I'm beginning to hate Setanta Sports as I blame them somehow for me being unable to see yesterday's match live anywhere around home (fuck you Internet streams too) so I had to wait until the evening and Football First to catch yesterday's North London Derby (given the result I really should have made the effort to make it into Dublin to watch the match with a load of gooners in that Oz themed pub near the Ilac centre).
And what a match it was, it potentially could have been another 5-4 were it not for some poor finishing (and Spurs must be really ruing some of the chances they missed, it's hard to pick which was worse, Berbatov being dispossessed by Kolo after he'd rounded the keeper or Bent ballsing up a great opportunity with his left foot after he'd run onto a great ball over the top, at least Berb's other "should have scored" chance involved Clichy clearing the ball off the line at the post from the Bulgarian's side footed volley). The goal Spurs did score, it was a nice hit from Bale who looks like he'll be a player but I'd blame Manny somewhat for being beaten low at his right hand post for it. A really top class keeper might have got there and Almunia isn't quite at that level for me.
A very up for it Emanuel Adebayor had, what was to my mind his best performance in an Arsenal shirt, the Togolese player looked dangerous throughout and almost equalised immediately after we went a goal down with a right footed volley across goal but Robinson made one of his rare great saves to deny him and prevent the sides from going in level at the break. But in the second half turned things around, Ade missed one great chance when he blasted over following great work from Sagna down the right hand side but he more than made up for it with a brace. The first was the equaliser which came from a beautifully flighted free kick from about 30 yards out on the left by Cesc and which drew Robinson out to try to claim it on the penalty spot but he was well beaten to the ball and it was Adebayor's head which flicked it past him into the empty net. Fabregas stayed involved after that and in the 80th minute he strolled into space and received a pass from Rosickey. With no one around him and in a great run of goalscoring form it was pretty obvious what Cesc was going to try next, a touch to bring the ball on a few yards then BANG, top left corner for his 5th of the season. That means he's already equaled his goals total from last season and is certainly putting down an early claim for if not the PFA player of the year award then certainly the young player category.
But the best was yet to come. In injury time Adebayor took a ball on the edge of the area and crashed the ball home for September's goal of the month. His volley was fantastic but the truly sublime thing about it was his first touch to set it up. With the ball coming across his body
he flicked it back in the other direction and into such a position as he could swing and hit it on the volley in one movement. It was quite similar to a pair of goals that Didier Drogba scored last season for Chelsea against Everton and Liverpool and if our African striker gets a similar goals return this as Chelski's did in the previous 2 years I'll be a very happy Arsenal fan.
Obviously beating Spurs is always great but more importantly that win takes us to the top of the table for the first time in so long I actually can't remember. Considering all the doom and gloom mongering coming from various sources prior to the league kicking off due to the loss of Thierry I think we've well and truly shut the pessimists up. That being said, can we be considered a genuine title contender at this point? I think considering how well the side has gelled we're in with a shout but it's too early to declare us as a side that everyone is going to have to chase. The big bonus about our results this season is that we've been winning matches that we'd have probably dropped points in in the past 2 seasons against sides we should beat easily which has been our big failing but we've yet to face one of the other big 4 this term.
As it happens our results over Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool have been good in the past few years (and in meetings between the 4 last season we took more points than anyone else) and we've got 5 hugely winnable premier league games coming up before we head up to Anfield on October 28th for our first big 4 game of the season. A good run of results from those 6 games (14-or more points out of 18 including not losing to pool) and I think people might have to come round to thinking that it could well be on like Donkey Kong. Another thing to take encouragement from is that United were pretty much shock title winners last year.
That's all from me today. I'll write about the Champions League match on Wednesday later in the week but it should be a cracker of a game (typical of RTE, they're showing the Manchester United match, good thing I finally figured out how to add ITV 4 to my sky box last week) as I realise during the International break I've focused this blog primarily on music (and who could blame me considering the fact that at the minute thinking about Irish international teams in any code of football is enough to throw me into fits of rage) but I reckon there'll be more football content going up in the next coming weeks.
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