After successfully negotiating the online Arsenal ticket booking system (what exactly is the booking fee for? It is an automated system and they don't even issue a paper ticket!), I got to my first game at the Emirates - the must win Champions League game against Hamburg.
The new stadium is breathtaking when you get up close to it, and the views of the pitch are great - seeing the immaculate pitch bathed in light was a sight to behold. The seats are also great - a nice high back and right amount of padding. Also had a quick trip to the new Armoury store to get the promised treats for my Daughter, as her indoctrination into supporting Arsenal seems to be complete :-) I got her some pencils and a Thierry photo, but managed to resist the temptation to get an Arsenal Dog lead.
Onto the game. As Hamburg arrived having lost all their games in the group, I was hoping for a bit of a rout to get some confidence back in the team. Unfortunately, an early Hamburg goal put paid to that. Far too often in the first half we gave the ball away cheaply - Clichy, Flamini, Hleb & Eboue were the main culprits, although Cesc wasn't immune. One of our few good moves ended up with Hleb hitting the post, which prompted 'here we go again' thoughts.
We started the second half much better, with everyone looking much sharper and determined, which resulted in a Van Persie equaliser. Unfortunately we couldn't sustain it, and our performance started to fall back to the level we saw in the first half. It was only the introduction of Walcott (and subsequently moving him to the right) that brought us to life. All the way through the game I had been moaning to my mate that no one was prepared to run at the Hamburg defence. Instead we just kept passing it around the edge of the box, waiting for an opportunity to thread a perfect ball into the box (although more often than not nobody would be in there). Then Walcott came on and started running at the defence with great results. We immediately looked like we could get a goal, and then did. Eboue was a bit lucky that their keeper made a hash of it for his goal, but Baptista's goal was purely down to some class play from Walcott.
For most of the game, it looked like I would be going home frustrated, but the late goals and introduction of Walcott changed all that.
I mentioned earlier how easily we gave the ball away at times. It was incredibly frustrating, as Hleb for example, often shows sublime skill - the knack he has of leaving opponents for dead with a deft turn is incredible. But equally at times he looked as if he could lose the ball even if he was the only guy on the pitch. I don't think I have seen Clichy play as badly as he did last night - at times you wondered if he had his boots on the wrong feet! He hasn't played many games in the last year, so hopefully it is just a case of him still being a bit rusty. Henry seemed more interested in having verbal battles with the Hamburg defenders than anything else, which eventually cost him a cheap booking as he 'collided' with one of them off the ball after more verbals. All in all it was a mixed performance, but hopefully the team can gain some confidence from the way they turned it around. It will be interesting to see if Wenger responds to the inevitable clamor to give Walcott more starts.
Finally a word on the crowd. I have read quite a bit lately on the early leavers. What amazed me was people were still coming in when the clock showed 32 minutes left of the first half - they had missed virtually a third of the half! Then they start getting up again 6 or 7 minutes before the end of the half - is a Hot Dog really that exciting? Then again at the end, people were streaming out in droves before Baptista got his goal. I noticed in the programme a statistic that said if you had left 10 minutes early for every Champions League game this season, you would have missed 22 goals - hopefully they were all cheesed off when they heard Baptista's goal go in.
Admittedly it was slow going when leaving the stadium after the game, but it is still relatively early when the game finishes (around 9:35), which leaves plenty of time to get back home (even to the backwater where I live). I think next time I might just stick a foot out when some of these clowns are trying to get past ;->
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