No barking from the dog

No smog

And Arsenal beat ManU.

Yes, Today was a good day
What a great game. Almunia played out of his mind (”Wookash”, on the other hand…), until Carrick kicked him in the face, and Nasri showed everyone why Wenger signed him. And all this happened without Arsenal’s first choice strikers. You can make a pretty strong case for Arsenal being lucky to concede only one–ManU had several excellent chances that they sent wide or scooped over the bar–but the mere fact of conceding fewer than they score is promising. If the team can hold the Devils scoreless, the results like the Tottenham and Stoke games can be chalked up to mental lapses and concentration issues rather than fundamental problems with the defensive personnel. Not that mental lapses are a good thing, but they can be corrected. As far as I know, no cure exists for shitty players.

This is not to say that this is a well-constructed soccer team, it isn’t, but these lapses can be overcome until the squad is strengthened (except the wastefulness in front of goal. Against teams that don’t play as open a style as ManU, chances are precious, and Arsenal needs to stop squandering them).

Of course, this game also highlights the ridiculousness of the season to date. You can talk until you’re blue in the face about how you need to show up and play hard every week, but if the team is capable of soundly beating Manchester United then it shouldn’t be losing to Stoke or Fulham.

One more thing…in extra time, when Arsenal is up, Kolo Toure should never have the ball inside of the other team’s penalty box. I don’t know what the hell he was doing up there, but suffice it to say, this team needs a bit of work on time-killing.