PEEEP! That's it. Arsenal usually make other teams do the running, but it's Boro that have dictated play today, and Wenger's men have been unable to respond. Worryingly for them, they played well for half of the game against Villa, for 20 minutes against Newcastle and once, in the 53rd minute, when Adebayor controlled a pass, today.
GOAL!!! Rosicky (94 min) Rosicky finishes well from the edge of the area, but it's too little too late.
89 min: Pogatetz is nearly played through by a clever back heel, which is really the kind of thing Arsenal should be doing, but it's been Boro's day. Rosicky's shot is charged down.
85 min: Finally Arsenal look collected, unfortunately it consists of them passing sideways on the half-way line, but you've got to start somewhere, right?
81 min: Toure has a scamper forward, but his shot goes wide. "Who-hoo," cries Phil "That's the icing on the cake! Can I get greedy and ask for a cherry on the top?" How about Robert Huth shanking the ball? Will that do? Aliadiere goes off for Arca. He's played very well indeed today, his pace unsettling Arsenal and contributing to their nervy, disjointed play.
77 min: Walcott slaloms his way through the Boro midfield, but he's stopped by a great challenge from Pogatetz that lifts Theo off his little feet.
75 min: That should do it, Boro thoroughly deserve their lead. Sagna has to head a dangerous cross out for a corner.
GOAL!!!!!! (Tuncay 72 min)Robert Huth will be lumbering about for your viewing pleasure in the last 15 minutes or so of this game, Woodgate is off. Aliadiere squeaks in again, but his shot is blocked, but O'Neill has a piledriver saved by Almunia seconds later and Tuncay slams the rebound home.
68 min: Arsenal have looked slightly better since Walcott and Denilson came on. Woodgate to the rescue again, as Walcott shapes up for a cross. "Do you think that Wenger should have taken Bentiez's lead and not let his team stay up for the fight," wonders Shane Clifford. I imagine all that violence would have upset a sensitive young man like Theo.
66 min and a story about cakes: "I'm a Boro fan, and this game reminds me of a cake I made yesterday," says Phil. " I usually manage to screw cakes up. But yesterday, I got all the ingredients right, had the right pan and didn't even burn it in the over. I kept thinking...I know I'll screw this up...but I can't see how. In the end, I completely destroyed the cake getting it out of the pan. So 2-1 Arsenal, own goal and penalty in the last five minutes. Bendtner, who thinks he's about 14% better than he really is, tries some kind of floating, curling, swirling chip, but it ends up plopping four-yards wide.
63 min: I apologise to Woodgate for my earlier slurs, he's got better and better as the game has gone on and twists in mid-air to clear with a flying header. Boro win a corner at the other end, but it doesn't come to much of anything.
61 min: O'Neill dummies/misses the ball completely and Boateng runs in behind him to deliver a shot that flies this wide. "Bring on Denilson. Get Gilberto off," demands Dom. You've got half your wish. Denilson is on for Diarra and Walcoott is on for Eboue.
57 min: Woodgate nicks the ball away from Adebayor, and it goes behind for what should be a corner, but Webb ushers play on. "Does Almunia really want to get citizenship? Is this Wenger's way of getting more 'English' players into his side," says Sarah Lawton, who's full of questions. "How many Big Macs would it take to bribe Fabregas to do the same?" See? "I'd happily chip in a couple of happy meals." Rochemback gets huffy and is booked for dissent. He'll miss the Derby game next week.
54 min: Rochemback's free-kick thuds into the Arsenal wall. You can't help but feel that Boro might regret that miss from Tuncay, having said that Arsenal are still flailing at the ball whenever it comes to them. Wheater has an immense shot that hits Toure, otherwise Almunia would have had to make a very good save.
50 min: Tuncay is played through beautifully by Rochemback and is one-on-one with Almunia. His shot, however, trickles inches wide.
49 min: Wenger has stopped his foot stamping and is now sat with his arms folded on the bench in a low seeth. Bendtner's first contribution is to amble across the pitch and pass it to Boro. "Lassana Diarra to lead in the remake of The Invisible Man," suggests Petr Groden. "Having missed the lineups, I didn't hear his name mentioned until the 41st minute - and you didn't use it at all. And Gilberto has been dire, hasn't he?" Yup, I'd actually forgotten Diarra was playing until you mentioned it, which doesn't say much for me or Diarra. And Gilberto has looked incredibly rusty.
46 min: Bendtner is on for Eduardo. "Almunia is one of those keepers that you can't ever imagine saving a penalty," says Alex Richman, trying really hard to imagine Almunia saving a penalty. "It could be straight at him and he'd still contrive to palm it past himself. Makes me worry about his attempts to gain citizenship to play for England. He'd fit like a glove."
An excellent first-half for Boro they've harried Arsenal, unsettled them and then taken their chance (although Downing's penalty should really have been saved) when it came.
45 min + 1: Sagna has to track back five yards or so because of a shoddy pass in a promising area, and that sums Arsenal's first-half. Boro have pressured them, but many of their problems are of their own making.
44 min: "How come eating McDonald's in a foreign country feels like its a treat, but eating it in Britain feels like I should then spend a week in solitary confinement at the local Holland and Barratt," asks Joe Matthews. I guess it's the illicit nature of the meal in a foreign country, Joe. You should really bedoing all that culture crap, but instead you're stuffing a quarter-pounder down your neck. Whereas in Britain, you're just another loser in Croydon McDonald's.
40 min: Tuncay gets a lucky deflection and finds himself in a great position on edge of the six-yard area, but Almunia snaffles his cross. He then finds himself free again, but his shot nearly hits the corner flag. Boro are on top, but it's as much down to Arsenal errors as it is the home side's brilliance.
37 min: Adebayor rises above Woodgate and heads just wide. Arsenal's best chance. "I'm watching this on ITV4 (I think, it's an internet stream) and the color man thinks it's 'The Gary O'neill Show'". That's not really an advert for the game, is it?
34 min: "Is Wenger agitated and grumpy too," asks Dom. "I bet he is." Oh yes, he's having a brilliant grump. Shrugs, mutterings, feet stamping: he's thoroughly enjoying himself.
31 min: Woodgate, who some of you may understandably have forgotten still plays professional football, concedes a free-kick 35-yards out. Again Toure telegraphs his shot and again Boro charge it down.
29 min: Arsenal get a corner, that Adebayor heads about 20 feet up in air. That is the best thing he has done all day, it really did go very high. He then miscues a pass to Eduardo. Unfortunately, that's the still the second-best thing he's done all day.
26 min: Arsenal have now resorted to big hoofs up the field. Wenger shrugs in disbelief. "Is this Aliadiere's first match against his former club," asks Kate Hodges. Um, it's definitely the first match against his former club played at the Riverside in December the day after Nikki was voted out of X-Factor. Definitely.
23 min: Just like a Panamanian canoeist, Arsenal keep popping up in unexpected places. Unfortuately, they're places nowhere near the ball and Boro continue to press. Rosicky relieves the pressure with a shot after Rochemback's slip.
19 min: Rosicky's error lets O'Neill get a cross in that results in a corner. It clears everyone and Arsenal eventually get the ball away. With Arsenal looking this ragged Boro should take their chances while they can.
16 min: For some reason, Arsenal are in a bad mood today - maybe prolonged exposure to life away from the luxury of London - and Gilberto clatters Boateng. Boro get a free-kick in a good position, but Arsenal manage to get it away via some lucky deflections. Aliadiere's pace is unsettling Arsenal and stretching them out of position.
14 min: "Despite reading the amusing Big Mac anecdote, it still took me another 10 minutes to realise it's Morgan Spurlock in the photo," says Matt Kilburn. He's on the left, not the right, Matt. "I think I'd better go to bed." And thus my number of readers is cut by 50%. Eduardo's outthinks himself in the Boro box and loses the ball in a promising position.
10 min: Arsenal win a free-kick about 40 yards out and Toure has a practice run-up telling Boro exactly what he intends to do. Unsurprisingly, Boro then charge down the resulting shot. Looking at the replay, Almunia really should have saved the penalty.
8 min: Eboue pushes Pogatetz in the face (some would call it a slap, but it's too pathetic to even be called that) he could easily have been sent off, but Howard Webb only gives a foul. Lucky boy.
6 min: Right, so Arsenal have started well and finished badly in their last few games and now they've just skipped straight to the bad part. Having said that they've gained 11 points this season after being behind.
PENALTY AND GOAL!!!!!!!!1 (Downing 4 min) Aliadiere surges through and isn't really going anywhere, but Toure slices him down anyway. And Downing hits it low to Almunia's left, he gets a hand to it, but it sneaks in.
1 min: And we're off. Gareth Southgate looks a tad nervous on the sidelines, although Steve Gibson doesn't really like sacking his managers - even if they're Bryan Robson - so he should relax a bit. My main problem with Southgate as a manager is that he doesn't really look convincing as one. He lacks the professorial look of Wenger, but can't make up for it with the anger of a Ferguson. Boro boot it straight out for a Arsenal goal-kick straight away and the very foundations of the Riverside sigh.
It's some teams!
Middlesbrough: Turnbull, Young, Wheater, Woodgate, Pogatetz, O'Neil, Boateng, Rochemback, Downing, Sanli, Aliadiere. Subs: Steele, Arca, Huth, Lee, Johnson
Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Eboue, Diarra, Silva, Rosicky, Eduardo, Adebayor. Subs: Lehmann, Senderos, Denilson, Bendtner, Walcott.
Referee: Howard Webb (S Yorkshire)
So Arsenal name an unchanged side, but are still without Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie, Alexander Hleb and Mathieu Flamini. Meanwhile, Boro need to end their long winless run if they're going to pull themselves out of the relegation zone.
Arsenal have looked a tad vulnerable of late. While they've started their last two games beautifully - the first-half of the match against Villa last week was some of the best football I've seen in a long, long time - they have also faded, letting Villa and Newcastle back in and they could easily be coming into this game on tha back of two defeats. They're missing that Fabregas steel.
I had fevered dreams last night which involved Ricky Hatton being beaten by Floyd Mayweather (correct) and Arsenal beating Boro (probably correct). My heart was racing all night which probably had something to do with the fact that I'd had my first McDonald's in years. The spoilsports have got rid of all the crap out of the Big Mac because of the Supersize Me controversy so now it tastes a bit like meat, rather than the fat/grease/salt fest it used to be in the old days. Having said that, it still had enough toxins in it for me to have what felt like a minor cardiac arrest at around 4.12am.
Source: guardian.co.uk
