Best and Worst Arsenal Moments of 2012

Top of the morning to yall

Arsenal signed off on 2012 in stylish and emphatic manner on Saturday evening against Alan Pardew’s men in a thrilling 7-3 victory. Looking back, 2012 was a year that brought with it its own memories- good and bad and here are the best and worst of 2012

Best moments of 2012

Thierry Goal against Leeds:  the date was January 9^th and the location was the Emirates stadium and a certain Frenchman Thierry Henry was making his debut on his second spell at the club after gracing the Arsenal shirt for 8 very successful seasons before taking the well-travelled route between London and Catalonia and finally to the MLS. After being granted permission to by his club to play for Arsenal for 2 months, Henry made his much anticipated debut in the FA cup game against Leeds and with scores deadlocked at nil-nil, Henry was thrown into the mix and with 12minutes remaining on the clock, Henry rolled back the years and rolled the ball into the back of the net after collecting Alex Song’s through pass. The Emirates stadium erupted in a deafening roar and was reverberated all through the Arsenal world and to think it was just an FA cup third round game against a championship team; Amazing J

Arsenal 10 vs. 4 Spuds: one of the biggest fixtures in the English football calendar in every season is the North London derby and in the first of of the two games played in 2012, our irritating neighbors were having a more than average season and going as far as suggesting they were seeing the best Spuds squad of all time. After racing to a 2 goal lead,  Spuds threatened to run away with the match and open a 13 point gap between thhe two sides on the table but the Arsenal squad bounced back with goals from Sagna and Van Persie to level the scores at half time while Tomas Rosciky and a Theo Walcott brace condemned us to 3 vital points and a necessary push for 3^rd place finish on the table

Fast forward to November 17 and the circumstances were much similar. Arsenal were stuttering in the league and had won just once in 5 EPL games while our irritating neighbours were flying high and just like last time, Adebarndoor put them ahead with a close range finish and proceeded to earn himself sent off for a tackle on Santi Cazorla that is as absurd as the man and Arsenal took full advantage and raced to a 3-1 first half lead with goals from Mertesacker, Podolski and Giroud before making the score line look similar with further goals from Walcott and Cazorla as Bale got the consolation for the Spuds. Always a pleasure doing business with that lot aint it?

West Brom 2 vs. 3 Arsenal: it’s the final day of the season and the table is delicately balanced. The lads know whats expected of them, only a victory would be enough to secure 3^rd spot which would turn out to be the final champions league qualification spot as Chelsea won the Champions’ League. Arsenal drew first blood through Yossi Benayoun but West Brom who had absolutely nothing to play for fought back with two goals through Long and Dorrans. This wasn’t what the fans wanted to see, Spuds were beating Fulham in the other game and at things stood, we would not be playing in next season’s champions league. The lads fought back, Andre Santos pulled us level with a thumping shot from outside the box, and Kozza put us ahead in the opening minutes of the second half and the team held on for what has to be one of the longest 45 minutes of their careers.

Worst Moments

As much as the year brought its good memories, it also had its bad ones, memories that we would rather forget, that made us doubt our players and their abilities though some of those might not be misplaced.

RvP Leaves: while much has been said about the RvP transfer saga, what annoyed me at that time – the summer- was that we always seem to be locked in a transfer battle every summer for our best players and when Wenger handed RvP the captain hand band at the start of the 2011/2012 season, we all felt he finally had a captain who knew what it felt like to be an Arsenal fan from childhood, grow up in Arsenal and learn the Arsenal way, we felt we had a captain who loved the club and was ready to repay the faith of the manager and fans in the faith trusted in him all his days on the treatment table. And it seemed that was going to be the case when the season started, scoring 30 in the EPL and 37 in all competitions but as the season wore down, he stalled talks of renewing his contract and after the Euros released that letter to the fans and like they say, the rest is history. What hurts most Arsenal fans these days is that he is doing it for Manchester United banging in goals week in and out and kissing the United badge. It definitely irks to see that. But we have to move on, we cant continue to dwell on that but am sure somewhere, we would find our eureka moment and get it right with our club.

Bradford City 1 vs. Arsenal 1 (Bradford win 3-2 on Pens): it’s the quarter finals of the Capital One Cup and Arsenal travel to league 2 side Bradford City in indifferent form but Bradford were not supposed to be a match for the mighty Arsenal after all, they were 65 places below us in the English football pecking order. Arsene Wenger named an unusually strong line up for a Capital One Cup game but it was the Bantams that drew first blood in the 16^th minute and we had to wait till 3 minutes before the end before Vermaelen headed in an equalizer. 30 extra minutes of football couldn’t bear fruit despite us creating several chances to win the game and in the end, Bradford went on to win on penalty kicks. It was a really terrible day to be an Arsenal fan.

That's about it for 2012 u can share your personal best and worst moments with other readers in the comments section. Finally, I would love to wish all my readers a prosperous 2013, may all your dreams come true and may it bear fruit for our Arsenal. god bless the Arsenal.