Saturday, February 02, 2008

man city 1 arsenal 3

we are back on top of the epl. it could have been a 3 point lead had it not been for tevez's late, late equaliser at white hart lane.

the first 35 minutes, other than clichy's mistake, was almost perfect. totally dominated man city at man city's homeground. we were totally in control, and then lost focus. we controlled most part of the second half, but didnt get the third goal, and then man city started to pressure us high up and caused some problems.

if we had conceded that equaliser, that would have been disastrous. in fact, there was no reason at all why we were playing like we did in the middle of the second half, struggling to control the game. man city were seriously outplayed. that we didnt have a bigger lead boiled down to two reasons: clichy's mistake and our inability to be even more ruthless.

first on clichy. i dun want to pin all the blame on him, but that mistake was ridiculous. and gave us unnecessary pressure. it was a gift to man city. it let them back into the game. we got two goals, then give them one. when you are down by one goal, you know there's hope. that is something we dun want to give the opponents. the encouragement to take the game to us. the moment we concede that first goal, their confidence is going to go skyhigh.

that brings us to the second point. i know compared to last season, we have scored in every game, we are more ruthless. but we are not winning enough games 4-0, 5-0. why aren't we doing that? when we control the game and create the chances, i dun see why we can't do that.

luckily we conjured up enough to get that third goal.

this game should have been an easy one after we got the second goal. that we had to sweat abit was uncalled for. eduardo looks more comfortable now, and that was a great goal. now we are beginning to see why we got him.

spurs and portsmouth did us a big favour by causing man u and chelsea to drop points. it is certainly a great achievement to be the first team to beat man city at the city of manchester stadium. but all these today count for nothing if we don't beat blackburn next. we got back the initiative. now we have to hold on to it and not give it up cheaply again.

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