Arsenal 2 Reading 1: Arsenal's victory over Reading, straightforward if slightly laboured, sent out mixed signals. In the long term it further strengthened the likelihood of Arsene Wenger's team staying in the top four to retain at least a toehold in next season's Champions League but, in terms of Wednesday's return game against PSV Eindhoven and their chances of reaching this season's quarter-finals, the evidence was less conclusive.
The tale was the familiar one of Arsenal failing to reflect their marked superiority in the only hard currency that counts - goals. Before half-time Arsenal were lounge lizards, making plenty of passes but finding it hard to score. Eventually two of their Brazilians, Gilberto Silva with a penalty and Julio Baptista with a forceful piece of individualism, set up a victory which suffered a brief tremor in the closing minutes after Reading had scored via Cesc Fabregas.
PSV will come to the Emirates comforted by the 1-0 lead Edison Mendez gave them in the first leg, after Arsenal had missed several chances, and the knowledge that their goalkeeper, Heurelho da Silva Gomes, is in superb form.
Wenger remains professionally confident: "It is important we are relaxed against PSV and take our chances. We have to believe in what we do and play the football we can play. Hopefully that will be enough."
But it will not be enough if Arsenal, who are again likely to be without Thierry Henry, fail to sharpen up their act near goal.
While Wenger was pleased with Saturday's win after a week of cup failures - "A bad result would have pushed us into a bit of a crisis confidence wise" - he was aware of the shortcomings up front in the continued absence of the injured Henry and Robin van Persie as well as the suspended Emmanuel Adebayor.
"On our final ball we were missing something," he admitted, "and we didn't finish them off. At 2-0 it could have been three or four but in the end it could easily have been 2-2."
Adebayor will be eligible for Wednesday's game along with the others suspended after the League Cup final fracas, Kolo Toure and, if he is fit, Emmanuel Eboue. Presumably Adebayor will be one of the strikers but whom to leave out? Theo Walcott, who impressed in a central role against Reading, or his partner, Baptista, who in spite of scoring the second goal looked off the pace at times?
Either way the importance of Fabregas to the fluency of Arsenal's football, which had been all too evident in his absence from their scrappy FA Cup defeat at Blackburn, was reconfirmed by his return on Saturday. True he miscued a sitter as well as scoring an own-goal but with Denilson he denied Reading a serious presence in midfield for much of the game.
How ironic it was that Arsenal's principal inspiration should be the unwitting cause of the uncomfortable few minutes they suffered at the end after John Oster's corner ricocheted in off first Philippe Senderos, then Fabregas.
Had Jens Lehmann not managed to beat away a shot from Steve Sidwell Reading might have stolen an unlikely draw. Before falling behind they left Leroy Lita upfield and concentrated on getting bodies behind the ball. This worked reasonably well until Andre Bikey, unable to deal with Gael Clichy's pace, brought him down andGilberto's penalty put Arsenal ahead.
"The bolder you are against Arsenal the greater chance you have of getting a hiding," Steve Coppell observed, a point proved when, after a Reading corner just past the hour, Johan Djourou and Denilson combined to launch Baptista on a run through the middle of their thin cover for a well-taken goal. PSV may be not be quite as susceptible to the sucker punch.
Guardian Service
