Arsenal 5-1 Shakhtar Donetsk. perfect for us and welcome back Dudu

salaam & good day all

so I was up as early as 0420 today morning to watch the match. the match itself does not start until 5.45 am but I was settling down for prayers and getting pumped up for the match and Dudu return to the Emirates.

on to the match. we never get out of our second gear but yet we won 5-1. we are not performing that well, but  we never need to do that in this match. Shakhtar doesn't seems to recover at all from their GK howler that presented us the opening goal in the first half, which was coolly (and luckily) converted by Alex Song. further goals followed from Samir, Cesc (penalty), Jack and Marouane while Shakhtar replied with a late consolation goal by who else, Dudu. that has got to be the first time I ever saw the Emirates celebrated an away goal like that. practically everyone were on their feet, applauding and chanting Dudu's name. even the man himself obviously holding up his tears when asked in the post match interview the question on the Emirates faithful reception towards his appearance. you'll always be welcomed at the Emirates Dudu.

match rating followed.

Lukasz - not much to do, but did OK with what he had to do. slowly gaining confidence back and hopefully he will turn out to be what le Boss keep on claiming; a world class GK he always saw in training. (6)

Manu Eboue - typical Manu Eboue performance. strong on attack, and decent on defensive duties. lack of attack from Shakhtar meant that he spent more time on their half all game. (6)

Laici - OK performance. thought he could and should do better for the Dudu's goal, but that is taking nothing away from the coolness of Dudu's goal. other than that, satisfactory match for Laici. (5.5)

Johan - got a penalty for us. also lost his man a few times when defending. other than that, doing perfectly fine for a player who miss the whole of last season. a very good 4th choice defender for any club. (5.5)

Gael - thought he did good. always making himself available for the passes and always provide option when attacking. if only his deliveries in the final third are good, we ought to score a few more from it. (6)

Jack - getting better by the match. and it is good to finally see how the partnership of him and Cesc work. and I like what I see. get a goal also, a wonderful goal at that. MOTM for me. (7.5)

Cesc - painfully obvious that he is still lacking match fitness. of course la, he just came back from a month absence. but also painfully obvious is his class. should be better in the coming matches though. (6.5)

Alex Song - I'm getting tired of people criticizing Alex Song for attacking too much, for not be the 1 sitting in front of the back 4 and protect them in the traditional DM style. we do not play like that. we play with 3 CMs who attack and defend when needed to. heck Alex Song even got a goal and an assist in this match. (7)

Samir - he looks to be stepping it up (at least goal-scoring wise) this season but still find himself stuck in the wing forward position, such as the quality we have in the midfield. but still he goes on with his job, and even scored. the problem I have with players like Samir and Tomas playing the wing forward position is that they did not offer enough penetration through the wing position while players like Theodore and Andy do just that. (6.5)

Tomas - see Samir above, without the goal. (6)

Marouane - he is yet to fully in synch with the rest of the team, but he is getting there. scored a goal, even manage to have a look at the linesman before doing that. ingat komik bolasepak Jepun ka? hahaha (6.5)

Denny Boy (sub) - doing OK when coming on for Cesc. the thing I like the most about Denny Boy is that he always making himself available for the ball and always tried to keep the fast ball movement going. looks like also he bulking up quite a bit this season. (5.5)

Theodore (sub) - came in to play the CF role but failed miserably. put him on the RWF and I can assure you he'll look a different player. tried hard, too hard perhaps but nothing comes out for him. (4.5)

Andy (sub) - see Theodore above, but slightly worse. (4)


also, my local team playing the 1st leg of Malaysia Cup semi final at Darulaman Stadium tonight against the mighty Kelantan. the game will be played at 2345 at my local time here so another late night for me tonight. probably will come out with another entry for that before the kick off.

till then, ciao.