Tomas Rosicky and Cesc Fabregas each scored for the second match in a row, and Julio Baptista sealed the points late as Arsenal beat Manchester City 3-1 at the Grove earlier tonight.
Rosicky opened the scoring with a goal not too dissimilar to the goal he scored against Bolton on Saturday. He out-hustled the defender to latch on to Emmanuel Eboue’s cross, controlled brilliantly, and finished with a low strike past the diving Citeh keeper.
As has been the case of late, Arsenal controlled the game for long stretches. In fact, City’s equalizer came against the run of play, and only came about as the result of a poor clearance by Jens Lehmann.
The Arsenal keeper seemed out of sorts all night, as several routine saves were much more of an adventure than they needed to be. City had their tails up after the equalizer, and it wasn’t until Cesc’s fantastic 25-yard strike in the 71st minute that the visitors seemed resigned to their fate.
The remaining 19 minutes or so were fairly easy for the Gunners, made all the more so by Julio Baptista’s 79th minute strike, which was the equivalent of hitting a baseball off of a tee thanks to some great work by Alex Hleb to beat two defenders and literally place the ball on Baptista’s boot.
So, the second win on the trot, and, for the time being, a jump up to third in the table ahead of Liverpool by one point. Liverpool play Boro at Anfield tomorrow, so the stay in third place may be short-lived, but as Fats Waller once said, “One never knows, do one?”.
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