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Arsenal put Moscow defeat behind them with emphatic win at Reading
Sunday, October 22, 2006
22 Oct 2006
Reading 0 Arsenal 4
One telling statistic of the match is the absence of any booking. There was not a single yellow card, which is rare by Premiership standards, but more significantly, that means that Reading did not play "ugly" enough against Arsenal. Perhaps it was because of Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho's accusation earlier in the week that made Reading a bit more cautious in their challenges. The point is, if you actually play football against Arsenal instead of kicking them off the ball (read Bolton or Blackburn), you better be damn good. Reading were not that good, not even close. It was apparent from the very first minute that the gulf of class was just too big for Reading to bridge.
Cesc Fabregas made a good run with the ball into the box, easily evaded the challenge of former Arsenal trainee, James Harper, before pulling it back for Thierry Henry. Henry showed great composure to simply pass the ball into the corner of the net which gave Reading keeper, Marcus Hahnemann no chance whatsoever. Only 58 seconds has passed when this happened. Reading knew they faced a very steep uphill battle.
Reading showed that they were no pushovers against Manchester United and Chelsea, but against this Arsenal side rampaging through their defence time and time again, it was clear it was just a matter of time that Arsenal would add to their lead. At the 39th minute, Aleksandr Hleb rounded off a fine Arsenal move by blasting the ball past Hahnemann to make it 2 - 0.
Reading came out of the second half with a positive attitude but within five minutes, the match was effectively over. Arsenal's third goal was a thing of beauty. Stringing passes after passes together, moving from side to side, the speed, the movement, and the precision were pure Arsenal. Hleb ran to Henry's exquisite through ball, and just when everyone thought he was going to shoot, he passed it to van Persie, who was left with a simple tap in. The Arsenal supporters chanted, "Have you ever seen Chelsea play like this?" I would have to say no.
Arsenal let the gas off a bit after the third goal and gave Reading a spell of possessions. You have to give credits to Steve Coppell's men, who remained resilience throughout, and never gave up. Even their fans showed their supports as they also knew that their team were up against one of the best teams in the world.
Hahnemann was fortunate to not get sent off as he took down Fabregas after the Spaniard once again made a penetrating run to receive Henry's excellent through ball. Henry then coolly converted the resulting penalty.
After this master class display, Arsenal look like genuine title contenders. They are only 5 points behind joint leaders Man Utd and Chelsea, with one game in hand. The ease of their victory at the Madejski Stadium is also a psychological boost when both Man U and Chelsea had to battle hard here.
Steve Coppell said of Arsenal, "They are not in our league, even though we are in the Premiership," and when asked to compare Arsenal to Man U and Chelsea, Coppell said, "Their football is more fluent."
But he is not too downbeat, "With the quality they have, on the field and on the bench, we were always going to be chasing the game. We played as well as we were allowed to. There was a spell in the last 15 minutes when we did really well, despite being 4-0 down."
Arsene Wenger is optimistic that his team will get even better, "I'm not sure if that was our best performance of the season. We can improve - the team is getting better."
Reading:
Marcus Hahnemann, Ulises De la Cruz (Brynjar Gunnarsson), Ivar Ingimarsson, Nicky Shorey, Ibrahima Sonko, James Harper, Steve Hunt, Ki-Hyeon Seol (John Oster), Steven Sidwell, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long (Glen Little)
Arsenal:
Jens Lehmann, Johan Djourou, William Gallas, Justin Hoyte, Kolo Toure, Cesc Fabregas, Aleksandr Hleb (Emmanuel Adebayor), Tomas Rosicky (Alexandre Song Bilong), Gilberto Silva, Thierry Henry, Robin van Persie (Theo Walcott)
Goals: Thierry Henry 1, 70(pen.), Aleksandr Hleb 39, Robin van Persie 50
Referee: Wiley, A
Venue: Madejski Stadium
Attendance: 24,004
Corners:
Reading: 10
Arsenal: 2
Goal Attempts:
Reading: 3
Arsenal: 17
On Target:
Reading: 1
Arsenal: 10
2:48 PM
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