How are you all feeling today? Have you got that empty feeling in the pit of your stomach, you know the one you get when you can see a whole season’s work seemingly slipping through our fingers? It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how you feel and I wouldn’t blame you either because that’s exactly how I feel.
But the overriding feeling is one of missed opportunities, a whole raft of chances to kill off Man City’s challenge and to actually make yesterday’s game quite redundant – other than on the day. Quite frankly a game that shouldn’t have really mattered had instead become seismic in it’s possible and probable effect on where the EPL resides next month. Man City really don’t deserve it, if they finish top, because they will not have earned it, they will have instead been kindly presented it by a team that has done its level best to sabotage itself.
The atmosphere at Eastlands was febrile, the referee Anthony Taylor was at his inconsistent best, but Arsenal, after the usual Raya brainfart began to warm to the task. Havertz leading the line was a major improvement given he wins high balls, stays on his feet and keeps possession when under intense pressure. Alongside him, Eze and Madueke looked sharp and Odegaard linked things together nicely.
The Arsenal defence though seemed less secure, City were able to penetrate the double pivot with ease and it led to some hairy moments and not much control from the back-four. But the Gunners had the City defence scurrying to close down threats as well with Hincapie getting forward to support the attack, allowing Eze to tuck inside. Gabriel and Raya combined to stop an almost certain goal and then Arsenal had a run of corners that looked dangerous but were comfortably dealt with by the Oilers defence.
City had been the first to settle but Arsenal were now finding their range then a poor clearance by Hincapie on 16 minutes and a half-hearted challenge by Eze saw the ball at the feet of Cherki and the man with little or no respect for opponents made Gabriel and Co look leaden footed as he gave the 115 charges cheats the lead. Two minutes later a throw in to Donnaruma was closed down by Havertz who diverted the lanky big nosed Italians clearance into the City net for a surprising equaliser.
From then on it was nip and tuck, Haarland finished poorly on 28 minutes showing that even a cyborg – and a very ugly cyborg at that – can mess it up. The next 10 minutes saw City get on top and threaten, leading to a great goal saving challenge by Hincapie to stop Semenyo. There were a few more nervy moments then Madueke got clear and looked as if he could really create something but unfortunately Noni had his Coco boots on and he just stumbled over his feet and presented possession to the opposition as is his habit. Half-Time 1-1
The Noni stumble saw him subbed off at the break and replaced by Martinelli whose first action was to give the ball away, no team it seems gives up possession with quite the same panache of this Arsenal team.
On 50 minutes Semenyo caught the Madueke loose control bug and gave away a great chance as the ball bobbled into the grateful arms of a slipping Raya. 54 minutes saw Anthony Taylor reminding us of how flawed his judgement of a foul is as Havertz, breaking clear on goal, was clearly fouled and brought down but the Manchester official just breezily waved play on – of course he did, the pillock.
With Taylor laughing and joking with the City players it seemed that this game was only going one way, then on 59 minutes the increasingly influential Eze found Odegaard who drove at the City box before squaring to Havertz but his low shot was saved by City’s goalkeeper, Havertz just couldn’t get his shot past Donnarumas nose! Two minutes later on 61 Odegaard found Eze who made some space for himself and got off a low left footed drive. Now if it’s your day it hits the post and rebounds into the net off of the sprawling goalkeeper, but it evaded Donnaruma and ran along the goal line to safety. You kinda began to feel that it wasn’t going to be your day, well I did.
Then O’Reilly, who else it seems, got away from Martinelli and helped create the winner which Erland old ‘rubber lips’ miskicked home for the eventual winner. On 73 an Odegaard free kick found Gabriel via a deflection but Big Nose deflected it onto the post and to safety. White and Trossard came on for Mosquera and Eze a minute later. Trossard isn’t fit and Eze can score out of nothing so I didn’t understand that substitution. Gyokeres came on at 85 for Zubimendi and was fairly absent from everything around him. There was still time for Havertz to miss a beautifully set up chance in added time. He met a perfect cross but he headed it over the bar, I mean he’s a German International and he has to be scoring that goal.
Anyway that was that, but we’re where we are because of draws with Brentford, Wolves, Forest, Liverpool and Palace, there’s 10 points there! And don’t get me started on home defeats to Man United and Bournemouth, another 6 points, that’s 16 points frittered away since December 23rd. The problem is goalscoring, Arsenal as a team are simply not clinical enough, the midfield hardly score and our wide attackers are just punchless and on top of that we’ve badly missed Mikel Merino’s goals.
But, we can still win it, as Declan Rice said to Martin Odegaard on the final whistle “It’s not over”…
We march on with Declan.
By Kev
Nice one Kev, thanks. Morning to you and all.
The script was written imo, probably because it’s been seen before only the actors are slightly different. Start the season well, over play players and then after the year turns, fitness levels drop and goals are hard to come by.
Morning. They put up a good fight, they didn’t make it easy for City, who did not manage to walk all over them. Frustrating that Eze’s shot hit the post and Havertz’s header was just that bit too high.
It is not over. City have some tough games ahead of them with possibly two of them making them stumble. It is never over until the fat lady sings!
The time has now come for Arsenal to fully concentrate on their own matches, win their last 5 games which they are very capable of winning and MUST get those goals in.
Go for it Arsenal!
Good morning Kev, no it’s not over we an still do it but to do so means we need to score some goals. Since our set piece routines have flopped we have been found out as far as outfield goals is concerned.
What’s happened to Declan’s free kick screamers? We’re are the Odegaard shots from the corner of the box? Nobody seems to have the courage to run with the ball into the box and create a bit of panic in the defenders, draw a foul win a penalty. Too often we are left with the option of snatching at chances, a la Eze.
Our players have a full week to recover before facing a ragged looking Newcastle at the Emirates on Sunday, time for Arteta to come up with a bit of managerial magic.
Thank goodness Taylor didn’t send Gabriel off. He could have done and possibly would have done had Haaland had made a meal of it..
Thanks Kev. Level headed stuff, mate. Kai has got to start up top from here on in.
Yeh, Rico, I was amazed VAR didn’t call Taylor to the screen when Gabriel lost his cool. To Haaland’s credit, he didn’t try and get his fellow pro sent off.
Morning Gooners, morning Rico, we now go into a period where we are hoping that somebody could do us a favour, but we also know in our heart that they probably won’t, City will almost certainly win their last 6 league games and will probably pip us over the final two weeks winning the league on goals scored. Arsenal will need to get 4 or 5 goals in our remaining 5 matches which isn’t impossible but you kinda expect City to match us. City are only a single goal behind us and will probably put 3 or 4 past Burnley in midweek to overturn our slender goal lead.
Me too Stuart, on both..
Agree Kev, it’s in City’s DNA to push on from here.
More to the point, does anyone truly believe we’ll win our remaining league games because I don’t.
I’m all for optimism but realism is what I believe in.
Losing Merino cost us 5 or maybe 6 goals, Havertz has only just started to look recovered and scored his only Premier League goal yesterday it’s taken him a year to get right, Saka has been a shell of his former self since his hamstring injury.
Madueke, a £48.5m signing has been overall a flop, Eze has only produced intermittently and like Noni has suffered injury when in form as for Odegaard read Saka and injuries.
Martinelli cannot beat an EPL opponent anymore and on those rare occasions that he does he cannot finish, Trossard had a decent first half of the season then he picked up a series of injuries and looks done at this level whilst Jesus has been as impactful as Havertz although if we need to go for goals Arteta might as well use him in our final 5 matches?
Zubimendi had a great start to his Arsenal career and then ran out of steam around the same time Merino got injured, Rice has spent the second half of the season fire-fighting as his midfield colleagues collapsed around him, his goal attempts collapsed also given his fitness.
The corners aren’t working anymore, we had 5 corners at Wastelands and City dealt comfortably with all of them, Saliba doesn’t really score often enough for a big guy and Gabriel has lost his spring – is he too carrying a knock? No team has ever finished runners-up on four successive occasions but it looks like we’re going to break new ground.
Ah well, there’s always the Champions League, what could go wrong there?
But it’s rinse and repeat re injuries, to date I see no/little change in what Arteta/medical team are doing to try and prevent them. Yesterday was a prime example with Madueke playing after he was alleged to have picked up an injury and Odegaard returning to play the full game after being out for a long time.
As suggested the other day, when Rice’s corners and set pieces aren’t working, you know we have problems. Cicero mentioned it earlier too. Our set pieces have deserted us, our ability to drive forward and take a shot has gone.
The time has now come for each of them to try and score from outside the box as quite rightly said, the set piece tactic has crumbled as they have been found out. They have to stop trying to walk it into the box for a shot on goal. Eze, Rice, Odegaard, Zubi have to go for the tactic of shooting howlers when they get the ball. We are missing Calafiori and Timber.
Bernardo Silva on Arsenal bottling the title race:
“It is actually impressive at this point. Every year, same story. Great start, big talk, beautiful football, then March arrives and they vanish. Completely vanish.
People keep blaming injuries, fixtures, referees. But when it happens every single year without fail, you have to stop making excuses and look in the mirror. That is what separates City from Arsenal. We look in the mirror. They look for someone to blame.
Winning the league is about who wants it more when it hurts the most. And every year Arsenal show us they are not ready for that pain. Hopefully they never are.”
TRUTH HURTS
Should have been doing that since August Laura. Title might have been in the bag by now if we had.
Ouch Mr Silva but hard to disagree…