This means we get revenge next year, right? Pic via Guardian.
Wigan Athletic 3: Watson 80, Bramble 89, N'Zogbia 90+1
Arsenal 2: Walcott 41, Silvestre 48
For significant periods of today's match, your beloved Gunners played like a team comfortably sitting mid-table; not necessarily playing for anything in particular, without a care in the world. They took a 2-0 lead against a team toward the bottom of said table and looked to walk away with three points. Then, the opposition remembered they're fighting against relegation and pulled a goal back. Suddenly, your heroes were shell-shocked and incapable of defending the major offensive powerhouse that is Wigan Athletic (no disrespect meant to N'Zogbia, Rodallega, and Moses, by the way.) A crucial error and some more lacakadaisical defending later, it's Arsenal walking out of Greater Manchester with nothing to show for the trip but a bloodied ego.
With the line-up Arsene Wenger selected, what did you expect from this game? For me, I expected a nil-nil game at halftime despite mostly comfortable possession and a 1-0 win thanks to a cameo appearance from Robin van Persie off the bench in the 70th minute.
Lukasz Fabianksi, of picking-the-ball-up-at-Porto fame, got the start in place of Manuel Almunia, who has an injured wrist (likely due to the amount of activity on his probably fake Twitter account.) Denilson, who suffered a groin injury at Spurs on Wednesday did not feature either, and was replaced by the young Craig Eastmond, making his second start of the year (the first was at Bolton in January.) Campbell and Silvestre started in the central defense, as expected after Vermaelen's injury on Wednesday. Robin van Persie started on the bench, still not at 100% match fitness after his five month layoff. 18-year-old midfielder Conor Henderson was named to the bench as well (meaning Eduardo was conspicuously absent) and he doesn't even have a Wikipedia article about him yet.
My first half prediction was completely wrong: Arsenal lead 1-0, thanks to a Theo Walcott goal after breaking through the defense and pushing a shot just under the keeper's arm as he hit the ground, but Arsenal never really had control of the play. At times, it feels like with Fabregas and van Persie on the pitch, the Gunnres appear allergic to both touching the ball in the box and shooting. The defense was solid, but found themselves under pressure far more often than they should have.
Arsenal extended the lead to 2-0 early in the second half after a Mikael Silvestre header coming from a corner (no, seriously, stop laughing, it happened.) That is about when it appeared that the Gunners assumed that the three points were theirs and they started coasting. Arsenal was unfocused and Wigan started to command more of a territorial advantage. With ten minutes to play, Wigan pulled a goal back, when Arsenal's defense allowed Watson to take an uncontested sidefooted strike to the corner of the goal, a solid shot, I must say.
Then, Arsenal was stunned, and off a corner with a minute to play before injury time, Fabianski's attempt to catch the ball was fumbled directly into the head of Titus Bramble three years in front of the net. Wigan will never score an easier equalizer.
Suddenly, a subsitution to use Robin van Persie was necessary, but the Gunners had already stopped playing. N'Zogbia picked up possession 20 yards out from Rodallega and pounded a beautiful shot off the post and in. That's about when I couldn't feel my legs and face and had to sit down motionless for ten minutes on a bar stool.
If I hadn't pulled myself out of bed at 7 a.m. this morning to make it to the bar and see it for myself, I would not believe what happened. One day after Chelsea faltered once again to open up another glimmer of hope for the title race, Arsenal threw the chance away. This is now four times Arsenal's title hopes have ended this year; this time, it's for good.
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