Eduardo now is our first choice starter ahead of him, and rightly so.

The game was quite shit to be honest. We played even worse than we did against Burnley earlier this week. Any decent team could and should have ended the first half at least 3-0 up, so good thing we were only playing Spurs. The first half could be summarized as Berbatov vs. Arsenal defenders. Berbatov won that battle easily, all his through passes were perfect, and our defenders looked like Benny Hill video at times.

Berbatov is quality. He also is smart enough to know that he is better than Spurs, which makes me worry about seeing him in a ManU or Chelsea shirt next season.

Jenas scored from an easy counter attack. Not much else to say about the first half. Second half started with Eduardo and Sagna replacing the ineffective Van Persie and the woeful Djourou. Up till the last 15 minutes, we were lucky to be only 1-0 and it seemed like there was no chance for us to score. Then out of nowhere, Eduardo slides the ball between two defenders and Theo, who tried to kicked the ball but the defender got it first and kicked it up to hit Theo’s hand to roll into the goal. A real magic ‘touch’.

After that it looked like the team believed they could get more out of the game and went for it, while the hair stylely challenged Defoe showed why they don’t mind seeing him go with an easy miss.

To summarize the game, the midfield was shit, defence was a bit less shit until Sagna came to the rescue, and our front two carried the team just like they did the past two games.

The one major positive about the game is how Hoyte surprised me with his excellent performance at CB. Last year, I always had him and Flamini as two players who are below Arsenal’s level technically and didn’t expect either to last with for long. Flamini blew us away with his performances this season and proved me wrong, and today Hoyte was exceptional after Sagna came on to cover the RB position and Hoyte went central to replace Djourou.

The most important thing about our result is that Spurs are still almost 9 years without a win against us, and 15 years away from their last win at our home. The streak continues.

Player Ratings -

Fabianski - 5 - A few shaky moments in not going for the ball when defenders expected him to do so, and that one corner he flapped.
Traore - 6 - Did well in controlling the overrated Lennon, and unlike last game, actually held his position well.
Senderos - 7 - Solid defending, did very well.
Djourou - 4 - Nightmarish game for young Johan. He is much better than he showed.
Hoyte - 8 - Average first half at RB, a revelation in the second as CB.
Diaby - 4 - Another bad game. Read rating from last game.
Denilson - 6 - Not bad, not great. Some decent passing, some misplaced passes. Average.
Gilberto - 5  -Started off the game looking like a blind man, improved as the game went by.
Walcott - 6 - Average game, he needs to improve his final touch and decision making. Did well in finding space to score.
Van Persie - 6 - Did well in the first half, nothing spectacular though.
Bendtner - 9 - OK first half, much better second half when Eduardo came on. Those two look great together!
Subs -
Sagna - 8  - How anyone could fit it in so quickly with a team is beyond me! Great buy!
Eduardo - 9 - Great assist again. Great overall play. Great buy again by Wenger.

Man of the match - Bendtner again.

Goals from Eduardo and Bendtner saw us brush aside Burnley in a comfortable(ish) 2-0 win at Turf Moor to qualify to the next round of the FA Cup.

The game started well with both sides creating chances. Burnley made their intentions clear in the first 5 mins when the ball was headed off the bar. They were there to play football instead of have 11 players defending or trying to rough things up. In our first real attack, Toure flicked the ball forward, and Eduardo ran through and finished again very coolly. It went back and forth after that, with Burnley playing some good football.

Burnley ended up with more corners than we did, and they had 6 shots on target to our 8. These stats show that it wasn’t as easy as many expected it to be. This doesn’t mean it was a tough game by any means, it just wasn’t that easy.

In the second half, Burnley had a player sent off for a late tackle on Gilberto. To be fair I think the red was harsh. Yes, it was late, but it wasn’t malicious and was one footed, definitely a yellow card. Anyway, a few mins after that, Bendtner finished off a great passing move with Eduardo giving him the final pass in the perfect spot.

The Eduardo / Bendtner partnership looks very promising. They both run their socks off, always involved, and seem to have a nice understanding creating some nice chances with fancy one two passing. Senderos had a good game back, while the same can’t be said about Traore, Diaby, Eboue, or Gilberto. They all had a below average game, Diaby especially, who was great when the ball was in his feet, but absolute crap whenever he tried to get it to someone else’s feet. You know what else was absolute crap? That pitch. Ridiculous! Almost as bad as Chelsea’s from last year.

The one revelation from the game has to be that Eduardo is in fact human! He missed an easy chance! I think this was his first miss of the season. It was a bit reassuring to see that he is a mere mortal.

Player Ratings -

Lehmann - 6 - Not much to do to be honest
Sagna - 7 - Solid as usual
Toure - 7 - Nice assist for the first goal and did well overall
Senderos - 7 - OK first half, very good second half. Good game to come back, not too much pressure, good for confidence.
Traore - 4 - Very poor game. Was out of position most of the time he was on the pitch. The main reason Senderos had an ‘OK’ first half was that he was going back and forth covering the left side that Traore left exposed. Again, if you had a choice about which game you’re going to have a 1 off shit game, this would be the perfect one.
Eboue - 5 - I’m a big fan of Eboue. I think he gets more criticism from fans than he deserves. That said, he had a poor game. Did well until he got near the box, then just kept the ball waiting for 2 defenders to surround him.
Denilson - 6 - Had a quiet game. Tried to make something from his time on the pitch with 3 shots that were off target, but never too threatening.
Gilberto - 5 - His first half was ridiculously poor. Looked like he was just kicking the ball randomly at times, improved in the second.
Diaby - 4 - It would’ve been a 3 if his pass for Eduardo in the second half didn’t go through. Nothing went right for him today. He always strikes me as a player who tries to impress rather than win the game. He is much better than he showed today.
Eduardo - 9 - A very cool finish and a great assist for Bendtner’s goal. He also had 2 or 3 other chances and was always threatening.
Bendtner - 9 - The boy was immense today. Took his goal very well, and was involved constantly in creating chances and defending when needed. I think he had the ball more than any other player on the pitch. I just hope he still has enough in the tank for the Carling Cup game after this performance.

Man of the match - Bendtner.

A very interesting 3rd round FA Cup Saturday indeed. A good number of upsets today saw a few top flight teams crash out of the cup by lower division teams -

• Blackburn were humiliated in front of their home crowd with a 1 - 4 loss to Coventry, who are currently in 17th place in the Championship.
• Bolton also lost at home 0 - 1 against Sheffield United, who are 16th in the Championship.
• Everton took it one step further and lost 0 - 1 at home against Oldham, who are 13th in League One!
• Birmingham matched Everton in losing to a League One team but at least they lost away to 14th placed Huddersfield.

In other significant games, Wigan beat Sunderland 3-0, Boro came back to beat Bristol City 2-1, Chelsea scraped through with an own goal 1-0 win again QPR, while West Ham and Man City ended 0-0. Man United beat Aston Villa 2-0.

Spurs continue to let in goals at home with Robinson proving his England #1 status with a 2-2 draw against Reading. Two mistakes from Robinson allowing two goals from Stephen Hunt, while Berbatov continues his recent goal streak, which coincidentally came just before the transfer window opened up. His agent must’ve reminded him about the transfers and he must be desperate to leave as usual. He’s practically begging to be signed up by any team that “matches his ambition”, so I reckon that means any decent in any league as long as he leaves Spurs. Smart lad.

The draw means 1 more game for Spurs. The replay is scheduled for the 15th. But they also have a league game against Chelsea on the 14th. Our Carling Cup games against them are on the 9th and the 22nd. I hope they can reschedule so that both games be played between ours.

And now to our game against Burnley tomorrow.

Burnley are currently 12th in the Championship. They are winless in their last 6 games, with 4 of them being defeats. Their last win at home was in October, and they actually only won twice at home this season in 13 games.

Our team selection is limited for the game, either because of injuries or resting players. Seems that Adebayor, Hleb, and Van Persie are out injured, while Theo will face a fitness test to check his shoulder. Flamini is suspended. Fabregas, Gallas , Almunia, and Clichy will be rested.

Lehmann will start, along with Toure and Eboue who are set to leave after this game to the African Cup of Nations. I would assume Song could also feature after his solid performance in the Carling Cup against Blackburn and since he won’t be available for the coming Carling Cup ties. Bendtner’s ban ends which means he will probably start too.

Diarra, Diaby, and Denilson will all hope to be playing. My guess is that Denilson is assured as a starter. He has been a real professional compared to the other two and hasn’t complained one bit about not playing or whatever. He should be rewarded with a starting role. I would give Diaby the second available position since Diarra has been acting like an 8 year old demanding to start in the team less than 6 months since he signed.

Toure’s partner will be either Senderos or Djourou, who just came back from his loan spell at Birmingham. Both are capable of fulfilling this role with no problem.

—————

My guess for our formation is -

Just for fun, Beckham training at Arsenal -

Also, the transfer window is officially open, which can only mean one thing …. Fabregas to Madrid/Barcelona rumours. Yet again these rumours resurfaced, and his response is the best proof of why he is an Arsenal legend -

“Everybody already knows it makes me happy that a team like Real Madrid wants me. It is a great compliment,” said Fabregas.

“But now I am at Arsenal and I want to win the Premier League. Right now, I would die for Arsenal.”

I wrote a post earlier regarding our strikers and how they measure up against each other in different categories. The one main statistic that matters the most has to be the Goals per 90 minutes.

Goals per 90 minutes is a more accurate measure than overall goals or goals per game. It is a better measurement of how much impact a player has for every 90 minutes he is on the field. Our main man in this category is Eduardo. He had a 0.78 goals per 90 minute average up until the Everton game. Following the West Ham game, his ratio increased because he scored a goal in the 63 minutes he lasted. I decided to see how his new average ranks in comparison to the other top scorers in the league. This measure is for all games played by the team, which includes any domestic or European cups.

Here are the results -

Ronaldo is having his best season to date. He has been banging in goals at every opportunity. He is also having more shots per game than any other player from this list.

Torres has been proving his worth more with every game. He may have scored less goals than Adebayor in the league, but you have to put in mind Benitez’s rotation policy which limited his minutes. Although Liverpool have played more games than Manchester, he has 200 minutes less than Ronaldo and 100 less than Adebayor. Add to that the fact that he is in his first season in England, where players usually need a season to adjust.

Our recent goal scoring machine comes in 3rd with his 10 goals in all competitions.

The rest of the stats tell us that Berbatov isn’t as great as many people make him to be. Keane scored 2 goals against Anorthis Famagusta and 1 against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the eufa cup. Getting the opportunity to play against pub teams like those can boost anyone’s average.

Tim Cahill is much better than most people make him to be. He did not play in August or September but has still managed to score 9 goals, and the goals per 90 mins shows how good he is, especially as a midfielder.

Anelka seems like he’s very overrated, but you have to remember that his team is really shit, so being able to get those goals without much support should be something to consider.

Rooney comes second after Ronaldo in shots per 90 minutes, but his goals per 90 mins average is almost half that of Ronaldo’s.

As I said in the earlier post, just like most stats, there are many variables that affect this average, so it is only an indication of how good these players are. Although looking at the top three, you realize the quality!

A very efficient performance saw us brush aside an average West Ham team 2-0. The Hammers came to the Emirates on a high from their previous win against the then leaders, Manchester United, but they also came with a very depleted and injury-ridden team. No Dyer, Bowyer, Zamora, Parker, Solano, Etherington, Bellamy, Boa Morta, Gabbidon, Faubert, Davenport, and Collins. Ljungberg limped off after 37 mins too, so thats a full team that can probably easily beat the team that started today.

Like I said in my game preview, the only threat I expected was from set pieces. At full strength, West Ham would give anyone a good game. So lucky for us, we got a break.

We had 4 changes from our last game, with Eboue, Hoyte, Adebayor, and Rosicky replacing Diaby, Sagna, Bendtner, and Hleb. The 4-4-2 formation was expected to be used at home against a mid-table team.

The game started with a bang. A superb cross from Fabregas who was given more space than he should ever be given was chested down and volleyed into the bottom corner with one touch by our Crozilian Eduardo, again proving how clinical and lethal he is in the box … almost clinithal!! This goal was the fastest goal to be scored in the Emirates, only 72 seconds into the game.

West Ham actually tried to make a game out of it in the first half, and had a couple of half decent chances from corners and free kicks, the most significant being Ferdinand’s shot from the corner which was cleared off the line by the magnificent Clichy. Not much later, Clichy again was involved and made a great pass down field with Adebayor running between Upson and Ferdinand and using his pace to get to the box before them and nudged the ball with his head past Green’s outstretched arm and just when everyone thought the chance was lost reaching the corner line, Adebayor used some sort of Togolese voodoo magic to hit the ball from an impossible angle where it twisted and turned and spun outside then inside the goal even with two defenders almost getting to the line!

2-0 with only 19 minutes gone. After the second goal, the game was relatively over. Arsenal went from 2nd gear to 1st gear, never needed to anything more. The only other significant events of the half were a penalty for us from Spector’s handball blocking an Eboue cross, and Ljunberg being subbed after injuring his hamstring. An amusing argument between Freddie and McCartney was caught on camera a few mins before the substitution.

The second half Arsenal just went through the motions. Relatively stress free half with nice touches throughout from our team. Walcott came in for Eduardo in the 63rd min. We changed our 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 at that point with Theo slotting as a left winger. It was weird strategic change, I would’ve thought it was a perfect chance to have Theo play upfront as an out and out striker. A few mins later Hleb came on for Eboue, which meant Theo moved to the right with Rosicky going left, while Hleb went in just in front of Fabregas and Flamini almost as a 2nd striker. Nothing that significant happened, except maybe Theo seeming to have re-injured his shoulder, but that didn’t look too bad.

A comfortable win overall. One thing I really enjoyed about this game was the fact that we always had people in the box for crosses. Eduardo was there, Adebayor was almost there, and even Rosicky was in the box! When we switched to 4-5-1, Adebayor was as good as we know he can be, dominating their defenders, controlling the ball, and so on. Fabregas was excellent, everyone else had a good game or better, except Hoyte. He’s not Sagna for sure, but he also lacks match fitness, so giving him the chance today was a good move.

Player ratings -

Almunia - 7 - Not much to do.
Clichy - 9 - An excellent assist, a game changing goal line clearance, and an overall Clichyesque performance.
Toure - 7 - Solid, will be missed
Gallas - 7 - Solid
Hoyte - 5 - Shaky first half, much better 2nd half.
Rosicky - 8 - I personally thought he had a very good game.
Flamini - 7 - Typical midfield engine performance.
Fabregas - 9 - Controlled the midfield and a great assist. One more assist or goal away from our man of the match.
Eboue - 6 - One of the most skilled players we have. Needs to help out more defensively. Needs to quit his silly “I’ve been fouled” jump everytime he’s hit, makes it look like a dive even when its not.
Adebayor - 8 - Used his pace and power for the goal, and had a very good 2nd half.
Eduardo - 8 - Great control, great finishing. Will rip defences apart the rest of the season. Coolest finisher I’ve ever seen.

Man of the Match - Clichy.