Honours Even

Nothing like a good score draw to stir the blood. Sunday's match at the Grove was a fine example with both teams on top form. Everton with Ross Barkley in his young pomp may have dominated possession but for the most part were restricted to long shots which were dealt with fairly comfortably by Wojciech Szceszny whilst Arsenal were more methodical in their forward play supplying plenty of decent final balls which Tim Howard just managed to intercept before the likes of Giroud were able to apply a finish.

As the game drew on the frustration with referee Howard Webb waned as the players tired and the quality of the chances increase but when Arsenal took the lead through a Mesut Ozil goal with ten minutes remaining it looked like game over. Everton though dug deep to fashion a fine equaliser courtesy of Gerard Deulofeu which cued up the blue flare, the smell of which reached me in my seat at the top of the Clock End.
Olivier Giroud almost snatched it at the end with a wondrous strike which had it gone in, would have been one of those moments that win league titles. That it didn't was fair to Everton who had firmly established their credentials as the best opponents to face Arsenal this season. That Roberto Martinez had added attacking flair so soon to the steely structure created by David Moyes must be worrying for Manchester United fans.
For Arsenal the impetus given by the entry into play of Mathieu Flamini with half an hour remaining surely shows why he should be first pick ahead of Mikel Arteta as the defensive screen, the fiery dynamism of the Frenchmen trumping the ageing Basque metronome.Certainly this position will be vital to Arsenal's fortunes in the big three games coming up in which three more draws would be most welcome.

Marseilleasy

An elementary outing for Arsenal in the Champions League on Tuesday night as they earned the three points required to almost guarantee their progress to the knockout stages.

That Jack Wilshere's sublime opening goal came so soon after the kick off, did little for the competitive nature of the match but pretty much decided the result as Marseille offered little in terms of a response, indeed it was only Mesut Ozil's penalty miss later in the half that gave them the hope to battle on.

This miss was just in terms of the foul taking place outside the penalty area, and as soon as Ozil grabbed the ball from Olivier Giroud I knew a miss was on the cards, with the German disobeying the golden rule that the penalty taker stays until he misses, Giroud having scored on the previous weekend with usual penalty taker Mikel Arteta missing.

So we had to wait for Wilshire to double the score midway through the second half for the goal that effectively finished the game as a contest.

The state of the group now gives Arsene Wenger a headache about how to juggle the squad through a testing series of fixtures which sees Arsenal play two games a week including matches against Manchester City and Arsenal right up to the FA Cup 3rd Round on the first weekend in January.