Wigan Athletic 0 - 4 Arsenal: Comfortable win with little exertion

It's been a while since we've won so comfortably away from home. You'll probaby have to go as far back as last season for the last away game we won so easily.

The only period where we were not in control of the game were the opening twenty minutes. Arsenal actually started pretty slowly and sloppily, failing to keep the ball and not defending particular well. Wigan had 69% posession during this period, and even should've taken the lead. Fortunately for Arsenal, Jordi Gomez missed a sitter.

Arsenal showed some signs of finally waking up, and with Wigan's defence being, to put it bluntly, horrible, we would get our chances eventually. It was Mikel Arteta who opened the scoring, when Wigan just backed off him and left him with so much room. The Spaniard took the opportunity to shoot at goal from distance and found the bottom corner. It was a decent hit, but had the Wigan keeper done better the shot probably wouldn't have gone in.

The next goal decided the game. Before Wigan even had a chance to build-up some pressure and find a way back into the game, Thomas Vermaelen converted van Persie's corner for his second in as many league games with an excellent header.

So it was 2-0 at half time. Arsenal hadn't played that well, but had still managed to find ways to score.

The second half was much better in terms of performance. Arsenal had to be weary of a Wigan comeback - even if it did look unlikely at the time - and so they used the ball much better. With Arsenal dominating posession, Wigan couldn't create any pressure on our goal.

We still needed to kill the game off and did so through Gervinho. Yes, the Ivorian finally found the back of the net again, albeit it was a tap-in and all the work was done by van Persie, who was unlucky not to have scored a fine goal himself. Still, a goal is a goal and hopefully that'll be a boost to his confidence.

From then on, Arsenal probably could've created chances at will. Van Persie wasn't having much luck in front of goal this evening, but eventually got his goal when Walcott unselfishly set-up the Dutchman to score his 14th league goal of the season.

Not much else to say, really. It was a pretty uneventful game bar the four goals.

Another win and still unbeaten
Wigan are a pretty bad side and are deservedly down the bottom. In this sense, the win wasn't any special or remarkable. If anything, it was professional; no messing about, just getting the job done without exerting much energy.

All the same, it's another win and it continues our good form. We're now up to 5th, level on points with Newcastle in 6th and two behind Chelsea in 4th.

Player Ratings
Wojciech Szczesny - 6. Another day of having no saves to make, but he'll welcome the clean sheet, I'm sure. Big props to him for starting up a chant with the fans after the game.

Per Mertesacker - 6. Apart from outstanding block he made, he had nothing to do.

Thomas Vermaelen - 7. Likewise, defensively he had very little to do. Scored the second with a good header.

Laurent Koscielny - 6. Good solid stuff as he continues to deputise at full back.

Andre Santos - 6. Another good showing.

Alex Song - 6. Not much to comment on.

Mikel Arteta - 7. Performed very well tonight, using the ball well and scoring a good goal.

Aaron Ramsey - 7. Showed some nice touches and kept things nice and tidy.

Theo Walcott - 6. Set-up a goal but was pretty quiet all game.

Gervinho - 6. Scored, but was otherwise quiet.

Robin van Persie - 7. Should've scored more. He pretty much toyed with the Wigan defenders all game.

Easy Easy Easy

Everyone played their part...Wigan gifted us this win with some awful defending, we looked like scoring everytime we attacked.

I felt Song didn't have a good game, and we made quite a few poor decisions when we could have easily scored more, but overall this was a good, comfortable win. Almost everybody chipped in.

6 wins in last 7 league games.

8 wins in last 11 league games.

RVP 18 goals in 20 appearances.

great win.
Kosh looked good going forward which is weird
We should of had a penatly through ramsey

RedEyesWhiteBeard wrote:ref was trying to make wigan win, failed miserably

I think he was just feeling sorry for Wigan at times

RedEyesWhiteBeard wrote:ref was trying to make wigan win, failed miserably

bottled a clear peno when Ramsey was fouled shocking decision

It's not like we needed it.

Anyways, up to 5th

He didnt give the penalty because we were 2-0 up. He would have given it if it was 0-0.

Great result. we are 5th atm. No complains

I dont know if Wigan was so terrible or we were so good. Or a combination of both?

Coquelin is a joy to watch.

damn slept thru this one...planned whole day around dis drubbing den close eyes for a second nd boom smfh...

highburied wrote:I dont know if Wigan was so terrible or we were so good. Or a combination of both?

Coquelin is a joy to watch.

mix of both.



wenger needs to stop waiting so long to make subs. he doesnt ever make changes before the 70 min mark, and today we were up 4 goals and he didnt do any subs until around the 80 min mark lol

Good job Jay.

Happy with the clean sheet and glad both RVP and Gervinho scored.

very solid indeed and a game we were always going to win, given the circumstances.

Moreover, it's game like these that Park should be coming on for the last 15-20mins. I don't even think he made the bench. He can play as many games in a week for S.Korea, yet he plays 60min against Citeh and we don't see him again

He will start in midweek im sure

Against Olympiakos?

yea

Pretty low ratings for a 4-0 win away from home Jay.

But good analysis nevertheless

Well I can't give the defenders anything higher than a 6 because they had nothing to do all game, and both wingers were actually quiet.

This is what I mean about it being an unremarkable game. We scored four, but didn't need to play that well.

GoonerJay29 wrote:Well I can't give the defenders anything higher than a 6 because they had nothing to do all game, and both wingers were actually quiet.

This is what I mean about it being an unremarkable game. We scored four, but didn't need to play that well.

Meant to add...I agree with you though. It's true. It wasn't an amazing display but we did the job.

Were the wingers all that quiet though? I sorta disagree with you on that. Walcott and Gervinho were all over the place. They constantly dropped to midfield to help create something, and then suddenly were on the flanks again. They switched flanks often and were running all over the place tbh. Gervinho, in particular, always looked likely to create something. He just needs to work on his final ball; He does so well to evade defenders and get into the box, but he needs to get that final bit right.

Is it just me, or does RVP look pissed after not scoring the third goal?

Arteta loves to shoot from range .

Iceman wrote:Were the wingers all that quiet though? I sorta disagree with you on that. Walcott and Gervinho were all over the place. They constantly dropped to midfield to help create something, and then suddenly were on the flanks again. They switched flanks often and were running all over the place tbh. Gervinho, in particular, always looked likely to create something. He just needs to work on his final ball; He does so well to evade defenders and get into the box, but he needs to get that final bit right.

Depends on your definition of quiet.

To me, what you've described are just the basic things all wingers should be doing in any game. When I was watching the game, I didn't see Walcott or Gervinho being constant menaces to Wigan's defence. I didn't see them consistently taking on their markers, getting balls into the box, getting shots away on goal... that's what I mean by quiet.