Given the combative nature and organisational discipline of the English Premier League and the amount of football demanded there of, it’s not at all a surprise to me that the football aesthetics of the product are not always going to be as easy on the eye as we’d all like it to be. In fact it’s unreasonable to think otherwise, you just need to check the results of other teams competing in Europe if you don’t believe me.
Footballers being human beings, as we ourselves know, sometimes feel tired especially if they have spent the previous eleven days, as was the case before yesterday, travelling to Fleetwood, then back up to Liverpool and then jetting off to Prague. Even if you don’t play the actual fatigue of airport, hotel, coach then doing it all over again with little time to recover in between becomes mentally exhausting – and is exactly why Arteta is quick to close down any talk of fatigue. If you allow it to fester it will affect you and dull your sharpness.
Rotation helps of course, sensible substitutions too, but the grind of successive away games, sleeping in strange beds, it can wear you down, just talk to anyone whose business is travelling all over the place for meetings and who rarely goes home. So yesterday’s game was, as Elliott Smith of Arsenal Vision podcast fame often opines, a ‘trap’ game, or as they say down Balls Pond Road, a classic banana skin.
Arteta made some changes but half of the team was made up of those who had played the full game in the Czech Republic. Konsa, Raya, Gabriel and Rice among them and it did show to a degree. Hull City maybe sensed an opportunity here because they went for it from the off, closing us down and playing quite open but it didn’t last long and as the goal the Tigers craved didn’t arrive they eventually fell back into a low block looking for an opportunity on the break. Hull came close initially from a corner but the header went thankfully wide with the Gunners still not quite in the zone.
The Gunners struck back and from a free kick Konsa got up well to flick on a header which Gabriel stretched for but couldn’t connect with. On 12 minutes Havertz went down under a clumsy challenge from Mendy but our rather ‘let it go’ referee let it go. By then Hull had settled into a back five with any space out wide squeezed, even so Madueke was in good form and pretty much was the main avenue of attack. The more one-paced Tzolis toiled manfully on the other flank but didn’t really carry anything like the same threat as Noni.
A disastrous loose pass by Calafiori on 18 minutes led to a few moments of chaotic opportunities around Raya’s box but our defence eventually shut out the danger. A shot fired wide almost on the half hour by Rice and then a free kick which Rice fired straight at the goalkeeper was followed by a bizarre VAR on 42. The TV showed a clear pull on Havertz’s shirt in the penalty area but the ball was cleared upfield and that was that. Then VAR pulled the referee to the TV screen whereby they decided that it was a Hull free kick as Havertz was offside. But he wasn’t near the ball during that phase of play and thus wasn’t interfering so it should have been a penalty – so says Mike Dean!
I really haven’t a clue anymore…
Anyway following the pointless VAR shambles the half petered out, Hull had been and continued to be very physical, the referee continued to be weird and Arsenal looked listless and tired. H/T 0-0
No changes at half-time but the players seemed to run out as if they had some kind of verbiage from Arteta reverberating in their ears because they looked a lot more lively and focused in the 2nd half. Coyle, who had already been cautioned escaped further punishment from the referee after crunching Tzolis as Hull left a bit on our boys. On 57 a slick move by Calafiori and Odegaard put Noni in but his low shot was saved, Rice was not really in the game so despite the added intensity from the home side Arteta took both Declan and Kai off on 63 minutes with Gyokeres and Merino bringing some urgency to the Arsenal attacks.
To be fair you could see the good intentions of the team with some enterprising approach play but the execution was letting them down with poor final balls and sloppy passing. Arteta needed only 6 more minutes before making two more subs as on came Eze and Hincapie and off went Tzolis and Calafiori. Immediately the left flank became far more incisive and dangerous, Eze was a big improvement on the one-dimensional Tzolis and Hincapie was flying down the left wing like an Ecuadorean Olympic sprinter.
On 71 a mazy Eze dribble saw him fire over the bar as Hull began to look more stretched, Gyokeres was unsettling the Hull defence and Merino was getting into some really interesting pockets of space whilst Bruno looked far more invested and influential now that Declan was on the bench – go figure? Then a minute later Timber worked some magic and slipped in Noni, his low powerful shot was blocked but rebounded to Odegaard who squeezed it between the keeper and post. Cue a large outpouring of pressure from the faithful.
On 78 Merino got in a low shot which the goalkeeper almost fumbled then on 81 Eze had a shot saved, before strikes by Noni and then Viktor as the Gunners built up the pressure looking for that 2nd goal.
On 87 Viktor and Eze combined beautifully to find Merino who slipped in Noni for the clincher, but Noni didn’t take the shot, no not our Noni, he decided to dribble around the keeper who then saved. Why didn’t he shoot? I have no idea and nor does he I’d imagine. On 89 Zubimendi came on for Odegaard.
As the game went into added time Hull became more desperate and Arsenal just shut up shop as the game became more chaotic with a lot of fouls not given by an increasingly unpredictable referee, but amid the confusion the lads kept their heads and the clean sheet.
A lot of EPL teams had indifferent results in midweek and some teams had indifferent results yesterday, Arsenal won in midweek and won yesterday and if that makes Paul Scholes, Peter Schmeichel and the gang at Sky unhappy then that’ll do for me because every time Arsenal win and it makes them miserable, then that makes me very happy…
We March On.
By Kev
Good post Kev, thank you and morning to you and all.
Sounds like Hull wanted an early smash, grab and then shut up shop. However…
Good to hear Madueke had another good game, finding his shooting boots is all what’s lacking. The offside/penalty was a farce but as suggested yesterday, perhaps it was payback, especially as it was Oliver who made the decision.
I think Havertz needs to relearn the offside rule..