After proving ineffective in Marseille during the away tie in October’s 1-0 win over the French side, Wenger could be forgiven for not utilising him when the French side came to the Emirates – or could he?
With Aaron Ramsey sealing the victory in the 90th minute at the Stade Velodrome, three of the four points that Arsene Wenger set Arsenal to get against their French counterparts, were in the bag.
The weekend fixtures immediately after brought one of Arsene Wenger’s least favourite teams in Tony Pulis’ Stoke City side. There is no love lost in the tactical differences between the two sides, with Arsene Wenger epitomising his view of Stoke’s tactics with last season’s observational comment that Huth and Shawcross engaged in “rugby with the goalkeepers.” Much of the same could be expected when Rory Delap, owner of Rugby-like throw-ins, stated that they’re, “not too bothered what other people say about (them), that is what we are about as a club.”
Arsene Wenger chose to rest Robin Van Persie; well he chose to withdraw him to at least the bench, perhaps with last week’s game at Stamford Bridge in mind. All was well at first with Gervinho putting Arsenal in front, however the lead lasted all of seven minutes and Arsenal, despite their official website calling it their “overall best performance so far” this season, had to rely on the Dutchman to fire the Gunners to victory.
His introduction shortly after the hour mark introduced panache, finesse and most importantly two goals that secured the three points. A 3-1 lead was taken from the game and Gervinho, the Ivorian striker who had put Arsenal into the lead described the performance of his fellow forward as, “formidable” before going on to state that “the team needs him.” “You always have to have leaders in the group and he’s one of the players who drag the team forward.”
Gervinho was spot on; Reliant Robin had done exactly that. Without his goals this season Arsenal would’ve scored 10; Van Persie is responsible for exactly half of Arsenal’s Premier League goals and whilst opposition to the argument that Arsenal aren’t dependent on the Dutchman may point to this being his job, it is the job of Rooney, Aguero, Dzeko, Ba, Suarez and all of the other strikers in The Premier League too. However, the reliance is clear. The dependence is evident and the claim that he is needed is justified. Only Newcastle have a higher figure pointing towards striker dependency – out of their 15 goals 8 have been converted by Demba Ba.