Post-Arsenal match reactions

I'm beginning to enjoy doing my post-match reaction debunking now more than ever. It's always fun to ridicule recycled opinions of matches, especially when they are manipulated by the commentators from the match and the press. Those who don't understand the intentions and motives of the media are deemed to repeat their words. I actually listened to the commentators for this match, something I rarely do nor would rather do, and I have to tell you, their comments were laughable at best. Anyhow, moving on...

Let's start with Ian Doyle's assessment for the Liverpool Daily Post. I have little issue saying that Mr. Doyle has written the best review I have read of the match so far, though I have yet to read Chris Bascombe's take. Doyle is quite fair to both sides though I don't agree with his entire view.

First, he fails to give importance to Mascherano's injury with ten minutes to go in the match. If Masche had been able to continue his shadowing of Fabregas, the Arsenal equalizer would have surely had to come from another source. Also, I thought it was a brilliant move by Wenger to push the young Spaniard forward to further Masche's negating influence.

Doyle instead puts the blame on Arbeloa, who he felt was playing too far forward which allowed Chucky Fab to beat him. At the very least it was a communication or tactical error. Looking back, I bet Rafa now would have pushed Sami forward and put Arbeloa at centre-back, but hindsight is 20-20 and what is done, is done.

A couple of other points from Doyle is that he gives recognition to Rafa's formation change, which will probably be ignored in most match reviews, but then he praises Crouch, I'm not sure why though. For the first time in a while, I agree the lanky striker actually looked as if he wanted to score, but after about ten minutes he returned to his useless form. Doyle also noted Eboue's card-deserving flop in the box when he received a slight-nudge from Carra though tried to make it look like a knockout punch. Moving on...

Sam Wallace of the Independent wrote a clearly-biased and insipid review that takes about as much stabs at comedy than Andrei Chikatilo. Mixed-in with asinine comments about player's hair and boardgame references, were cheap shots at Benitez and orgiastic Arsenal praising. If Arsenal were so good, why didn't they win, Mr. Wallace? Hitting the sidebar is not hitting the back of the net. Anyhow.

The most entertaining and baseless reviews always come from the opposition's bloggers. Most believe they were the better side and I can't flatly disagree with that assessment, but if anyone thought the Gunners dominated, well, you're delusional. As I said prior, hitting the bar is still a miss, and to base your opinion on that is just self-deception.

My favorite has to be insidearsenal.com's review. If you want to undermine your own valuation of a match, simply quote a match commentator in the opening sentence. Good to hear you can think for yourself. If you want to make yourself out to be a clown, do it again in the second paragraph. Gees.

Anyhow, other than being seduced by Andy Gray and clearly manipulated by the commentator's lip service, this guy fails to realize that fate is a two-headed monster. Anybody can 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' but the end result happened for a reason. Saying 'with a bit of luck, a solid wall, some composure in front of goal and an accurate final ball we would have stolen the spoils', is just ridiculous.

He also likes to spew stats, but incorrectly assesses whether or not they are either a determination of a side's performance or if it is a good result. He first writes that Arsenal had 63% of possession in the match, which his true, but believes this matters somehow. It doesn't, you can have 80% possession and lose 10-0, it only matters what you do with the ball when you have it.

Then he tries to make us believe that Fabregas' 86% passing completion percentage is good 'for this kind of match'. Really? Well, I guess if that's a good passing percentage 'for this kind of match' than Dirk Kuyt (100%), Steve Finnan (94%), Hyypia (89%), Xabi Alonso (86%), and Steven Gerrard (89%) are better passers than Chucky Fab. I don't believe that at all, except for maybe Xabi, but hell, Mascherano had a subpar match passing-wise, but still completed 83%. Laughable.