Arsenal v. Blackburn 4-0 14/Mar/09

It is good to know that at least Wenger's men can keep the dignity of battering certain teams in the league, among them Blackburn, who in recent encounters has received the far from being decorous quantity of 18 goals in 5 London matches. You can remember dear reader, the home beating propinated by Walcott and Adebayor last year and that unforgetable 6-2 which included the already famous nutmeg from Cesc to Robbie Savage and what a better way to ease the nerve collected in the midweek clash against Roma. Aside from that the team displayed a complete performance, and after Villa loss against Spurs, Arsenal finally recovered the longed and cherrised fourth place.







And with a strange immediacy, the Gunners were one-nil up when Theo crossed towards Arshavin, in a Bendtner setup. Certainly Rovers' defense was reluctant and even frail to defend, including the dismal Paul Robinson, now with a new hair color. Still with the same idiocy of defending in line against fast and agile strikers, the Gunners missed a couple of ocassions in front, with Bendtner shining. After certain period of dominance Diouf could not retain his Bolton days and tackled Almunia, at 20', which was a sure sentoff. With another header by Bendnter, at 31', the home side calmed down and at least three long balls from Blackburn's midfield worried Gallas and company. Nasri's technique in freekick proved to be exquisite when the ball hit the woodwork and a later response from the Frenchman was denied by the ex-Spurs keeper. The feeling of Allardyce's instructions ment to be physical and certainly the Gunners resented it. With a final warning by the ex-Bolton forward, Sagna saved Arsenal from the equalizer.







The match went really calm for the next twenty minutes, with a couple of arrivals from Nasri and Andrei but the attention piled up when Nicklas Bendtner missed three clear chances in two minutes but strangely enough, when the misery visits one player, inspirations does it with another; Denilson set Arshavin, who in one of his trademark run, passed the defender and finished beautifully pass Robinson. The quality of the finish as well as the talent display gives this goal the quality of one of Arsenal's best goals in recent seasons. After this massive goal, Arshavin drew mad Rovers defense and with many assitances from the Russian to the Dane the match remained with two goals until the 88th minute, when Eboue finished a deviation from Robinson. Finally with Vela thumbled in the box and Eboue capitalised the goal rising his tally to two goals.