Wow…..a comeback is always nice
especially away from home but that wasn’t easy. Its not every time that we have
said that this season since Arsenal Made a flying comeback post their first
match loss. Arsenal played a different Ludogoret side from the one that visited
the emirates two weeks ago. Off the block Arsenal tried to impose themselves in
the midfield that had Ramsey starting for the first time since returning from
injury on the wings where arsene admitted “he doesn’t like to play”. Ramsey was
the first to test the opposition waters as early as the 5th minute ,
then in the 8th minute Özil was played through on goal by a
delightful slide on pass from Coquelin. Özil took the pass well o the run but
aas usual his final shot was a weak placement that Borjan their keeper was able to save with
ease. That seemed to have jolted the hosts out of their shell as they took
Arsenal apart with two well taken goals within the space of five minutes. The first
came from a nice free kick after Xhaka was harshly penalized for a soft
handball outside the gunners penalty box. Wanderson floated in an in swinger,
the Arsenal defence dallied on the incoming and the ball was bundled home by
Cafu despite Jenkinson’s best efforts at a desperate clearance.
1-0 against the Gunners!
I know Jenkinson is just back from injury but
he was a weak link in the arsenal backline making life a bit more difficult for
Mustafi. Going forward he lack the incision of bellerin and his defending
really needs to be less clumsy especially his positioning. He gets a bit of
slack cuz he is only back from a long injury lay off but he is has to up his
game to catch up with Bellerin. Our collective defending was brought to the
fore again few minutes after the goal via a fast break with the ball played out
wide by Wanderson to the left for Cafu. Cafu did some nice footwork to land Gibbs on his
backside before playing the ball into space for Keseru to convert.
2-0 against the gunners!
Painful to see us defending this
way, . I just did a bigups on Gibbs and he fails me like this….. that was it though
for the home side. Arsenal needed to respond and they picked themselves from
falling behind. Özil did well to scoop the ball of the line for Granit Xhaka to
steer beyond the grasping dive of Borjan in Ludogorets goal on the dot of 20
minutes.
2-1 against the gunners! Still some ground to make up.
Just like arsenal conceded in
quick succession, Ludogorets were going to almost oblige Arsenal the same. Arsenal
won the ball in their half got it to Ramsey out wide on the right flank. Ramsey
on the edge of the box floated one into the box. Giroud came forward to glance
the header beyond the keeper for the glorious equalizer…..pheeeeww. The game
played out till the end of the first half.
2-2 All Square at halftime.
The second half was more grit
than grace from both teams as they tried to eke out that final killer ball to
finish off the other Team. Not like Arsenal were so dominant cuz Ospina had to
get of his line twice to smother a potential threat from Wanderson. Ludogoret still gave us some nervy causes for
concern. Oxlade came on for Ramsey just over seventy minutes before two more
substitutions bought El Neny and Iwobi. As the match was dying into a
stalemate, Ludogorets were taught a hard lesson at this stage. Arsenal broke
away on the counter and Özil was able to spring the offside trap from way out.
2-3 to the Gunners! Come back
almost done…...
The whole goal, lets just say we
were treated us to a Messi-esque goal, chipping the keeper first before
dummying two defenders on the floor twice then slotting home with aplomb. Please
watch the goal here …….in case you missed it. Özil has his critics but this was
a thing of beauty that Dennis Bergekamp would be very proud. He got an assist and a goal, 7 goals now, i hope he is able to hit double figures in both this year.
Game over and we see it wasn’t a routine win as
some may have thought, Ludogorets are the Bulgarian champions so why would one
expect that. It was a game that could have gone totally south with a bad loss,
but the team turned it around which was very good. 10 points just like PSG who
had a late winner at Basel but still top of group A. The November month
of key games has started on good note. Lets hope the winning momentum is
maintained in the league as well. From the whole Team, that’s it from us……..CIao
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