Swansea City 1 - 2 Arsenal: Nervy end but we win again

Swansea/Arsenal games always get hyped as some of sort of purists wet dream (what is a purist, anyway?), but ever since Swansea have come up they've always been the same. Viewers get lots of passing football, but not in the free-flowing, offensive sense but, rather, in the cagey, side-to-side pass the opposition to death sense. Long periods are usually spent by both teams to probe the opposition and try and gain a sense of control and as a result of that chances come few and far between.

That's precisely what happened tonight, with about six shots in the first half and little in the way of excitement. The defences were mostly on top, with every Swansea attempt at getting in behind mopped up by Gibbs and Koscielny and every Arsenal attempt to play into Giroud's feet met by firm defending from Chico and Amat. In the middle, Swansea edged the possession battle as Arsenal played their usual stand-offish game while Swansea generally looked to get tight. Not only could Arsenal not use Giroud as a wall to bounce passes off, they also lacked width and pace. Though Gnabry was doing a fine job tracking the runs of Ben Davies, he didn't offer the same movement and directness that Walcott usually provides, and the likes of Özil and Wilshere aren't going to get into the game if the team isn't keeping or using the ball well.

The best chance came right at the end of the half. Gnabry provided some much needed directness going forward, beating a few players before finding Giroud with a cute pass. Unfortunately, Giroud put his shot wide when he should have scored. It's these sorts of chances that he missed regularly last season and the ones he needs to start converting if he's to reach the next level.

We improved in the second half and started to get Gnabry and Özil more involved in the build-up play. This paid dividends as they were involved in the move for the first goal, with Gnabry exploiting a pocket of space behind Swansea's defence to finish coolly across Vorm. We seemed to grow in confidence after that and scored a brilliant second goal not long after, with Wilshere and Giroud playing instrumental parts before Ramsey's excellent finish.

This is yet another lesson that having more possession means little. Arsenal weren't dominating the ball but in four minutes they converted whatever possession they had into two very well-worked goals. Swansea would then spend most of the remainder of the half struggling to create a clear cut opportunity, and the one time they did, which resulted in Davies' goal, came from more direct play.

The last ten minutes were very nervy as we didn't have control over the game. Swansea were completely dominating the ball and we had to keep clearing our lines, but we did manage to see it out in the end by keeping our cool and not making any mistakes.

Ultimately, our success so far this season has resulted from the considerably smaller amount of mistakes we make during a game.

Today's been an excellent day with all our rivals bar Liverpool, who play tomorrow, dropping points. While it's still way too early to start thinking about point leads and title challenges, you can't help but be encouraged by the start we've made this season, especially with the number of injuries we have.

Next up: a very difficult game at home against Napoli.

Jay with another excellent analysis, Arsenal with another gritty win. Best time to be a Gooner in a while. KEEP IT GOING.

Struggle to create anything in the first half but came back into the second half with more purpose and belief. Apart from the equalizer the defense was absolutely amazing, they stopped everything Swansea had to thrown at us. Gnabry did well today, he seems to be gaining more confidence. Started slowly but grew into it, hopefully that goal will give him that extra boost to actually try things in the final third. Dissapointed Ozil din't score

We are where we should be now, no better no worse. Said before the season started our first 10 games are much easier than utd, Chelsea and cities (maybe not city). So we need to build a lead at the top or we have no chance later on. At least we are on the right track to do that, after villa it did not seem we would

Perfectly summed up.

It was a game which was always going to be more about tactics than action. Laudrup knows how to cancel us. Arsene knows how to be patient and when to hit them.

First half our focus was to not concede and not give them any space. We pressed them high up and it stayed compact. Second half was a lot more open and we played some beautiful football.

Great result and a great win.

Koscielny and Ramsey for MOTM.

Gnabry has surprised me, thought he would be "jaded" after playing a lot recently but glad he proved us wrong.

This Team is just .

Gnabry looked way more confident than the past matches.

Ramsey all I can say is   

Jay summed it perfectly. Ramsey was AGAIN MOTM with his goal, assist and general play. Probably the most in form midfielder in Europe right now.

Positives:

Defended well despite conceding
We were fairly clinical (scored 2 from our 4 chances)
Mental strength :wenger:
Didn't drop physically a little bit in the second half :wenger:

Negatives:

No clean sheet. We are conceding one goal per game from a moment of madness or brilliance despite defending well all game. Really weird, I hope we can cut those random goals conceded later in the season because we're going to need to keep clean sheets in cup competitions.

No other negative considering the fact that we're missing half a team and still winning.

Napoli, next!

ermm, ozil needs to improve ALOT to justify that pricetag. but we need to give him time. he has the potential to improve i can see it in him.

Little bit worried about this team having to start twice a week, but on the upside we're on top of the table and with key players still to return from injury I can only see us getting better.

Good start to the season
Let's keep this going.

REWB wrote:ermm, ozil needs to improve ALOT to justify that pricetag. but we need to give him time. he has the potential to improve i can see it in him.

He was never going to score a good number of goals because he's not like that.I don't know what you expect from him.Highest number of assists in the prem while only playing half the games.

Also,He would have more assists if he had more people to pass to.Giroud rarely ever scores from through passes,almost always side ones and there is no one else to make runs and that is why you wouldn't like his game today compared to the other ones.First game he had an assist and made plenty of forward passes because he had Walcott to make runs regularly.Second game he had two assists and today he had none because there was only Giroud.He had 2-3 players to make runs to regularly at Madrid so that's why you'll kind of notice he's not as effective.

REWB wrote:ermm, ozil needs to improve ALOT to justify that pricetag. but we need to give him time. he has the potential to improve i can see it in him.

Not sure if serious, sure he didn't have the most amazing game but he has created three goals already...

Özil is going be insane when we get our natural wingers back, patience lads, have some *bleep* patience.

on getting a win on his 17th anniversary in charge...

It was better than any cake but the first half was quite difficult, Swansea played well, they were sharper than us. We didn't play with enough purpose and they won many duels. In the second half we played in a more compact way and took advantage of every time we won the ball to be dangerous. We have seen a different Arsenal that is much more clinical and playing with much more purpose. We hung on a little bit in the last 15 minutes and they came back to 2-1 but overall I felt we deserved to win the game.

on being more clinical this season…

First of all that's linked with young players who improve naturally in the final pass. We have added Ozil who can give a good ball in the final third and at the moment we have more confidence as well.

on Ramsey's improvement…

Aaron Ramsey is a young boy and today Ramsey scored and Gnabry scored. Their combined age is 40 years old.

on the other surprising results in the Premier League…

It came as a surprise but it added a bit more pressure because you always feel guilty if you have an opportunity to solidify your position and you don't' take it and I think it's part of a team as well during the season to grab the chance when you have it.

on being eight points clear of Man United…

Yes but it's still an early stage and let's not forget we were in a massive crisis after the first game.

on Gnabry…

He is surprising. He has the talent but the personality on the pitch as well. He doesn't look timid, he looks to play with belief and of course talent. Unfortunately he is another player for Germany, he's not English.

on Gnabry's age when he started at Arsenal…

He was one year old. I can't believe it. Now I have some players in my squad who were not born when I arrived at Arsenal.

on overcoming the 'crisis' of losing on the first day…

In our job there is only one response and that is on the pitch and that is what we did.

on conceding a sloppy goal…

Yes it was a bit of a sloppy goal. It was a bit easy and was down to a lack of concentration.

on scoring two goals in quick succession…

You feel that when we get over the halfway line on the counter-attack that everybody made the right decision and you see the danger coming. That is an enjoyable feeling because you feel when we are on the counter-attack that we can score.

on Ramsey's resurgence…

First of all let's not forget that his career was disturbed by a big injury and you need patience. After that people became a bit impatient with him and put pressure on him when he had some bad games. I believe it was a turning point for him when his game was questioned because it's always an important period in the life of a football player, can you deal with that, come back to basics and practice even harder? Or does he feel sorry for himself and give up. That's when I saw him responding in the way he did. I always thought we would come back and that's why I kept faith in him.

on his goalscoring record…

Honestly I could not predict that. The only thing I can say is that he was always in good positions in the box and because he has improved his technique he doesn't rush his decisions. Even the goal he scored today he needed a good touch, go past a player and finish quickly. Before, he used to rush his finishing but now he is more confident.

on Ramsey continuing his record…

I wish, but finishing is a bit cyclic because he will not score 38 goals in a season and you have to accept that. But it's good you have players from midfield who can score.

Özil will improve as time goes on. He's not up to the speed of the game quite yet and every now and then he gets caught in possession or fails to turn away from his man.

At the same time, the last three games he's played in have required us to do more work without the ball than with it, and that's obviously not where his strengths lie. Also, like every playmaker, he needs runners off the ball to create and against Stoke and today against Swansea he didn't have that. Against Sunderland he had Walcott ahead of him and he created three chances for him alone.

He may have cost £42.5mil, but we shouldn't expect instant impact. Just like with any other new signing, they need time to settle and the price tag shouldn't change that fact.

Great game, first half was boring but we step it up in the second half and could score few more. I wish Giroud had score his great chance.

Just when it felt even if we play 200 minutes where goals gonna come from that Gnabry Goal

for all their possession what did swansea create in 1st half

Wojciech pls!:

keep it up approach it game by game
WBA from their 2nd half performance was so good going forward
shouldnt underestimate them
but still doable
keep it up

I'm afraid Bendy will have to start soon, Giroud is working too hard every game, he's strong but not the kind of physical beast. I dont want hs level drop comes new year.

Ozil will improve, last 2 games were tough due to our opponent aggression, Theo, Santi and Lukas back, he will has plenty of options to pass upfront. I'm surprised our makeshift frontline did well last 2 games ( mostly thanks to Rambo though). Look at Wilian and Afro, Ozil has done more in 45 mins than those 2 guys since the start of the season.

Anyone else like the fact we give teams the ball and just soak the pressure?

Ozil doesn't need to prove himself, he has been class since his arrival. Give him more time he will be even better.

After a few games without any goal analysis (there wasn't much to look at, really), I'm back with the breakdown of three very good goals that are all good examples of why one-touch football is so difficult to defend against.

Arsenal's First Goal:

Chico found himself singled out for our second goal, too:

Arsenal's Second Goal:

Swansea's one-touch stuff wasn't too bad, either:

Swansea's Goal:

Great stuff as usual Jay

cant really blame Mesut for not tracking back not something you expect him anyway

we were not in Arsene position to assess options but given that Davies was better on the ball than Tiendalli(maybe we were lucky otherwise Rangel coulda been their outball and cause more threat)
thought Jenkinson could have been introduced a bit earlier

when is Santi coming back?

great game.. but i saw this coming.. games against Swansea has been the same in the last 2 years.. both teams playing possession football trying to create chances through the middle and finally it comes to the team breaking the first..

we know how Laudrup knows to stop Arsenal.. but Wenger played this game with tactics.. Swansea pressed hard in the midfield and were very accurate in their passing and holding.. we were happy to stay back and defend that fighting for the ball.. the only chance was to break catching them high up.. and no way we can do this without Walcotts pace.. but full credits to our defence esp Gibbs for mopping all their attacks..
2nd half we showed our clinicality and one touch passing breaking them twice within 5 mins.. and last 20 mins we played defending trying to the see the game out.. but Swansea showed their good one touch passing catching Metskrs lack of concentration which ended in some nervy moments.. but we are confident these days we see out such kind of games 100%..

so a very efficient away win.. to make things more sweet, all our rivals dropped points..

Sczeny - 7 esp some very good high ball catching..
Sagna - 6
Metskr - 6 one moment of lapse..
Kos - 6
Gibbs - 7
Flamini - 6 this was certainly one game where Arteta could have done better in holding the ball and starting our attacks from back..
Ozil - 6 that miss
Ramsey - 7
Wilshere - 7 played today under clear instructions as a LW.. great heart shown there to track up and sown and 2nd goal belongs to him..
Giroud - 6 great hold up play.. the only reason we could reach the final third.. shot wide.. he should score more from such angles.. why not give it a shot than trying for the difficult placement..
Gnabry - 7 MOM.. i thought he would flop today.. after a unimpressive tiring league cup game.. Wenger could have played Arteta today and benched him.. but Wenger showed his trust on the youngster and he paid back.. was less effective in the wings initially.. then constantly shifted through the middle.. his dribbles and passing troubled Swansea.. and a great way to score his first PL goal.. and dealt well physically and tracked back well to defend.. cant ask anything more from a 18yr old..