In the first half, we looked good and dominated until Vermaelen gave away a dubious penalty that on reflection probably was a penalty. Belhanda stepped up and cheekily chipped it right down the middle. This sparked wild celebrations from their fans and I feared the worst. But 7 minutes later we were level through a very classy Podolski goal, after he was passed in from Giroud, who frankly did basically nothing all game. His second touch opened his body up, selling the keeper a dummy and then putting it past him at the near post, a really great goal. 2 minutes later, we were ahead thanks again to Gervinho. Jenkinson who had a touch and go game (dithering a few times), went charging down the wing, as he did a few times to be fair to him, and put in a great cross for Gervinho in the middle who basically couldn't miss but nearly did! 2-1 Arsenal.
We went in at the half and I felt pretty confident that we'd kick on a kill the game off. Sadly the second half we were poor from the get go. We started and Montpellier battered our goal firing shots all over the place. When we did finally clear our lines, we looked tired physically and didn't really look like we had anything left to give. Steve Bould made the changed as the half went on with Giroud (another goaless appearance), Cazorla and Podolski coming off. Montpellier had a golden chance as the seconds ticked down when Mertesacker completely missed with a sliding tackle leaving the player with the ball about 10 yards out only to smash it straight at Mannone who did well to hold onto it. Diaby who thought the referee wanted to send him off?? made a stupid challenge in the box that I thought was a penalty only to see it waved away.
We were lucky and I'm really not sure why we looked so tired in the second half. If we play like that against city,we'll get battered on Sunday. Ah well. Until then have a good week.
