Youthful Gunners complete double at Anfield

They say lightening never strikes twice. But it did, sort of. 20 years ago as every Gunner knows, we famous won the title when Liverpool were conquered by 2 clear goals. The odds may not have been against the Arsenal youngsters yesterday but nevertheless, they were professional enough to win at Anfield, thereby winning the FA Youth Cup outright.

I was always thinking that whoever impressed yesterday would have marked their name down for a future at Arsenal. Wilshere was always going to be a certainty wasn’t he. Strangely enough for me I thought he had a so-so game at Anfield. But we can let him off can’t we? I thought Lansbury was the most impressive. His off the ball movement was just special and he seems to appreciate the idea of one touch passing. If he continues to improve I can definitely see him challenging Theo on that right flank. Jay-Emmanuel Thomas had a good game, his composure in what was not necessarily an easy game was good to see. I liked the way Bartley took the game to the opposition with his no-nonsense challenges. A bit of tutoring and he definitely has a future at Arsenal too I feel.

What was most impressive about yesterday’s result was the way the team understood each other’s ability and played accordingly. For me there wasn’t one player who was clearly better than the rest. The movement between players was just extraordinary really, it was as if the first team were playing. You know, even the first team didn’t play as good as this at times. Our boys managed to keep their composure. Even when Liverpool equalised, the boys stuck at it and made sure they got the result on the night and overall.

Despite Arsenal’s dominance in the first half, it was Liverpool who started brighter. Lauri Dalla Valle (I thought he was still at that Finnish club, don’t ask me how I know about him) pounced on a back pass and was through on goal but the Gunners goalie Shea rushed out to narrow the angle and the result was a corner instead of a goal. This was within the first 20 minutes of the game and if it was Liverpool who scored first then the outcome of the game would have been very different indeed.

Instead it was 1-0 to the Arsenal (ole!), when Jay-Emmanuel Thomas positioned in almost a left back position managed to spot the run of Sanchez Watt with a Beckham/Fabregas-esque pass and the striker managed to thwart not 1, not 2 but 3 defenders but comfortably slotting it past the Liverpool keeper. Just like that Arsenal were 5-1 up on aggregate.

Liverpool started stronger again in the second half. Curiously their coach decided to take off their best player (I don’t know his name) and it worked for them. Lauri Dalla Valle made up for lost time of sorts by pouncing on a mistake again to level the score, but only on the day. That goal marked a resurgence albeit temporarily because Sanchez Watt was at it again and it was his cross that Ayala deflected to make it 2-1 to Arsenal. It stayed that way meaning it was the Gunners who won overall with the aggregate score of 6-2. I don’t know about you but that is pretty convincing.

The commentators mentioned how certain teams kept some of their players who led them to FA Cup success about 5 years later. I think the success to our quality football will be rewarded much sooner than that, but it would be nice to see the names of these boys being part of Arsenal that lifts a trophy in 2014.

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