Well, you know what the half time break can do to teams, don’t you? Firstly, young Mattéo Guendouzi replaced colleague Lucas Torreira, who never appeared again after the break, due to a painful collision with Nicolas Pépé at the end of the first half, and secondly, because of this injury, our natural midfield rhythm was disturbed, thus allowing Crystal Palace to make their mark on the match. We started to fall asleep at different times, which became disturbing to witness. Just nine minutes into the second half, we were punished badly for our lack of concentration. After giving away a pointless free-kick, Max Meyer crossed the ball from the right, Cheikhou Kouyaté stuck out a hopeful leg which merely pushed the ball to Jason Ayew; his left-foot gauche effort ricocheted off David Luiz and in a kind of bizarre slow motion (yet in real time, you understand) agonisingly went past Bernd Leno and into the net for the equaliser. All manner of disasters now unfolded, in which petulance and downright niggling behaviour from both teams became the order of the day from now on. With twenty-five minutes left on the clock, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang completely lost his captain’s composure and launched into Max Meyer with a bone-crunching tackle that saw him sent off for his trouble (after the regulatory post-mortem VAR investigation, that is), an act that overturned his earlier yellow card incident. With a man down, Crystal Palace smelled blood from a wounded animal and so spent the rest of the match overtrying to score, but thankfully, to no avail; in fact, it was us that nearly grabbed the winner towards the end of the game with a superb strike from Nicolas Pépé that struck the post, only to fall back into goalkeeper Vincente Guaita’s arms. Thankfully, referee Paul Tierney drew proceedings to a close a little while later, and we came away from Selhurst Park with a point after a well-earned draw.

Despite the disappointing result, there were some good things out there in SE25. Ainsley Maitland-Niles superbly kept Wilfried Zaha at bay for most of the match, and Granit Xhaka certainly earned his money out there today, marshalling the midfield into a coherent unit. David Luiz and Nicolas Pépé played very well, but sadly Mesut Özil appeared to allow the match drift away from him, hence his substitution in favour of the excellent Gabriel Martinelli after seventy minutes. We are still deep in WIP (work in progress), and surely nobody is in any illusion that it will be a while for Mikel Arteta to stamp his marque on the team; he will, but patience is now the otder of the day, as mighty oaks from small acorns do indeed grow. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Sheffield United at The Emirates on Saturday 18th January at 3.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.