Goonersphere's match review page covering all first team matches. Reviews include scores, injury updates, match stats, and player ratings.
Sam Stubbs-Benbow, known on Twitter as @sambangsdrums, is a student in Sound for television and is a keen musician. He has been following the Arsenal all his life and more widely, is a football nut, keen on anything to do with the beautiful game. You will find him at most home games and a few away ones and will be providing match reviews for Arsenal first team games this season.
It was one of those nights where you can take a lot of positives from a disappointment. For large parts of our clash with Dortmund we outplayed them and we really did deserve a draw, possibly even a win. A couple of moments of naivety sunk us and to give the German side credit, they were extremely impressive too. Their discipline was fantastic and you can see they’re a top side for a reason.
I think they’d win the title with ease over here and it’s only the presence of the best side in the world at the moment (Bayern Munich) that stops them winning it every year in Germany. For us, it’s a lesson, but one that needs to be learnt within the context of our start to the season. Tonight doesn’t show that our start is a flash in the pan, it shows that we’re a few steps away from being a side that can better the best teams around and that is cause for positivity.
A bit of a mixed one for me. I enjoyed parts of the game and the result immensely, but it was slightly tempered by the swathes of sloppiness we witnessed. There was a long period that stretched from the end of the first half to the start of the second and in that Norwich were arguably on top and struggled to find any fluidity. I’m not sure whether it was an International hangover or we had half an eye on the Dortmund game, but we struggled for a big chunk of the game. Thankfully Norwich were utterly toothless and the goal they scored was down to a couple of errors on our part. Having said that, when we clicked, we were simply unplayable. In the last twenty minutes some of the things we did left me speechless and if we can produce some of that against Dortmund, we’ll have a really great chance.
A good point from a slightly average performance in my opinion. We arrived at the Hawthorns having put together one of the most impressive runs of away wins in our history and as the form side in the league. After successfully negotiating one of the more tricky away fixtures at Swansea, I fully expected us to win, but with the way the game panned out I'm content with a point. Not delighted, just content and there are plenty of reasons to remain positive, not least of which is being top of the table (not joint top, top on our own) going into the international break.
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