Arsenal 2 - 0 Blackburn

Listened to this one while driving from NY to DC this afternoon. Philip Senderos and Mathieu Flamini both shook off knocks to start while Gilberto started in midfied aside Cesc.

Just minutes after kickoff, Arsenal were ahead thanks to a Senderos headed goal. The big Swiss defender was all alone at the far post during a corner and smashed the ball in from just a few yards out.

It would be another 85 minutes until the match was truly won, when Adebayor scored his 9th goal in as many games, and that was that. Everything in the middle was a bit frustrating to be honest. I’m not sure if it was as frustrating to watch as it was to listen to, but it just kept sounding like lots of half-chances coming to nothing for the Gunners. Meanwhile, Blackburn had only three shots on goal, all of which were handled with ease by Jens Lehmann, making a second consecutive start in place of the injured Manuel Almunia.

Coupled with Chelsea’s draw against Liverpool, and Man United’s loss to Man City, Arsenal’s win today finds them up by five points above Man U, and eight points ahead of Chelsea at the top of the table with twelve matches to go. The table is nice viewing as of late, and it’ll stay that way for at least another two weeks as it’s an FA Cup weekend coming up on Saturday. The match of the round is our fixture away to Man United. Kickoff is just after Noon Eastern, and the game will be on Setanta PPV here in the US.