Robin sets record straight against the Sheep in Wolves clothing….

As we move in to the business end of this season, we can no longer consider any match as “easy”. With only four points separating United and us, with Man City, Spuddies and Chelsea all within six points of us, any more slipups can seriously dent our league title ambitions, while opening the door for any of the three teams (or Liverpool) who are not as far behind us as we would wish…United won the lunchtime kickoff Manchester derby, so by the time 3 pm UK time rolled around, we were seven points in arrears and REALLY could not afford to bottle this one…

It would seem from the team selection at least, that Arsene sees the situation in much a similar light. With the first leg of the Champions League tie versus Barcelona coming up on Wednesday, I half expected Arsene to rotate at least a little bit. I think it is to his enormous credit that he did not, considering how close things are at the top and how little margin for error any of the top six teams have at this moment.

So this starting eleven took the pitch this afternoon: Szczesny, Clichy, JD, Kos, Sagna, Jack, Song, Cesc, Theo, Robin, and Arshavin.
Almunia, Eboue, Squillaci, Gibbs, Denilson, Bendtner and Chamakh comprised our bench…

We put Wolves under pressure from the off. Jack earned an early free kick which Robin blazed over, but we did not have to wait too long for the opener. With a quarter of an hour gone, Cesc made inroads down the right, and with the Wolves defense backing off, he crossed to Robin, who fired an instinctive volley just out of the diving Hennessey’s grasp and in off the inside of the right-hand post. That was Robins first goal ever against Wolves, the only PL club he has not scored against is Blackpool.

That should have cued the floodgates opening but Arshavin wasted our next opportunity, failing to connect cleanly when well positioned. This was followed by a ten minute period when Wolves enjoyed a decent spell of possession and forced a few corners; they had seven on the day, almost twice as many as we did, but they didn’t force Szczesny to make a single save. The latter weakly punched one corner away and a Wolves player headed another over the bar.

Around the half-hour mark we floored the accelerator and really should have extended our lead. Jack’s nice pass put Arshavin in on goal; as Hennessey positioned himself to block, the former passed to Theo, who’s snap shot forced an excellent one-handed save from Hennessey. The rebound fell to Cesc who fired in a shot that beat the Wolves keeper, but struck Steadman’s heel just short of the line and rebounded away. Theo then sprung Arshavin, who shot tamely at Hennessey – the linesman’s flag was up, so it would not have counted.

As the match reached the 40 minute mark, Steve McManaman, commentating for the ESPN team, made much ado about nothing, by insisting Wolves should have had a penalty when Hammill threw himself to the deck while tussling with JD just inside the edge of the penalty area. As the solitary minute of first half stoppage time wound down, Song fed Robin, who forced another excellent save from Hennessey. We had quite a dominant first half, but just a solitary goal to show for it.

We began the second half in similar fashion, and Jack quickly released Theo, who absolutely should have scored but shot wastefully wide. Regardless, a second goal appeared to be coming, and it duly arrived ten minutes in. Cesc’s long pass released Theo and while Robin was a couple of yards offside as the ball made its way towards the former, he simply checked his run, and was well onside when Theo squared the ball for him to finish emphatically past Hennessey.

Seven minutes later, McCarthy made an attacking sub, bringing Ebanks-Blake on for Milijas, and Foley for on-loan Spuddie O’Hara (who received a rousing send-off from the Ems faithful). Arsenal continued to create chances, even with Wolves now having two forwards.

With the job more or less done, Arsene made a double swap on 72 minutes, with Nik coming on for Robin and Chamakh for Arshavin, and the final sub five minutes later, with Denilson on for Jack. All three subs were sensible and well-timed, with the two forwards providing strength and height in case Wolves applied late pressure. McCarthy made his final change with ten minutes remaining, with the fresher Fletcher replacing Doyle, who as the lone striker for most of the match, running himself in to the ground with very little service. Wolves did apply most of the pressure from this point, as most of the play was in the Arsenal half. Despite dominating the ball, they had no clear-cut chances. Szczesny had to claim one ball that seemed to spend an eternity in the air, and tipped another over the bar. Otherwise, we held on quite comfortably and got the job done.

On the basis of chances created, 2-0 certainly flattered Wolves but they worked hard the entire match and usually denied us space and time in and around their penalty. On another afternoon, I think I would have been a tad frustrated at the amount of times we gave the ball away; I think a lot of it was due to the congestion Wolves caused in their half. This came at the cost of an attacking threat, however, as they were more or less toothless the entire way. While my reference to sheep in wolves clothing (title) is tongue-in-cheek, they certainly did not show any of the fangs (or attacking instinct) normally associated with Wolves.

Post-match, McCarthy said his side was “murdered”. While I will agree they were dominated, they still made our players work hard for the win and kept the score down to a respectable number. The loss drops them back to the bottom of the table; even from that lowly position, they just ended Man United’s unbeaten run last weekend, and have wins over Liverpool, Man City, and Chelsea already this season. That string of results clearly shows they are capable of beating the best in our league, so going 2-0 against them with a 4-0 aggregate scoreline is good work, in my opinion.

As it was, there was good work from the players in red (and the one in teal) all over the pitch this afternoon. I think our defensive work was particularly good – Wolves had plenty of possession, and spent a decent amount of time in our half. Yet when they tried to attack, Song was usually there to break things up. If they got beyond him, JD or Kos calmly cleared the ball; there was one first-half sequence where a Wolves player (Jarvis, I think) had the ball to the left of the penalty area, and was trying to make inroads. JD stuck with him, moved him closer to the touch-line, and then casually picked his pocket not too far from our corner flag, and moved the ball ahead for us to start an attack.

Robin scored both goals, but Arshavin and Theo both put in some good supporting work, making dangerous runs and creating chances. I would have liked each of them to score at least a goal, but that wasn’t to be.

Perhaps just as important was that we emerged with no significant injuries. The closest was a second half uh-oh moment when Robin and Zubar clashed going for a ball. The latter’s studs appeared a bit high, connecting heavily with the former’s shin. Robin was on the deck for a few minutes, and I was immediately concerned that he would not be able to continue – and quite possibly worse. He limped to the sideline, but was able to go on, and appeared ok. As it was, Arsene prudently brought him off with about 20 minutes to. I had no problem with the incident – it appeared to me that both players were going for the ball and it was an incidental collision at worst.

Overall, I thought the match was played in good spirit – the only booking was for Zubar shortly before the interval. There was one period in the first half where referee Foy got a little too fussy for me, stopping play to award us a free kick when we had already started building an attack but overall, I have little to complain about his work today. Certainly he and his crew were head and shoulders above the previous two we had seen…

Who’s up next then?

Oh yes, it’s FC Barcelona, a team that will pose an entirely different set of problems but we’ll be ready.

Written by Oliver