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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Arsenal 2-1 Wigan : 3 points (w. Video)

Arsenal are never at their best after an international midweek break and so it proved again as the Gunners had to battle long and hard before scoring twice in the last 10 minutes to beat Wigan 2-1.

Wigan score a beauty

Wigan opened the scoring in the first half via a screamer of a goal from Danny Landzaat, who thumped the ball home from about 28 yards after the ball broke to him from a tackle.

Heskey might have made it 2-0 but Jens Lehmann got his fingertips to the strikers finish and pushed the ball onto the post and the Arsenal keeper reacted quickest to gobble up the rebound.

Into the second half and Heskey missed a couple more half chances to grab a second goal and then was involved in a penalty claim after a clash with Flamini.

Get up you big girl ...

Flamini touched Heskey, thats "touched" him with his arm. He didn't grab, push or throw him, he didn't trip him or make contact with his legs - but Heskey piroletted to the ground in a scene very reminiscent of Swan Lake - yelling and appealing on the way down.

The referee said play on - Wigan boss Paul Jewell is still whining about it asking "why would Heskey dive? - Perhaps because he'd already missed 3 chances and knew he had far more likelihood from the penalty spot ?!

Controversial Equaliser

Arsenal went down the other end and scored through an own goal by the unfortunate Fitz Hall - who had to get a foot in to stop Henry from applying the finishing touch.

All sorts of controversty with Paul Jewell complaining about offside (but of course ignoring the fact that Adebayor had a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside 10 miutes earlier) ... while Theirry Henry got in trouble for taunting Wigan Keeper Chris Kirkland and asking him if he was going to keep on timewasting.

Of course the TV pundits decided that Henry was comitting some sort of crime against humanity and that he should make a public apology - while Gooners everywhere think that Kirkland has been wasting time since halftime with overlaborate goal kick routinues and having wasted at least 5 minutes and got exactly what was coming to him.

Cracking Winner

Of course what it really did was put some more emotion into the game - with Arsenal players and fans winding themselves up ... and Four minutes later Arsenal created a similar move, this time it was Batista crossing and Tomas Rosicky who supplied a headered finish ... and the reaction in the ground said it all.



... and Arsenal had completed yet another comeback win.

In the end it's three more points in the bag - but the first 45 minutes were pretty lacklustre - and there is plenty for Arsene Wenger to think on.

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