Mission Impossible

I have just watched one of the most unbelievable matches I have ever witnessed in the history of world football. Blackburn Rovers defy gravity to come away from Arsenal's Emirates Stadium fortress with a 1-0 stunner. It was an excruciating, heart-pounding FA Cup 5th Round match. I'm out of breath....

Arsenal enjoyoed the majority of possession, passed and passed it around, had loads of chances and somehow failed to beat Blackburn 'keeper Jake Kean. Blackburn scored from their one and only chance. Martin Olsson, one of the Olsson twins (yes, there's another set of Olsson twins in the world besides Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) stormed forward on a rare foray, latched on to Jordan Rhodes' knock-down and struck a good shot that Wojciech Szczesny could only parry out, and striker Colin Kazim-Richards hit a shot so badly scuffed only he will know how it ended up in the net. I thought Szczesny has to take some of the blame; when  you parry it straight out to the danger area, you're asking for trouble.

Arsenal had plenty of chances throughout the game, but there were two that stood out, one in each half. The first one came when Tomas Rosicky played a lovely through-ball to Gervinho through on the Blackburn goal, but unfortunately for them the Ivory Coast man (just back from the African Cup of Nations) shot wide of the target. The other chance was in the second half when Rosicky, arguably Arsenal's most effective player on the night, powered a 20-yard screamer that smashed off the underside of the crossbar. If either one of these chances had gone in, we could have been witnessing a very different game.

At the final whistle, a cacophony of boos rained down on the pitch. I have never heard such a deafening roar of disapproval from the Arsenal faithful. But they had clearly seen enough. Blackburn, and their manager Michael Appleton, were swelling with pride, and deservedly so. I thought 'The Professor' made three key mistakes for this one: he rested too many players, brought on 'the cavalry' of Jack Wilshere, Theo Walcott & Santi Cazorla too late, and he should have brought on Bacary Sagna instead. The offensive-minded right-back would have had the freedom of The Nile to overlap down the right-wing and provide crosses, from which Francis Coquelin was not having great success.

So Arsenal have now been knocked out of the Capital One Cup by lower-league Bradford City, and knocked out of the FA Cup by lower-league Blackburn Rovers. Their next assignment is on Wednesday morning against mighty Bayern Munich in the Champions League Round-of-16 first leg at the Emirates. Based on this disappointing performance, the Bundesliga leaders have nothing to fear.