Sunderland vs. Arsenal

1-0, Premier League, Stadium of Light, 2013-02-09
Cazorla 36

This turned out to be a fight to the very end, we managed to get the lead in the first half and as we were down to ten men for the latter part of the second half we had to withstand quite some pressure from Sunderland. Huge credit goes to Szczesny, who showcased some brilliant goalkeeping in this game.

In the first half we had tons of shot that went just wide of the goal or was saved by the goalkeeper, with Walcott having a shot saved by the keeper in the second minute, Ramsey's brilliant shot at the half-hour mark was also saved by the keeper and Giroud fired just wide after approximately fifteen minutes. Fortunately, we had one shot finding the back of the net as well. Wilshere started the attack with a great run, he then played the ball to Walcott, whose pass reached Santi Cazorla, and the Spaniard fired a low shot beneath the keeper into the back of the net. Just before half-time Walcott had a shot that went just wide and Ramsey almost made it 2-0, but the keeper made yet another save.

At the beginning of the second half Wilshere picked up an injury and had to be replaced by Diaby. Both Giroud and Cazorla fired their respective shots just wide of the goal (feels like I've written "just wide" a bit too many times in this post...) before we were reduced down to ten men as Jenkinson received his second yellow of the game and was sent off. After this Sunderland built up some immense pressure, luckily we had our Polish keeper who produced brilliant save upon amazing save upon great save! He made several vital saves in this game and truly reminded us why he is our no. 1. With fifteen minutes to go Walcott put the ball past the keeper but hit the post! That could have proven to be a costly mistake had it not been for our desperate defending and brilliant goalkeeper.

So in the end we managed to hold onto our lead, largely due to some brilliant goal-keeping by Szczesny! Obviously vital for us to get the three points before heading into our FA Cup clash against Blackburn next weekend.

Injury Update:
- Vermaelen is still out due to an injury.
- Koscielny picked up a calf injury in the warm-up to this game, meaning that Sagna played as centre-half.