Tuesday 28 August 2012

Arsenal 0-0 Sunderland‏

Arsenal's first match of the 2012/2013 season ended in an extremely upsetting 0-0 draw at a sun-drenched Emirates Stadium. Quite the unexpected result, as many supporters, myself included, had high expectations for the clash. Expectations mainly due to the fact that we signed some quality players thus far in the transfer window. Was the 34 degree Celsius heat the cause? Or was it plainly the fact that Sunderland piled a plethora of defenders into their box every time we attempted to attack? It was obvious that Giroud and Podolski (Although he had a superb match VS Cologne) would take a while to gel well with the rest of the squad. Cazorla had a great debut in which he displayed why he will be arguably the best signing of the summer.
Match positives were: The Gunners played with a solid defence only allowing the off half chance. We looked quite good in attack, although the lack of finishing did set the course for the rest of the match. As I mentioned earlier, Cazorla had a great debut, hopefully his pitch perfect cross and pass ability will continue. Gervinho played an iffy first quarter, but once his nerves settled he played well and was arguably our best attacker of the day. Szczesny and the back four kept a clean sheet and defended our goal well. We had an absolute overwhelming amount of position and territory.We got one point…
Match negatives: We were to slow in attack at times, which could be forgiven due to the “un-footballer friendly heat”. Although they were few, our lapses in defence were rather stupid and unnecessary. We gave the ball away cheaply now and then. We failed to find the target consistently.
Score
Arsenal
0 – 0(HT 0 – 0)
Sunderland
Possession
70% 70.0
30%
Corners
7
0
Goal attempts
23
4
On target
3
2
Fouls
12
9
Offside
2
1
Arsenal
· Wojciech Szczesny,
· Carl Jenkinson,
· Per Mertesacker,
· Thomas Vermaelen,
· Kieran Gibbs,
· Santiago Cazorla,
· Mikel Arteta,
· Vassiriki Abou Diaby (Aaron Ramsey, 69),
· Theo Walcott (Andrey Arshavin, 77),
· Lukas Podolski (Olivier Giroud, 64),
· Gervinho
Sunderland
· Simon Mignolet,
· John O'Shea,
· Carlos Cuéllar,
· Sebastian Larsson (David Meyler, 79),
· Jack Colback,
· Craig Gardner,
· Kieran Richardson,
· Lee Cattermole,
· James McClean,
· Stéphane Sessegnon (Louis Saha, 64),
· Fraizer Campbell (Ahmed Elmohamady, 69)
Referee
Chris Foy
Venue
Emirates Stadium
Attendance
60,078