Goonersphere's match review page covering all first team matches. Reviews include scores, injury updates, match stats, and player ratings.
Sam Stubbs-Benbow, known on Twitter as @sambangsdrums, is a student in Sound for television and is a keen musician. He has been following the Arsenal all his life and more widely, is a football nut, keen on anything to do with the beautiful game. You will find him at most home games and a few away ones and will be providing match reviews for Arsenal first team games this season.
The Gunners returned to winning ways on boxing day and also returned to the Premier League summit after beating West Ham. It was a slightly uncomfortable match though and we had to dig deep to earn the three points having fallen behind in the second half. Nevertheless, the lads pulled through and with City beating Liverpool, we are deservedly top with one game left in 2013.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. What a tragically boring game that was. Vicious wind and incessant rain, combined with Mourinho’s ‘genius’ tactics of parking the bus made for an extremely dour spectacle. The build up to the game had given the sense that this was make or break for both teams. Chelsea have stumbled in uncharacteristic fashion this season, while we came into the game on the back of a hiding at City and a draw against Everton, which had eroded our 5 point lead at the top. A win for us would have seen us top on Christmas Day, while a defeat would have seen us slip to fourth and raised serious doubts about our title credentials. As it is, a draw means we spend Christmas in 2nd, level on points with Liverpool, but behind on goal difference.
Where do you start? It’s been a bit of a rubbish week for us and the thrashing at the Etihad rounds it off with a majestically crap flourish. This has been gleefully pounced upon by the print media, with broken cannons making their triumphant return. The Mirror even questions how Arsenal can possibly be offering Wenger a new contract, despite us being top of the league and having picked up more points than any other team in 2013. The knives are out, the chasing pack and the media smell blood, it feels like this could be a big month or so for us. Everyone wants to see us fail and this result has given them ammunition.
