With a great win for West Ham (4-0 vs. Manchester United) we must surely be the favorites to win the cup now! Only Arsenal, WestHam, Villa/Birmingham and Ipswich/WestBrom left in so we really have no excuse to not win it. If we are being picky avoid Villa but we’ve shown we can do them over at their own turf!
A good, comfortable performance by Arsenal, finishing just 2-0- which there should have been A LOT more goals (7-0 would have been fair on Wigan) if it wasn’t for terrible finishing by Vela and three dodgy no penalty calls by the ref. Don’t want to speak too soon, but looks like the Carling Cup is coming to North London!
Player Ratings
Szczesny: 6.5- Solid performance from the current number 2. Not really challenged, but handled the few Wigan half chances well.
Eboue: 6- Looked dodgy in the opening minutes vs. Moses, but after Moses was injured there was no threat from the right, and so Eboue had little to do. Didn’t see a lot of him in the opposition half however.
Koscielny: 6.5- No chances created by Wigan, bar a few corners, which were all well cleared. However missed another good chance with a header. Also some good passes out of defence.
Djourou: 7- Same as his defensive partner, without the easy missed header.
Gibbs: 8- Another good performance. Good in defence and good at attacking with a few good passes and crosses. Didn’t stop working the entire match. Surely will overtake Clichy soon?
Theo: 7.5- Mixed performance. Good work rate. Good passes and runs, but his shooting was bad. However good build up play earned him a good match.
Denilson: 8- Alongside Wilshere ran the midfield. Great passing and an excellent tackle against a Wigan counter attack.
Wilshere: 7.5- Ran the midfield with Den. Both stayed deep, with Wilshere being the more advanced of the two.
Vela: 5.5- So many sitters missed! Feel sorry for the lad- he needs to be played more but he won’t be missing so many good chances like he did. However an inch perfect cross for Bendtner saved some dignity for the little Mexican.
RVP: 7- Still quite quiet to what we normally see, but starting to see his form return. A few dangerous runs showed us what we’ve been missing forever so long.
Bendtner: 8 (MAN OF MATCH)- Excellent work rate with a goal (arguably two) to round it all off. Finished off Vela’s cross, and constantly closed down opposition defenders.
Subs:
Nasri (Wilshere): 7- Yet another good(but short) performance of which the only way Wigan could stop him was to hack him down
Eastmond (RVP): N/A Didn’t see much of him
J.E.T (Bendtner): N/A