Resilience, Courage, Resolve and VAR in East London

If you are the type of person who climbs mountains without ropes, swims with sharks, bungee jumps or leap off of mountain wearing a suit which allows you to sail down in it before opening a parachute, then you’d love watching Arsenal because it’s exactly the kind of adrenaline rush you’d enjoy. Personally I don’t do any of the above and I’d prefer it if my football club won comfortably as they did against Fulham recently instead of putting me through an emotional wringer. But that’s not the Arsenal way is it?

I expected 2 or 3 changes from Atletico, just to inject some fresh legs but Arteta went with what had worked recently and picked an unchanged team. The substitutes bench was as strong as at any time in recent years with both Norgaard and Jesus unable to get a seat amongst the substitutes. West Ham selected a starting 11 made up of many of the clubs tallest footballers, no doubt with set pieces both offensively and defensively in mind.

It was notable that Arsenal had five English players among its starting 11, and it was with those players which Arsenal quickly exerted an element of control after the shadow boxing of the opening 5 minutes.

West Ham fell back into a solid back-five with five in midfield looking to break quickly as Arsenal probed for weaknesses. After just 9 minutes Myles pushing forward found Trossard whose quick control and astute pass with the outside of his foot sent Calafiori scampering into the West Ham penalty area. Our stylish Italian probably didn’t get as good a contact on the ball as he would have liked on his shot and that great chance was cleared for a corner. From that corner Rice drove his cross to the far post where Leo was waiting and his powerful header was deflected up into the air by the Hammers goalkeeper it eventually ended up arriving to Trossard again whose second header hit the woodwork and went to safety.

West Ham were hanging on and looking seriously nervous as Arsenal flooded forward, on 13 minutes some slick interplay between Eze and Gyokeres set up Calafiori but his shot flew wastefully over the bar. On 22 a swerving free kick from Rice was headed towards goal. Saliba looked certain to stab it home but a desperate West Ham boot deflected it clear. Arsenal were looking relentless which left the home fans fairly silent as the expected floodgates were at busting point.

Then Ben White went down and everything changed. The look on Ben’s face told us that this could be a season ending injury as he had tweaked his knee, probably ligaments and that’s 3 weeks if you’re lucky, nearer six weeks if you are not. A thoroughly disconsolate Ben hobbled off and was replaced by Zubimendi?!!!

Now my son texted me wondering what Arteta was thinking and I didn’t really know. Maybe he didn’t have enough confidence in Mosquera dealing with the pace and trickery of Somerville and thought that Rice’s experience was preferable. Whatever was behind his thinking we saw West Ham begin to match and then take some control of the midfield from then on. West Ham went very close and the game lost its verve and became more of a scrap, which suited the Hammers. On 45 minutes a sharp break saw West Ham create their best chance of the half with Raya flying across his goal to save a dangerous shot.

Half-Time 0-0.

Arteta made his second change at half-time with Mosquera replacing Calafiori, who also picked up a knock – hopefully a precautionary substitution. Mosquera dropped into right-back, Rice returned to midfield and Myles took over at left-back.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Zubimendi to me was pretty ineffective, his passing was off and he seemed physically overwhelmed by his huge opponents. Am I worried about him long term? Well yes I am if he’s not carrying an injury issue…

Around 49 minutes West Ham again threatened our magnificent goalkeeper but he was up to the task, Raya really has been amazing this season. On 58 Saka fired over the West Ham bar, Bakayo looked jaded and lacked his usual spark but he should have got his shot on target. The Arsenal players weren’t knocking the ball around as crisply as earlier and as the nerves set in the home fans sensed an upset which in turn motivated the home team, and so it went.

With an hour gone Arsenal upped the tempo, then West Ham made a sub and 4 minutes later Arteta took off the fading Eze and the ineffective Zubimendi for Odegaard and Havertz and they both injected some attacking momentum. An Arsenal free kick led to another goalmouth scramble and a possible handball by Pablo but VAR saved his bacon. Arsenal despite their efforts weren’t creating enough and West Ham looked happy with the 0-0. On 80 minutes Arteta took off Saka and replaced him with Madueke.

Raya then pulled off a great save in our box as a smart one-two put Fernandes in on goal, it was a game saving save from David because a minute later Arsenal scored.

Brilliant approach play by Odegaard created some space, he knocked the ball to Rice who returned the favour and then Odegaard rolled a pass to Trossard whose first time shot took a slight deflection and flew past the desperate dive of the Hammers keeper. The goal left Arsenal 7 minutes plus added time to defend and take the three points.

West Ham immediately took off a defender and sent on Wilson to add his battering ram style to the Hammers desperate attempts to save a point. Odegaard had lifted the Gunners with his movement and enthusiasm as the Gunners began to waste time and frustrate the home team, obviously. With 6 minutes of added time West Ham threw the kitchen sink at the Gunners. Then a corner into the box saw Raya go flying from multiple challenges as a Wilson effort crossed the line, 1-1.

But no, VAR got involved and the replays showed that Todibo had grabbed a large chunk of Raya’s shirt and was tugging him whilst Pablo had his arm across Raya’s face and was grabbing his left arm, otherwise Raya would have caught the ball. After an eternity Wilson’s goal was rightly disallowed. Two minutes after that the referee blew for time and I went out for a walk over the park to calm down and chat to my son.

Trossard, despite his drama at home was simply brilliant in everything he did, he seemed to take his game back towards it’s best level and he looked like he may well be our Freddie Ljungberg circa 2002 as this season comes to its climax. Gyokeres again gave the West Ham defence a torrid time but he and Saka missed White when Ben went off and we all missed Calafiori.

I guess an injury crisis is never too far away, but hopefully we’ll get it over the line before the knocks bite. We now have 8 days to recover and it’s over to the 115 charges merchants who have an FA Cup final and three league games to play with hopefully another Everton or two pending…

We March On

By Kev

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