Lots of news to get through so let me jump straight into the review of Saturday's game.
As I said on Friday we lost this game last year and after losing two games so far this year we couldn't afford any more defeats this early. We didn't start well on Saturday and young goalkeeper Vito Mannone was tested, producing one great double save in the first half and another which flashed across goal but he managed to keep out.
In the second half a great pass from a very below-par Fabregas set RvP through who controlled and shot excellently to put Arsenal 1-0 up despite not playing very well at all. We continued to face pressure after the goal and Mannone was again tested, this time by Zamora, and later Sagna deflected a shot onto the outside of the post.
Arsenal managed to hang on and I think it says it all about this game that Mannone was a thoroughly deserved man of the match. He was very busy and Arsenal were very lucky to escape with a point, never mind all three.
It's hard to know how to feel about Saturday's game. On the one hand teams need to know how to win when not playing well. It's one of the things Chelsea and Man Utd are praised for and Arsenal are accused of not being able to do. On the other hand we will rarely find our goalkeeper in such good form or the opposition so wasteful as they were on Saturday, so I wouldn't like to see us push our luck against a better team.
A few points to make following on from Saturday. Obviously the goalkeeper was excellent but despite all the chances I do feel the defence are improving. There was a moment when Fulham were attacking and Vermaelen saw Mannone racing off his line and he quickly pointed for him to get back into position. I liked that and it was good to see someone taking charge back there. Vermaelen is a natural leader and a natural defender, something we have lacked for a while.
The other point worth making is that we have 12 points from our first six games and that is exactly the same as our first 6 games last year but is four more points than we managed from the same fixtures last season. Some kind of progress I guess.
Arsenal announced their full year results today and there is a good video here with Gazidis speaking about them, including some interesting news on the Highbury Square development. I hope to go through these results in a bit more depth later in the week.
Finally, some injury news ahead of tomorrow's Champions League game with Olympiacos. Nicklas Bendtner is out after a minor car accident. Doesn't sound serious, just some bruising and the manager says he should be back for Sunday. Walcott is also short of match fitness so will not be in the squad tomorrow but Eduardo is back in the squad after missing out on Saturday.
Also Wenger has revealed today that Denilson is out for another two months after it was discovered he has a small fracture in his back. I don't know how we continue to collect injuries at this rate, and then see these injuries constantly extended in length. Either we are desperately unlucky or we are doing something badly wrong. We still have seven players from the first team squad out, assuming nobody else is added to that list tomorrow. More team news tomorrow, let's hope there is no more bad news.
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