Gunners express blows a flat and drops 2 critical points at Birmingham City, surrendering a 1-1 equalizer in the last seconds of a game they'd secured after 83 minutes of futility. This loss goes down to two people: Manuel Almunia and the coach who hired him.
First, Manuel "Hilario" Almunia. The lazily floating, unintentional shot from Kevin Phillips should've been parried over the bar to safety. No EPL-quality keeper with the season on the line should softly push the ball beneath his own crossbar. Those two points have almost certainly ended what has been an inspiring, highly unlikely run for the title. To have it end on a bozo play like that should finally end the Almunia experiment.
Now, the coach. For all his great qualities, Arsene Wenger shows too many judgement lapses at critical times. Almunia is top of the list today. It's been clear to seemingly everyone else aside from Le Profeseur that Manuel Almunia is not a top four starting keeper. He could keep for Everton. He certainly looks like he could fill David "Calamity" James' boots at Portsmouth. But for a title winner? Methinks not, and today's result is the strongest argument. Anyone else see the absolute brain fart of a toss out late in the game, straight to a Birmingham midfielder? Chelsea would've punished us on that. Or the ball he decided to punch to an opponent from the 12-yard line? What is any intelligent keeper doing trying to claim a hot ball 12 yards out in the middle of a crowd of defenders and opponents??! Let your defenders take care of that.
Now, Wenger has got to see defects like that and make the call to get himself a championship level keeper. If not, then he's got to share with us the drugs he's taking.
Final quibble. Why is he starting Theo Walcott? My guess, is that he's showing admirable, but misplaced loyalty, and trying to help the lad get a spot in an England team that doesn't need him. Walcott cannot be rated anything else than a once-intriguing experiment that has become a defect in the team's quality. Sure, he's got all the speed in the world, but he has nothing - nothing - in the final third. His crossing is poor. His finishing is not even MLS--quality.
Aside from two runs early in the game, Walcott was Casper the Ineffective Ghost. When he was subbed off, the team began to click and Nasri scored what should've been the game winner.
Sadly, it was not, and a great effort by the Arsenal has gone for naught. I doubt we can continue to rely on the leaders to so generously drop points for us.
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