Arsenal moved up to fifth place after thumping Wigan at the DW Stadium 4-0. For the hosts, they move to the bottom of the table. A place they aren’t hoping to be by Christmas. iSporter Sahil Bhalla reports
It was a sad state of affairs for the host team as poor goalkeeping in the first half helped Arsenal gain a 2-0 lead. Before the two goals though, Wigan were looking solid at the back and beginning to up the tempo up front. A goal in the 28th minute by Mikel Arteta undid them as his shot evaded Ali Al Habsi’s grasp. A minute later, Thomas Vermaelen headed in from a very well taken corner. The match was about wrapped up at that point. The unusual aspect about the first half though was that Robin Van Persie was virtually absent.
Within the first ten minutes of the match, the Latics had a bunch of tactics to take the lead. David Jones had a chance from the left side of the area after Moses and Connor Sammon combined for some great play. Jordi Gomez then looked like he was going to put the ball in the back of the net but it was deflected for a corner kick by Andre Santos. The problem with Wigan was that after the first quarter of the game, they dropped deeper and deeper into their own half and eventually paid the price. Twice in two minutes. Arteta shouldn’t have scored but thanks to a goalkeeping error, it went in.
Robin Van Persie has scored more goals this season than Wigan’s entire squad but didn’t add anything to his tally in the first half. Five minutes into the second half, a tackle from Steve Gohouri on Aaron Ramsey almost gave a penalty to Arsenal. The referee waved play on to the disbelief of the entire Arsenal players and fans at the ground.
Van Persie played like he always does. He was unselfish and he didn’t care about his own goal-scoring tally. This was proven in the 61st minute when Van Persie went into the box and he tried to shoot but let Gervinho take the rebound and shoot it perfectly into the back of the net.
There was one last decent chance for Wigan when substitute Albert Crusat and Moses ending with Stam going down into the area but there was minimal contact from Alex Song.
Van Persie finally got his just dues when Theo Walcott went on a fine run and then set up Van Persie for an easy goal into the far corner.
There was a triple subistution by Arsenal at the end and it almost resulted in a fifth goal. Yossi Benayoun nearly lobbed the ball over Al Habsi but Caldwell got back just in time to head the ball of the line.
At the end of the day, it was all Arsenal. They came with the intention of winning and increasing their goal difference, and they did just that. A clinical performance and the goals were spread around different goal scorers. This just goes to prove, that Arsenal are not a one-man team.
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Twig
said:
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... How is trying to shoot a sign of unselfishness? Van Persie was nowhere near the rebound, so saying he 'let Gervinho take it' is BS. Not a great article mate. Sorry. |
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