*removes cobwebs from blog*
Wow! It’s been a while. Over two weeks, I think.
From an Arsenal perspective, nothing much has happened. Our fate had been sealed a long while ago as what promised to be a good campaign crumbled quite Arsenally towards the business end of the season. The lads did their bit to play as if something was at stake against Man City, even though I was extremely disappointed with the way an experienced goalie like Petr Cech allowed the ball to ease past his near post like he wasn’t there.
There was a goal for Olivier Giroud which must have been a confidence booster and his assist for Alexis Sanchez was out of the top drawer. The French forward spoke of the importance of that goal on the official site and you could vividly see how much it meant to him. Giroud’s position is likely to be threatened this summer, as the club would be under intense pressure to sign another center forward that can come up with the goods when the chips are down.
Sadly, there was an injury suffered by Danny Welbeck and according to the report from the Guardian, he faces the prospect of surgery and could be out for months.
I feel really sad for Welbeck because he has been through a lot. After missing out for almost 10 months, he made his comeback with that last-gasp header against Leicester City in February. He went to score some important goals and even went ahead of Giroud and Theo Walcott in the pecking order. His injury has vividly showed that he cannot be relied upon to remain fit in the course of a campaign, so the need for a striker has increased.
Elsewhere, there was some drama in the Premier League as Manchester United threw away their chance of featuring in the Champions League next season. Following their narrow win over Norwich and their crosstown rivals’ draw with Arsenal, they needed to win West Ham in their last game at Upton Park to get themselves a great chance of qualifying for a playoff spot in Europe’s elite club competition. After falling behind to a Diafra Sakho early strike, two Anthony Martial goals seemed to be enough to solidify Manchester United’s hold on fourth place but goals from Mikail Antonio and Steven Reid shifted the balance to the sky blue half of Manchester.
Their fate will be decided on Sunday as Manchester City visit Swansea for Manuel Pellegrini’s farewell, while Manchester United would host safe Bournemouth.
Finally, there was game time for the likes of Santi Cazorla, Calum Chambers, Joel Campbell and Francis Coquelin as Arsenal’s U-21s beat Aston Villa U-21s in the playoff finals to earn promotion into Division One. Serge Gnabry and Thomas Rosicky were unused. Steve Gatting must be proud of his lads for a great performance and it was good to see the likes of Santi Cazorla get more playing time ahead of the Aston Villa. Cazorla was a huge loss to the team since that ill-fated moment at Carrow Road in November.
That’s a wrap for today.
I hope my consistent juices start flowing
Sayonara
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