Barnet vs. Arsenal

2-2, Pre-Season, Underhill Stadium, 18/7 -09
Arshavin 43, Barazite 51

Today Arsenal played their first pre-season game, not so many players from the first team featured in the game because the game is quite early on, but it was a nice chance for the youngsters and of course Vermaelen to play(he was really good), but highlight this Tomas Rosicky played his first game in like 18 months in front of 5065 fans, there where a lot of cheering i can tell ya !

The starting eleven included Almunia, Djourou, Gallas(finally back), Vermaelen, Silvestre, Wilshere, Randall, Frimpong, Rosicky, Arshavin & Watt.
The Barnet goalkeeper had a busy first half, with lots of Arsenal chances which were created by Rosicky, it just proves what an assess he will be this season.
In the 43rd minute Sanchez Watt set up Arshavin by the far corner and the russian finished high on close range, 1-0 to the gunners.
But just before half-time Barnet got a free-kick that unfortunately Yakubu climbed highest on, and could head home 1-1 to Barnet.

As expected there were lots of changes in half-time, in fact, the only Arsenal player left on pitch was Vermaelen, who played the entire 90 minutes.
So the changes was as follows; Vito Mannone, Craig Eastmond, Luke Ayling, Thomas Cruise, Conor Henderson, Francis Coquelin, Jay Emmanuel-Thomas, Nacer Barazite and Jay Simpson.

Arsenal regained the lead after just 4 minutes, and they did it in style, or should I say Nacer Barazite did it in style for the third time in a row in just these pre-seasons against Barnet.
He was forced out of the penalty area, but found little air and took a shot from 20 yards, up in the top corner of the target.
After that Arsenal seemed to be in control, but unfortunately with 8 minutes of original time to go, when Charles popped up in the box and found the bottom corner of Mannones goal.

'But that was not the story of today. Welcome back, Tomas Rosicky!'

Unfortunately it wasn't all good news for today, this evening Ade signed for Man City, so i guess we won't be seeing him around on Tuesday when the team heads to Austria for training camp.
But he hasn't been all that commited to the club, and I think that I'm not the only one to say that, the boss has been looking over Chamakh from Bordeaux, but says that he is not close to signing anyone yet since we got a quite big squad, but he will assess the situation in the next couple of games.

So as we say Welcome back Tomas Rosicky, we also say Goodbye to Emmanuel Adebayor.