How did this happen? Are we really that off form that we lose to a team from the Championship? All credit given to Ipswich though, they played a superb match and honestly deserved the win. Arsenal however, deserved to walk away with their heads hanging, as they did.
No excuses, we played horrid.
We hardly could string together a sequence of more than five passes and when we did and actually got a shot on goal, we completely screwed it up. Perfect example: Arshavin missed a great opportunity to put us ahead early on. He was amazingly unmarked and only did he have to direct the ball towards to net to at least work the goalie if not score. Andrei instead sent the ball well wide.
Speaking of the goalie, Fulop had an amazing night. When Arsenal had the rare chance on goal it was quickly saved by the Ipswich keeper. On the other end, Wojciech Szczesny had an average night after earning a place in the starting line-up. Controversy spiraled when Woj made a questionable call of judgement. The ball seemed to have gone outside his box and Woj tipped it back in. Upon further inspection and reviewing, it can be seen that Woj in fact stayed right on the line, therefore the referee was right to not call the handball.
Another problem of ours lies in our defense. We are definitely missing in the CB department. Squillaci has been side-lined with a temporary injury and somehow Vermaelen is still no where close to fitness.
Our horrid playing mixed with the ball insisting to not go into the opponents net resulted in a night to forget.
Though, we still have a life line. We play the second leg of this match at home on January 25th. Hopefully playing at the Emirates and having our fans to cheer us on will help us in some way.
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