Eduardo's miss quite endearing, really
Burnley 0 Arsenal 2
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Most Premiership clubs played weakened teams in the FA Cup Third Round.
Manchester United and Arsenal had the strongest weakened teams and both won away games without conceding .
Burnley played well and gave Arsenal an interesting afternoon.But I hate to see a player sent off in an interesting game. Kyle Lafferty got a straight red card for going over the ball and into the shin of Glberto, who saw it coming and moved just soon enough.
Nobody would have minded too much if ref Alan Wiley had given Lafferty a yellow card. Up to that moment - in the 60th minute - it was an interesting Cup tie.
The game came alive in five minutes when Lafferty's header hit the underside of the bar.
Then Toure dinked a straight ball down the middle and Eduardo cruised through and slotted a slow-motion goal tidily, as he does.
Gilberto had a header from a corner that hit Jon Harley before rebounding onto James O'Connor on the line.
Arsenal were comfortable, apart from Traore, who missed an awkward cross and then got the ball stuck between his feet and allowed himself to be robbed. He got away with it when the Burnley player's shot went over the bar. An interesting experience for the talented young left back. You are always learning in this game and Turf Moor gave Traore plenty to think about.
Senderos made some mistakes but had a decent game and I enjoyed seeing Jens Lehmann back in goal.He played well but had only one save to make.
Eduardo missed a chance in 51 when he played a slick one-two with Bendtner and placed his supercool left foot shot past keeper Kiraly ....but the ball went eighteen inches outside the post !!!
We knew Eduardo could slot chances like that. We didn't know he could miss. It was a shock when the ball rolled outside the post rather than inside - but I found that miss quite endearing. All strikers miss chances. Even Pele didn't score every time.
Bendtner wrapped it up in 75 when he gathered Eduardo's straight pass and took the ball round the keeper and made the finish look easy. A 2-0 win was what we expected.
And after the 2-0 win over West Ham I found myself thinking that Arsenal would now be winning more games by 2-0. Two goals is enough, if you don't concede. And Arsenal are not conceding many at the moment. Score two, play keep-ball, save something for the next game. Champions have done that quite a lot over the last 20 years
Saturday's Aston Villa- Manchester United game was very well-judged by Sir Alex. He took a look at what Villa had as he sat through 70 minutes of tired sparring, and then brought on Wayne Rooney to win the game.
Rooney turned a yawn into a thriller within seconds. He was so dynamic, so galvanising, sweeping a long pass wide to Ronaldo, lifting the fans, smacking in an awkward chance when Ronaldo's shot rebounded to him for 2-0 . Ronaldo had scored five minutes after Rooney came on.
Like me, you are wondering what side Arsene will put out in the Carling semi-final first leg against Spurs on Wednesday night.
Like me, you'll have to wait two days to find out.
BURNLEY (4-4-2): Kiraly; Alexander, Harley, Caldwell, Varga; O'Connor (Gudjonsson, 75), Elliott, McCann, Lafferty; Blake (Jones, 79), Gray (Akinbiyi, 79). Subs not used: Jensen, Jordan.
ARSENAL (4-4-2): Lehmann; Sagna, Touré, Senderos, Traore (Hoyte, 70); Eboué, Gilberto, Denilson, Diaby; Eduardo, Bendtner. Subs not used: Djourou, Sabiansky, Randall, Lansbury.
Referee : Alan Wiley (Staffordshire)
Yellow card : Caldwell
Red card: : Lafferty.
Man of the match : Owen Coyle, a good manager who plays football.
Crowd : 16,709.
Fourth Round draw : Monday 1.30 pm
Jan 7, 2008