yesterday's game
and that captains armband looks damn fine on him, too. all in all, my preliminary thoughts on the lineup were that i was going to work out, and i think for the most part i was right. as much as i love Sergio playing a right back position, he was fantastic as a centre back tonight, and having Guti in the midfield made for some lovely passing and just. was a better situation than this weekend's game.
i will never fail to be awed by Ronaldo's speed. on and off the ball, he's just so fast! and of course, the speed at which he scores...i believe it was under 2 minutes this time, which, come on, is pretty awesome. however when he scored i had a flash of worry under the joy because i thought we were in for another game where we scored early and then backed off and got sloppy.
Guti's passing throughout the game was superb, but we seemed to be having trouble linking more than one pass. personally i am a huge fan of the passing game, of course it's more entertaining to watch, but i also really do believe it's a more effective way to play the game, one of the reasons why i love Arsenal. anyway, there was more than one instance where Guti would deliver a fantastic pass, and then the next person would try to pass again...and nobody would be there, and we'd often enough lose possession (possession really shouldn't have been 50/50 for the first half, imho...) and i think that's something we really need to work on, cleaning up midfield passes.
the announcers on the station i was watching kept calling Kaka "Ricky", which i found pretty adorable.
there were a few instances of sloppy defending from the team as a whole that had me worried, but my wonderful Sergio was there to clean things up beautifully, gaining him the well-earned spot of Man of the Match along with Ronaldo over at realmadrid.com (although i believe it should've been Sergio and Guti). but after watching this game i have faith that our defense will tighten with each game. there were simply too many shots against, this time, though. Iker was fantastic, although perhaps not as on form as usual, there was one instance towards the end of the first half when he missed the initial shot and then saved the rebound by throwing his arm out- moments like these that make me think, hey, he might not be entirely on form right now but he's still the best damn goalkeeper in the world and there's a reason we call him San Iker. i love him.
it's kind of bizarre to see the lists of players with cards and NOT see Sergio's name, since he's what, the second highest fouler in La Liga? forgive me if that's wrong. but it's kind of nice to have him off that list. on related note, when Gonzalo kicked Kaka...bitch please, don't kick Kaka!
i didn't think Gago played as well as he could have, personally. he made way too many lazy, stupid tackles that cost us possession and i was seriously afraid of him getting booked.
there were some finishing issues in the second half, just before Kaka's penalty, and we need to work on that as well as our passing. not that every game needs to be a massacre or anything, but finishing power is what we HAVE on this team, so i feel we should deliver. yes.
my heart was happy when Raul came on, and then when Kaka had that penalty. it was a good game.
it really was, despite some of my criticisms. it was, for the most part, a well played game with a decent pass and i feel like we showed more discipline than we have in the past few games. also, seeing Sergio play so absolutely fantastically made my day, and i don't even have words for how fucking fantastic Guti is. despite Ronaldo's early goal, Guti and Sergio were definitely my men of the match.