First Half
There was nothing of tactical interest to comment on in the first half. Stoke set-up how we all expected them to; one bank of four, one bank of five and Crouch several yards in front of them. The ownness was totally on Arsenal to break them down.
Our passing and build-up wasn't particular quick or incisive. Stoke were solid and made absolutely no attempt to counter, so it was always going to be hard to play our through. Arsenal played a lot of passes in front of them and only got in behind when Walcott used his skill to get past Wilkinson down the right hand side; unfortunately, his crossing from that side wasn't particularly great.
Notably, Arsenal didn't make much use of Giroud as a spring board. Although he made himself available often, Arsenal were reluctant to try and thread a ball through to his feet, were reluctant to play a quick, direct ball up to him and didn't try to make runs beyond him; Diaby made run beyond him, Wilshere didn't make any.
So it clearly wasn't working in open play. There is, of course, another route to goal called set-pieces, and surprisingly Arsenal created three great opportunities from corners. A corner from the left fell to Chamberlain, but his finish was poor from six yards out. A corner from the right found Giroud unmarked but he, strangely, opted to try and set someone up instead of scoring. Another corner from that side, cleared but played back in by Walcott, found Koscielny, but he couldn't direct the header either side of Begovic.
We should have been ahead going into half-time.
Second Half
Despite usually improving in the second half of games, it was more of the same. Stoke continued to keep their shape and Arsenal continued to play the same way. We created a couple of chances down the left when Monreal got forward, but some good defending and wayward finishing meant we couldn't find that goal.
Even the introduction of Cazorla and Podolski did little to change the pattern of the game. Stoke were practically playing 6-3-1. They had no intention of trying to win the game, so it was understandably difficult to find ways to goal.
Sometimes in these situations, you just have to be content with scoring via a set-piece or scrappy goal. Podolski's deflected free-kick finally put us ahead, although the linesman did his best to rule out a perfectly good goal.
Stoke made three subs at once in an attempt to salvage something from the game, but we were having none of it. We defended well in the closing stages and got a deserved win.
Good three points
I'm sure some will be annoyed we struggled to break down a bus yet again, but generally we played well. There are some games where the other team just doesn't want to play and you have to win in a scrappy way. Realistically, we needed to score early in order to make the game more comfortable.
But I'm not going to complain about three points and a rare clean sheet. Chelsea lost and Everton drew, so we gained ground of them, and we're now only a point off the top four, albeit Spurs have yet to play. We're unbeaten in four games in all competitions now and have winnable games against Sunderland and Blackburn coming up. With any luck, we can get a decent run of form together.
Let's pray that everyone stays fit in this mid-week international break.
