BORO Steal Gunners Ammo

BORO 2 - 1 Arsenal

BORO claimed a massive scalp, today, in their fight to break free of the relegation zone as they ran league leaders Arsenal ragged.


Arsenal traveled to The Riverside, today, with an unbeaten league record. But were without key players Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie and Aleksander Hleb, and it showed.
Arsenal had looked unsettled against BORO's North East rivals, Newcastle, in midweek as they only managed a draw and Gareth Southgate was looking to exploit Arsenal's vulnerability.

BORO started the game on fire and took Arsenal completely by surprise in just the third minute, as Jeremie Aliadiere burst into the box past Kolo Toure, who then fouled the former Arsenal striker to concede an early penalty. Up stepped BORO's top scorer of the season, Stewart Downing, to take the penalty and he looked nervous before rifling the ball into the bottom corner to give BORO a rare early goal.

Uncharacteristically, Arsenal looked sloppy and nothing seemed on for them as BORO ran them ragged all over the field, with Aliadiere and Tuncay showing that they have formed a formidable partnership in the BORO frontline, working tirelessly to create some good chances.

Emanuel Eboue was lucky to be on the field after blatantly striking Emanuel Pogatetz in the face before, later, jabbing Stewart Downing in the thigh. Both attacks went completely unnoticed by referee Howard Webb and so Eboue avoided even a yellow card.

Emanuel Adebayor was presented with a good chance for Arsenal, but he headed wide and sarcastic cheers met Rosicky's driven effort that trickled yards wide.

BORO went about their attacking onslaught as they pressured Arsenal into a series of mistakes to create some quality chances. But for all of BORO's chances, their lack of a clinical finisher showed.

Arsene Wenger must have been infuriated with his team's performance in the first half and was compelled to remove Eduardo Da Silva in place of Niklas Bendtner, which proved to be a fruitless endeavor.

BORO continued to excite the fans and pressure Arsenal all over the field and they could have gone two or three up as, first, Rochemback fed an intricate ball to Tuncay who found himself one-on-one with Almunia but slid his angled shot just inches wide and then George Boateng fired a rare shot just wide of Almunia's goal.

Aliadiere than exposed Arsenal's back line, again, to force a corner. The corner provided Gary O'Neil with a perfect opportunity, which he drilled at Almunia who could only parry the shot. But Tuncay was first to react as he lofted the ball into the roof of the net from a tight angle to give BORO a two goal lead and to claim his second goal in two games.

More good news for BORO came when Julio Arca made his long awaited return from injury, having not featured since picking up an injury back in September. Arca replaced Aliadiere in the eightieth minute, as both players received a standing ovation from the twenty six thousand BORO faithful.

Tuncay continued to battle on to the end when he ran himself into the ground, in the ninetieth minute, to close down first Clichy, then Almunia and then Kolo Toure in turn to force Arsenal to give away possession.

Tuncay received the standing ovation that he more than deserved, in injury time, as he was replaced by Adam Johnson.

BORO held on into the fourth minute of injury time, when their deffence was undone for the first time in the game as Arsenal put a good move together, which ended with Thomas Rosicky's low shot beating Ross Turnbull and hitting the back of the BORO net.

Gareth Southgate was clearly gutted with the late Arsenal goal as his team were seconds from a rare clean sheet. But the fact that BORO became the first team to beat Arsenal in the league this season, will more than serve to keep everyone associated with the BORO smiling until, at least, next week when they do battle with Derby.

Attendance: 26, 428
BORO Blog BORO Man of the Match: Tuncay, it was genuinely really difficult to pick one BORO player for the blog's man of the match award this week as every player could have taken the award.