Gunners squash the Tangerines – Arsenal 6-0 Blackpool
Arsenal comprehensively beat newly-promoted Blackpool by 6 goals to nil. A Theo Walcott hattrick producing the highlight of the match.
Ian Holloway’s side had Ian Evatt sent off early on for a challenge on Marouane Chamakh and from then on the game was only going to get worse for the Seasiders.
England star Walcott was electric on the wing and put away some fine finishes while Cesc Fabregas and Robin Van Persie came on midway through the second half, much to the delight of the watching Arsenal faithful.
Almunia
Sagna – Song – Vermaelen – Clichy
Wilshere – Diaby – Rosicky
Walcott – Chamakh – Arshavin
21-year-old Walcott was a controversial omission from Fabio Capello’s ill-fated World Cup squad, only to be welcomed back into the England fold following the dismal display in South Africa.
It may just have proved to be a decision which brings the best out of Walcott this season as the former Southampton trainee tore them apart from kick-off, sweeping Arsenal into an 11th-minute lead.
Andrey Arshavin made it 2-0 from the penalty spot after defender Ian Evatt had been sent off for a foul on Marouane Chamakh, which looked just outside the box.
Walcott added a third before the break, with Abou Diaby slotting home number four at the start of the second half and the England man – whose only international goals came with a famous hat-trick in Croatia during September 2008 – then securing the match ball with another well-taken finish.
Arshavin fed Chamakh down the left, and the free transfer signing from Bordeaux quickly laid the ball off to Tomas Rosicky, who in turn rolled a pass onto the advancing Russian.
With the Blackpool defence stretched, Arshavin put Walcott clear into the right side of the penalty area, and he dispatched a first-time strike into the bottom corner in the 12th minute.
It was a vintage Arsenal goal but the hosts were almost caught cold immediately afterwards.
Stephen Crainey sent over a lovely cross from the left, which dropped to Gary Taylor-Fletcher at the far post but his downward header was just wide.
Arsenal were awarded a penalty in the 32nd minute when Evatt slid in from behind on Chamakh, in a challenge which looked just outside the box.
Referee Mike Jones pointed to the spot and despite the Blackpool protests, went straight to his pocket for the red card. Arshavin stepped up to drive the ball into the bottom right corner.
It was now a case of damage limitation for Blackpool, who brought on new signing Dekel Keinan, the Israel defender, for striker Ludovic Sylvestre.
A brilliant block from Gilks prevented Chamakh from making it 3-0, before, in the 38th minute, Walcott turned Keinan on the penalty spot and drilled the ball into the far corner.
Busy Blackpool goalkeeper Gilks saved Chamakh’s near-post effort from Gael Clichy’s left-wing cross. However, he was picking the ball out of the net again four minutes after the restart when Diaby swept in Bacary Sagna’s centre.
Walcott completed his hat-trick in the 58th minute when he curled the ball inside the far post after being fed by Diaby.
Arshavin squared for Chamakh in the six-yard box, but the ball took a bounce just ahead of reaching the Moroccan striker, who shinned it over.
As the hour mark passed, Arsenal introduced Fabregas and Van Persie, replacing Diaby and Arshavin, to a standing ovation before Walcott was also given a well-deserved rest.
Chamakh got a home Premier League debut goal when he headed in Van Persie’s corner seven minutes from time.
Man of the Match – Theo Walcott – Set the game alight. Like Ian Holloway said after the game, he was “unplayable” today. Can he keep it up for the rest of the season? Let’s hope so.
Great to win, but I like holloway, and his team still tried to play, so good on them. Hope they stay up
The boys done us proud. Pleased Chamakh got on the score sheet. He needed it after the amount of chances he missed.
Walcott needs to carry this form into the nx game and nx one after
Walcott is a beast !!!
Now what u guys like to tell about walcott? his performance answered all your thought about him… 🙂
theo walcott may have to play more direct and aggressive upfront.
im shocked that wilshere is gettin soo much time on the pitch but itz a good thing. great game=] enjoy this but dont get carried way we werent testd today=]
i hope this doesnt somehow convince wenger that we dont need strengthening…
@chris: soooooooo true
Walcott was electric.
By far this was Theo’s best performance in an Arsenal shirt.Good performance but let’s not get carried away. The squad still needs strengthening. Let’s get ready for Blackburn as that will be a difficult game as usual.
If not for the red cad, dose guys would av showed us pepe,but wacot n roscisky realy impresed me 2day.
I doubt a professional like the Wenger will suddenly forget that we have 2.5 defenders for the whole season. he’s still gonna get us at least 1 signing before end of month guaranteed, if we get new keeper then 2 signings guaranteed, people just need to give him a chance. if u’ve been watching the premier league u would realize 70% of all transfer buisness happens in the last week of the window. 🙂 unfortunately I didn’t get to catch the game, but the highlights showed exactly whats expected from pre-season. Sounds like Rosicky showed his value, hopefully he’ll get more chances now that he’s fit. He’s always been one of my favorites, since I first saw him play for czechs and dortmund like 5 years ago, awesome guy with really bad luck. Looks like walcott had a good game 2, which is great cause I bet he’ll be playing there instead of nas while he’s injured. Some ?s for u guys: Did Arsh perform better? was Fab reception crazy? did he play well? did djorou look ok with the verm?
Anyone with half a football brain will know that the most talented player on the pitch today was THOMAS ROSICKY!!!
Expected win,good for confidence ahead of a tough tie vs Blackburn
@George: Yeah George I really like Rosicky and I hope he can stay injury free..
@George: exactly right mate. also, it is about TIME Theo started playing some football, i believe we are makin him rich for the last god knows how many years and so far he has produced Nothing, so, yeah, about time he wakes up and smells the grass, or he can fu** off in the summer along with the money grabing dwarf from Spain…
arsene just said he will make some defensive signing next week on BBC 🙂
Just got back home after the match. I was impressed with the ceremony before the match. Glad alot of arsenal fans got to their seats in time for it.
Walcott was excellent, shooting first time is what we need to do more often. He still made some misjudgements, like passing when it was far easier to shoot and shooting when it was easier to square it to chamakh. But to score three goals from the wing is very good, its the best performance from him i’ve seen in years.
Rosicky was immense too, probably the best arsenal player out there today. He is so calm when he has the ball and he knows where the other arsenal players are. Wilshere was great, made some fantastic passes and tracked back well. He still loses the ball in dangerous areas unnecessarily, but he will improve with more games. It was good to see the fans give a great reception for our captain when he came on, he didn’t do much in the game and looked a little leggy, but he’s only just come back. I’m glad to see him. Asharvin was much improved from the liverpool game, but he still loses the ball a lot and goes for some silly back heels, they never work out. No much to say about song and vermaelen, they looked very solid, but its hard to judge against a team like blackpool. Same goes for our keeper.
I know that the points where in the bag at half time, but it seems a shame that arsenal fans have to leave their seats with ten minutes left on the clock.
Well done arsenal!! keep it going!
It was Rosicky today who stole every touch he had on the ball. Had he not been on the pitch, I highly doubt it would have been 6-0. Well done Rosicky and Walcott, you two were the stars of tonight.
Proud to be the Gunner.
I think is was a very good win and it will give Theo and the match good confidence going forward.
But lets leave it at that B Pool were poor today and didnt pressure Arsenal when they had the ball, its easy to play footy when you down have a player breathing down your neck every time we had the ball.
Good win but its only three points hopefully we can build on this win another one aganist Blackburn they aint going to make it easy
I always think the Walcott defenders don’t understand the Walcott doubters. Most of the doubters, which I have been one, don’t believe that Walcott is always cr*p, but that he only occasionally has a good match – by my estimation about 1 in 8. For Walcott to prove all the doubters wrong he will have to improve upon that ratio and in the matches he isn’t excellent be at least decent.
@arseneman: I NEVA UNDERSTOOD WHY ARSENAL FANS LIKE LEAVE 10MINS EARLY.LOLOL ITZ REALLY SAD ….WOULD U LEAVE A CINEMA B4 THE MOVIE(NOT CREDITS) FINISHES?
@ilya:
the place errupted when cesc and rvp started to warm up, never mind when they went on.
Arshavin was, once again poor. he didnt seem interested and he gave the ball away waaaay too much. I thought he was world class but he, as adebayor did before him fooled me into thinking so.
song played with TV5 but they didnt hav much to do…
Also wenger has said he tries not to buy more than 3 players in the one window incase it unsettles the dressing room. (but i think thats just an excuse for being tight)
I think you’re being a bit harsh on Arshavin today. He was much better today than he has been playing. Looked very strong on the ball at times. He scored one, assisted at least one of the goals and had several very good attempts himself. Ive been annoyed at his most recent performances too but he did well today.
Would like to see Gibbs given a few chances. Clichy lacked a bit of concentration and maybe needs a bit competition out of anyone. Also Gibbs seemed to link up well with Arshavin during pre-season.
Don’t worry man arsh will come good soon, I promise. He’s got some little niggle i feel and as soon as thats figured he’ll be his old self. He was terrible for Russia and said that he had an injury after match, which i’m guessing is the reason. We all know the guy is class, when he was in good when we first bought him jan 08 and beggining of last season he was playing really well, which is normal, but then he had a bunch of injury problems after january and he looked ragged by the end of the season. Still, he’s one of our top ranked players so I’m sure he’ll come through for us when its needed
@ilya: jan 09
good call nasri83, i also noticed that they played very well together, gibbs is really fast and trickier then clichy, but clichy is probably a better defender and stays back more often. I think because gibbs can cover more space and stays up further, maybe it gives arsh more freedom to attack and hassle the opposition defense, instead of track back and help defend in the midfield.
so we win 6-0 and now everyone starts supporting the team. wake up. this is arsenal and we’ll always be arsenal. don’t just applaud the boys when we win. be behind them at all times. i’ve never been sour for us not winning anything for 5 years so that makes this victory more sweet. but look and those blue smurfs. 12 goals in 2 games. it’s gonna be a long season. wenger bring in that CB and GK asap!
I always support the team but at the same time I moan about not buying pleyers for positions where we need reinforcements, if Wenger buys MS and a CB then the only thing to moan will be our injuries (hopefully as few as possible) and maybe Denilson :]
Walcott will be the same player when he confronts some serious defenders in a serious team. Blackpool today were like headless chicken. Walcott screwed up at least 5 final passes that would’ve certainly resulted in goals. Yeah he got three but he is the same player he was three years ago when he got two at Birmingham, and faded away against serious defenders.
T. Rosicky was man of the match IMO. He definitely looks like a proper Rosicky, fit, agile, creative, quick and so on. Wilshere disappointed me, he looks like a dirty player in these games he played, but I’m certainly expecting him to cement his place if not this, then in the next few years.
@Me shut up man you are so negative.
At first, respect for wenger and his imaginative use of song as a central defender. I think it could work and should be further tested. second, the game was nice to look at and the starting line up should look like today at the end. except with walcott and arshavin. and without clichy. He is the absolute weakness of the team and that is against stronger opponents are even more apparent than today. Finally, I like the play and movement of Wilshere and Chamakh and I think they should play regulary and Rosicky and, or arshavin make much less than circus than nasri and bring much more for the game. So instead of clichy should play gibbs and nasri only as a substitute and everything will be fine.
in two years time… wilshere can become a complete midfielder… now he learn how to defend… before this he learn how to attack… we have very bright future… he can replace Rosicky…. he can work on the left or right also… he is fantastic…. the only thing i pray for him is will not get horrible injury like our players before….
OK, very good game, 3 points, obvious, very easy for a top team….bring on a real team, I can’t see again another “joke” of team like B’pool, nothing else…
Think the World Cup omission has done more good for walcott than bad
I thought it was a sparkling game but that penalty should probably have been a free kick, non the less, Arsenal were fantastic, Walcott was great (I will say against a higher class team, he might have only squeezed one goal though today) but at least he’s becoming consistent. Not going to the world cup allowed him to stay and train with Arsenal and he’s improved
still too early to criticise him though, when Wayne Rooney was 21, no one criticised the things he did wrong, they only looked to the areas upon which he is starting to get better on as England desperately needed a striker so everybody backed him to be a good player and look what happened. However, with Walcott, everyone just jumps on his back and pulls him down instead of giving him support because if he became what we hope he eventually becomes, we virtually will have an english Lionel Messi.
Other areas of the game that impressed me is Vela, didnt need to score, all he needed to do was pull off the incredible juggling skill for 18 yards and nearly could have scored, he does that and it would have been my goal of the season, no one has really tried some trickery like that since Ian Wright
I think there are only nine days left for the transfer window to close…..I think Sébastien Squillaci will be an Arsenal player next week after seeing Wenger`s comments it seems close…..I just hope we can sign Mark Schwarzer…But he has to make a big affort to leave and make some pressure on Fulham to sell him otherwise his dream of playing Champions League football is over and also we end up with Almunia in goal for yet another season…..To be honest though I don`t blame Wenger for not biding 3m for a 38yr old who`s contract is due next year NO wonder we don`t have that much British players – Everyone rips you off….Milner,Berbatov,R.Keane,Lescott – I think these players have cost more than 100million hehehehehehe
This is the video of sebastien squilacci in case some people dont know who he is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnvbpG_N9rw. from the video i think he is good in the air and has an eye for goals just like gallas. also he is an experienced center back and has win trophyies with clubs he has played for.
I hope Stockdale is man of the match today
WillyG, me too 🙂 any news about the reason of Schwarzer not being in goal? And is he on the bench or not?
http://arsenalaction.com/2010/08/22/schwarzer-fails-medical-at-arsenal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=schwarzer-fails-medical-at-arsenal
Schwarcer is not in the fulham team today.
There is some news going on that Schwarzer failed a medical…..Dont know if true or not…
MARTIN DEMICHELIS anyone. He’s one of the best CB’s in the world, and can play as a DMC. He’s 29 now and IMO would be the best choice. Could get him for as much as 10 mil pounds
Schwarzer failed the medical but at Fulham, that’ s probably the reason of him not playing today
Demichelis is awful. As bad as Mexes! Too busy poncing around with their alice bands and ponytails. And Arshavin is the laziest player I have ever seen. Stands around waiting for the ball and then tries casual two yard passes to Clichy who has made a 40 yard overlap. How can anyone who trains full time be as unfit – unless he’s on the Vodka!
@Bob John: Dear John you’re blind man. I’ve seen Demichelis play more than 50 times and he’s a monster. Better than all our CB’s. His marking is very tight, he’s quick, no nonsense defender. Mexes is error and injury prone and Demichelis is nowhere near at any of those two frailties.
@Me: You must have been on Mars during the World Cup. Even Samaras made Demichelis look like a pub player!
squillaci fee agreed, link below.
http://www.sevillafc.es/_www/actualidad.php?op=not&id=18304
Sébastien Squillaci is an Arsenal player tomorrow..Sevilla confirmed on their website that a bid has been accepted
You beat me to it Richie hehehe
sure did!great news.
20sec difference :-)@richie: 20sec difference 🙂 Im happy hope he does well for us
as for the match, it was great to watch, though funny how a 6-0 match can even be frustrating at times. theo walcott was absolutely fantastic, motm easily as he just could not be stopped. realistically he should have had about 4 goals and a few assists, still made some mistakes but was immense.
mozart has been the top player for arsenal thus far. he has been fantastic. glad to see him in the central midfield where he has owned play thus far.
arshavin was better and even had good pressure. chamakh sometimes finishes like bendtner but is awesome in the air and works his butt off.
cesc and rvp were fairly poor – they really are out of shape and cesc did not seem too interested. still, good to get them some minutes in the match.
jack the lad did well though he still needs to be more offensive and vertical instead of side to side. better match today than against liverpool.
song tv5 and sagna were brilliant without having much to do. clichy is still suspect.
diaby was very poor in the first half, losing the ball and dribbling too much once again. he is simply not a defensive midfielder and despite all his talent is so frustrating to watch. second half a bit better bit still a bench player for me.
one complaint is that we should have won 12-0 or more. unfortunately, chelsea scores 6 goals against teams like wigan and wba (crap teams i know) because they get goals based on hard work and determination (a chamakh type goal). we score beautiful goals but once we get 2 or 3 up we take our foot off the pedal. that needs to stop. the best teams go for the kill.
glad about ss signing. he and tv5 should be great together. it will be interesting to see whether chamakh starts going forward with cesc and rvp coming back. chamakh gives us something different that we need – height, skill in air, winning balls and keeping, work rate but who gets cut out? i cannot see arshavin or theo out and you have cesc and rvp too.
for now, id like almunia, sagna, tv5, ss, clichy, song, rosicky, cesc, arshavin, rvp, and theo. though if we play chamakh maybe it is:
chamakh rvp
arshavin cesc theo
song
clichy tv5 ss sagna
almunia
though that seems a bit crap for mozart who has been outstanding. we will see certainly. good problem to have.
Bob john ur opinions directly contradict reality. Demichalis is one of the reasons bayern almost got a treble last season, it sounds like ur basing ur ratings on hair length instead of skill or quality. Same with Arshavin, even though he’s one of our top ranked players, I’ve noticed a lot of “experts” being over-critical toward him for no reason. If u actually play football u would appreciate the quality a player like him brings to the table. U also have to be realistic and remember that no players are on form all season, especcialy not in the brutal Premier League
like that picture of RvP and Wenger. What a good game… when Cesc and RvP get integrated back into the team nicely, it’ll be great to see the combination play between them and Chamakh, Arshavin and Rosicky. Rosicky was brilliant and at the heart of everything good. Hopefully he’ll stay fit and hungry all season!