Dom Rae
The Arsenal kids showed a heartening glimpse into the future last night with a hard fought win on penalties against West Brom at the Hawthorns. A thriller this was not, but Arsenal’s youth, with a sprinkling of experience, showed great spirit when it matted to overcome a resilient and vastly more experienced Baggies 4-3 on spot kicks.
As expected, Arsene went with a back five of fully capped internationals, shielded by Mikel Arteta, and some of the Gunners bright young stars in front of them including Isaac Hayden, Thomas Eisfeld and Serge Gnabry. Nicklas Bendtner returned to the starting line up after two years in the wilderness to spearhead the attack. All the talk pre-match was about the nomadic Dane and his performance showed signs of real promise as well as the usual poor touches and frustrating finishing.
I wish I could write something about the first half but to my recollection nothing happened. Arsenal zipped it around on the slick surface quite nicely for the first ten minutes but there was very little cutting edge for the duration of the half, while West Brom fed long ball after long ball up to Shane Long who Vermaelen and Mertesacker dealt with easily. Arsenal had one sight of goal from a corner that flashed across the six yard box but the Baggies came closest when Steven Reid’s dipping free kick clipped the top of Fabianski’s cross bar.
In the second half the game opened up somewhat, Serge Gnabry and the disappointing Ryo Myaichi were lively and worked hard but the West Brom full backs were largely untroubled. That changed just after the hour when Bendtner produced his best moment, a stunning ball took four players out of the game and fell to Eisfeld who finished clinically from just inside the box. Given the nature of the game I expected that to be enough to take us through but some shocking marking allowed Saido Berahnino all the time he needed to head past a helpless Fabianski from six yards. The last ten minutes amounted to little and the chilling prospect of extra time became a reality.
Early on, Bendtner produced a carbon copy of his chance in the Nou Camp a couple of years ago when he dallied for too long and allowed the defender to get back and nick it off his toe. Given his need for a goal it was surprising not to see him leather it, but the fans were right behind him and it wasn’t the most disastrous individual performance I’ve seen in my time watching Arsenal.
Hector Bellerin came on for a knackered Arteta and looked bright, always showing for the ball and displaying some neat touches, in the second period he had Arsenal’s best moment when he drove at the heart of the West Brom defence and saw his rasping drive just sail past the post. In truth though it was all West Brom as Amalfitano hit the bar and Rosenberg somehow contrived to miss after he chipped the ball over Fabianski and was clean through.
The match drifted to penalties, Gnabry missed to hand the advantage to West Brom but misses from Dawson and Amalfitano handed Nacho Monreal to win it for us and he finished with aplomb to send Arsenal into a fourth round tie at home to Chelsea.
Overall, despite not living for too long in the memory, you get the sense that this was an important victory for Arsenal, and you could see how much it meant to them at the final whistle as they lapped up the applause from a brilliant, 5,500-strong away support. Isaac Hayden showed promise in midfield while Eisfeld and Gnabry were lively and worked hard but you get the feeling they’d benefit more outings with some of the more established first team stars. The most encouraging performances came from two of our substitutes; Kris Olsson kept it simple with his passing and hassled the West Brom midfield for the duration of his cameo and Bellerin was excellent, albeit against a tiring Baggies side.
The reward is a home tie against Chelsea who are sure to field a £750m second string but the young Gunners showed that they are more than up for the battle with this performance and with a full house at the Emirates they’ll be desperate to work their way in Arsene’s plans for challenges to come. Most importantly though it keeps the unbeaten run and momentum going ahead of two tough games in the next seven days, it’s too early to say whether they are season defining, but you feel that if we can come through Swansea and Napoli still top of the league and group respectively, then the players will really start to believe that the trophy drought can finally be ended come the business end of the season.
