Gunners Hang On For Dear life

If today's game at Aston Villa had been a movie, it would've been Titanic. The first half of the movie would've featured Leonardo DiCaprio standing on the bow of the ship, wind whipping in his hair as he shouted, "I'm the king of the world!"

The 2nd half would've been Leo slipping and falling over the edge, just catching the railing with his hands and spending the rest of the voyage barely hanging on for dear life.

Such was the nature of the game, an eventual 2-1 win away. The first half was electric. Despite going down on a 14th minute goal, based on some dodgy defensive play, the Gunners showed sufficient clarity of purpose and skill to resume normal operations with a smashing 23rd minute goal from Matthieu Flamini and a 34th minute header goal from Adebayor. Arsenal looked very dangerous for much of the half and if they'd scored a 3rd you'd have known they deserved it.

Then came the 2nd half. It started with Aston Villa putting the Gunners under pressure and the Arsenal boys not showing any response other than to start passing to men in blue and red. The Gunners showed some horrendous, wounded passes. Adebayor seemed intent on making up for his goal by passing anything he could find to a Villan.

Although, it was time for a Captain to take hold of the team, Captain Bill went in the other direction and dropped an F-bomb in the referee's face earning a yellow card. For all the composure Arsenal has shown this year, they could not find it today.

Kudos to Aston Villa and Martin O'Neill, who played an inspired and quality half of football.
Flamini gets my man of the match for his first half play. He must've had 5 or 6 shots on goal today. And he ran the lanes well and played tough defense. He disappeared quite a bit in the 2nd half, but so did everyone else in red and white.

Almunia played well in goal - for the most part. He cleared several dangerous balls in on set pieces and caught what was thrown to him. He did make one incredibly boneheaded play, rolling the ball in to the middle of the field to an Arsenal player marked tightly by 2 Villans. Could've been trouble, but we were lucky.

All's to the good in the end, though, as Arsenal remains tops of the table with a cushion of 5 points and a game in hand.