Source: Telegraph
Arsenal 4 Wigan Athletic 0: match report
It was in this fixture last year that Arsenal’s supporters went to war with their own player. Having endured a shaky start to the season they scraped past Wigan 1-0 but the game was memorable for the vicious abuse meted out to Emmanuel Eboué by some of the Arsenal fans.
Ten months on and harmony has been restored. The Arsenal side, with the fans firmly behind them, put those bad results against Manchester United and Manchester City behind them as they swept past a poor Wigan side, and Eboué capped an impressive, energetic performance with a goal. Still it wouldn’t be Arsenal if there wasn’t a bit of controversy in the mix. After Emmanuel Adebayor’s antics and the farrago over Eduardo’s dive, Arsène Wenger must have been craving the quiet life. Eboué had other ideas.
He had publicly criticised his friend Adebayor after Arsenal’s victory over Standard Liège in the week but he is clearly an admirer of Adebayor’s art of winning friends in the away end.
After flukily deflecting Eduardo’s shot into the goal for Arsenal’s third, he slid on his knees in front of the Wigan fans - he was probably just overexcited but it was hardly the most cerebral thing to do.
"You really think it was aimed at the Wigan fans? I don’t think so," Wenger said when asked about it in the press conference. "I think it was more to show he scored because if he’d have run off with Eduardo people might not have realised."
Naughtier was his effort in the first half to sneak a goal by punching into the net. Eduardo had sent in a tempting cross to the far post which Eboué tried to guide into the goal with his arm.
Referee Mike Jones was not to be duped and booked him. Wenger defended his player by saying it was just a "reflex" but really this was as much an effort to cheat as taking a dive in the box.
There was nothing all that sinister in Eboué’s antics, they were just a bit brainless - the real crime was that it deflected some attention away from Thomas Vermaelen, who scored his third and fourth goal for the club. With 25 minutes played Arsenal won a corner on the right, which Robin van Persie hit with his characteristically ferocious whip and dip.
Vermaelen had darted towards the near post and got between Hendry Thomas and Titus Bramble to met the ball with a thumped header beyond Chris Kirkland.
Vermaelen’s arrival from Ajax this summer, for a £10 million fee, was deemed another Wenger folly - who else would sign a six-foot-nothing Belgian to be your dominant stopper? But he has started superbly, composed with the ball and with the kind of spring that makes his height irrelevant. No wonder the Arsenal fans voted him their player of the month.
Still, there was more to come. Five minutes after the break Vermaelen carried the ball deep into the Wigan half, before nudging it wide to Eboué with the outside of his boot. Eboué played the ball back to the Belgian who hit a superb curled finish in at the near post.
If only Van Persie had shown Vermaelen’s composure in front of goal. The Dutchman is in outstanding form and his approach play as Arsenal’s attacking fulcrum was once again of the highest order. His finishing, though, fell a long way short of those standards.
He managed to nearly injure himself with an embarrassing air kick early on and, when Cesc Fàbregas’s chip had found him completely unmarked on the penalty spot he tried to contort his body to get a shot off with his left foot, eschewing the simple strike with the right.
Still, it was not like Arsenal struggled to create chances. Wigan were poor, even by Roberto Martinez’s assessment, and Wenger expressed his frustration that the visitors got away with "persistent fouls". In the last 20 minutes, Wigan struggled to get close enough to the Arsenal players to even do that.
The third killed it. Gael Clichy crossed from the right side of the box to Eduardo and he met the ball on the volley but it came back off the post. Abou Diaby poked the rebound to Eduardo, whose low shot deflected in off Eboué. Eduardo wheeled one way to celebrate while Eboué went the other.
Just seconds before the 90 minutes were up, Arsenal had their fourth. Van Persie fought hard to feed the ball out wide to Nicklas Bendtner. The Dane squared into the path of Fàbregas, who timed his run perfectly from far post to near, before tucking the ball in.
