Gibbs: No style but lots of substance

Kieran Gibbs admits Arsenal didn’t beat Dortmund with their usual attacking guile but insists last night’s one-nil win further underlines the growing character of Arsene Wenger’s squad.

Part of a defence which denied Jurgen Klopp’s side from scoring on home turf for the first time in 61 games, the England left-back told UEFA.com that the Gunners proved a point by returning home with three as the qualification battle in Group F heats up.

“It was a massive victory and it was important, especially after the first game, because we wanted to prove something and we’ve done that. We certainly didn’t do it in style, but the way we won the game shows that we’ve got a certain character in the team now.

“It’s not an easy place to come to. Not many teams come here and get a result, so we can take that as a positive and we’ve put ourselves in a strong position. Now it’s important that we take advantage of that.”

Having watched Aaron Ramsey again grab the headlines with the winning goal, Gibbs was almost lost for words trying to explain the Welshman’s sudden potency in the box.

“I’ve no idea [why he’s scoring so many goals]. I’m going to have to ask him what he’s been eating for breakfast because it seems to be doing the trick.”

Arseblog News presumes Ramsey is on a diet of Lucky Charms [that stuff is like crack] although perhaps fearful of drug testers questioning his rainbow coloured piss the Welshman chose not to confirm whether he starts each day with lashings of multi-coloured marshmallows. Instead he spoke glowingly about about the team’s performance.

“It was a great achievement. We had a game plan, we stuck to it and it worked. Obviously I’m delighted with the goal and delighted for the team.

“We had more possession in the first half. I looked at the stats at half-time and we had more of the ball, but we were always wary of what they were capable of doing. They proved in the reverse fixture that they’re good at defending and catching teams on the counterattack, so we stayed nice and solid. We restricted them to long-range efforts in the first half and managed to counterattack them and get the goal.

“Both teams are quite similar in their styles. They like to get the ball down and play, create opportunities and defend well as a team. That’s something we’ve improved on over the last few seasons. They came to our place the other night and scored on the counterattack and we did the same to them tonight.

“There’s still a lot of work to be done but we’re in a good position now. We knew what we had to do and we did it, but there are two tough games to go to finish the job off.”