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Reading were robbed of a penalty. Arsenal underachieved against a lower quality team. Arsenal were lucky. Reading embarrassed Arsenal. Arsenal looked lazy. Reading deserved more. Reading 'keeper handed Arsenal the win.
Right, now that all the Arsenal bashing bullshit is out of the way we can actually sit back and talk about how we're in the FA Cup Final for the second year on the trott and how much these lads deserve it. All I've been reading in the aftermath of the semi final against Reading is how shit (oh yeah, and lucky...) Arsenal were. It's so convenient how the fact that this was the FA Cup semi final is forgotten. This wasn't a League Cup 3rd round match, and although Reading have been on an awful run as of late, they're not an awful team.
As I've said before, the allure of the FA Cup, the thing that makes this tournament so special is the fact that anything can happen and any team can have a good day and triumph. Put yourself in Reading's shoes - this is by far their biggest game of the season. Sure, they've got the relegation zone to be mildy concerned about, but they certainly don't have the distraction of fighting for a Champions League spot next season.
Reading put up a solid, physical fight on Saturday. Arsenal did look a touch slow to the ball and even looked tired early on, but it was the quality of this team that saw us through in the end. Federici had a great game until our second, but you have to feel that Arsenal were on our way to victory in that extra time period regardless of mistakes from our opponents.
Wenger said it best when he said Reading were "ready to die" on the pitch at Wembley. They had plenty of fight in them and it still didn't look like they would see it out to the end. Eventually the better team won and as much as people think we should have won by 7 goals, I'll take a 2-1 result in the FA Cup Semi Final all day.
As I write this the other semi final is underway, so I'll leave that final preview for a later date. While Villa seem like the easier task, it would be epic to beat Gerrard in his last game for Liverpool... on his birthday.
Hold your heads up high Gooners! We're in the Final and on our way to Wembley! Again!
Up The Arsenal!
