Arsenal cruised into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup against Championship side Burnley thanks to goals from Carlos Vela, Eduardo, their captain of the day, and Emmanuel Eboue.
Burnley started brightly looking to capitalise on the match of the inexperienced Kieran Gibbs with the trickery of Chris Eagles. The forwards Martin Paterson and Robbie Blake harried the Arsenal rearguard, whilst the central midfield pairing of Chris McCann and Joey Gudjonsson sought to provide extra bite going forward.
Only the young Gibbs managed to subdue Eagles, as Arsenal soon started to dominate proceedings.
The intelligent Andrey Arshavin gained possession near the touchline. In quick succession, he controlled it before encouraging Vela to skip past his man and run through on goal.
Here Vela atoned for his miss at Turf Moor earlier in this season’s Carling Cup, with a sublime chip to dupe goalkeeper Brian Jensen.
Arsenal on song
Both goalkeepers were largely untroubled until Arsenal added a second. Alexandre Song’s cross-field chip found Eduardo on the far post, whose sublime volley left Jensen hapless.
Burnley’s first effort at goal came on fifty three minutes when Martin Paterson’s curling shot narrowly strayed past goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski’s left-hand post.
Burnley manager Owen Coyle added reinforcements to his attack. Only little materialised and it was Arsenal who stepped up a gear and put the tie to bed.
Song capped a fine display with his second assist that saw Eboue latch onto his back heel. Renowned for being wasteful, Eboue finished with aplomb, striking the ball hard and low into the bottom right-hand corner.
Finally Burnley started to play more adventurously. Their best chance of the game fell to their captain Steven Caldwell whose header evaded everyone but the crossbar.
Arsenal were also wasteful in front of goal. Robin van Persie and Eduardo were both guilty of failing to add to the home side’s tally. Long-term absentee Theo Walcott should have scored on his return when free one-on-one, only his tame effort was well saved by the ‘keeper.
Afterwards, Arsene Wenger was bullish about his sides chances of winning silverware this season: “Is it possible to win two trophies? Yes because we are in there. After that it is important to give everything we can to make it happen.”
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment