In midweek at Emirates Stadium, we fought back from behind to claim a 2-2 draw with the mighty Barcelona in our champions league quarter final match. We were kinda outplayed by Barca in our passing game, and Almunia was the unexpected hero that kept us in the game during first half. Two goals from similar positions from Zlatan Ibrahimovich gave the visitors a two-goal lead. The pace of substitute Walcott proved to be crucial as his strike pulled one goal back for us, while a penalty from Cesc managed to force a draw at home. The draw came with a hefty price: Cesc, Gallas and Arshavin were all injured. And Cesc could be out for the season.
Saturday’s match against Wolves at home was thought to be one of the easiest match in our title run-in. However, we needed an injury-time match-winner header from Bendtner to scrapped a victory at home. Rosicky started in Cesc’s position and was one of the better performer in the match. Song and Denilson were decent in central midfield. Eboue was quite anonymous on the left forward position, while Eduardo was really awful as the central striker. His frequent misses had been so frustrating that I could no longer attribute it to lack of match fitness. He was supposed to be our most lethal striker but now he looked like a championship player. Walcott on the other hand, was very lively on the right and its no surprise most of our attack gone through him. Him and Sagna were combining very well, and hoped he could continue to improve to become the player we expected him to be.
At the back, Sol and Vermaelen were solid. Sagna did well both defensively and offensively. Silvestre was a surprise inclusion at the left-back position, and I believed he was the main reason why our left-sided attack was so ineffective, as he seldom provide any support in attack. His lack of pace also means that our left side became the weakest link during the match.
Overall, we were rather lucky to score the winner in injury time to keep us in the title race. With Chelsea beating Man United at Old Trafford, the race was still open and we were only 3 points off Chelsea. We really need to continue to fight on, while hoping Man United and Chelsea to drop points in the last few matches.
