HIGHBURY HOUSE

‘Oh what fun it is to see, Arsenal win away………’

That’s what the Arsenal fans were merrily singing as the game came to an end last night. They were superb yet again, they didn’t give up for the entire match…

The night belonged to Santi Cazorla who bagged his first hat-trick for Arsenal. Lukas Podolski gave us the lead with a rocket of a strike, this was followed by three from the Spaniard and the goal scoring frenzy was complete when Walcott finally found the net before the end.

There were three changes from the team knocked out of the Capital One Cup last week, Mikel Arteta and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain replaced Francis Coquelin and Aaron Ramsey respectively and Walcott returned in place of Gervinho.

Within the first couple of minutes, Oxlade-Chamberlain nicked the ball from Cazorla forced a good save from the Reading keeper, Adam Federici. Reading went straight onto the attack through Pavel Pogrebnyak who got having passed Kieran Gibbs, cut his cross back to Jay Tabb who shot wide.

Reading’s Noel Hunt then had a chance from a corner but his header went wide..

On the quarter of an hour mark, Gibbs, who was having so much freedom and space down the left, crossed to Podolski at the near post. The German stopped the ball with his right foot then fired home with his left. Stunning finish!

We should have gone two up, Cazorla split the Reading defence with a fine ball to Gibbs on the left who was clear but his shot was blocked. The Spaniard teed up Walcott next, the perfect ball, the perfectly timed run but the Reading keeper denied our central striker.

Wilshere was the next to see a chance go begging, his volley was palmed away by the keeper and then  Gibbs and Podolski had chances blocked by the Reading defence.

Up the other end, Thomas Vermaelen made a good tackle to prevent Kebe from making it 1-1.

Just past the half-hour mark, we made it 2-0. Podolski chipped the ball into the six-yard box from the left and somehow, the smallest player on the pitch doubled our lead with a diving header. Minutes later he grabbed another, Gibbs again was the provider.

Walcott should have made it four but he fired a shot wide from range.

3-0 became 4-0 on the hour, Podolski got free on the left and unselfishly squared the ball for Cazorla to fire home his hat-trick.

Reading then hit us twice from nowhere, Le Fondre got the first and after some good play by Robson-Kanu, Kebe got the second.

The Reading fans woke up and Arsenal players and fans seemed nervous just for a while.

Theo Walcott put pay to any Reading hopes though when he finally grabbed himself a goal. Cazorla’s  saw a long range shot was saved  by Federici and then the same player turned provider for Walcott to plant in the back of the net….

Two comments came from behind me during the game and don’t forget, I was forced to sit with the Reading fans.

‘This will kick start Arsenal’s season’ and ‘they have brought on Ramsey, good, he’s s**t……’

One comment I hope comes true of course…

Three points needed, three points we got and right now, that’s the main thing…

That’s it from me, I’ll leave you to chew the game over in the comments….