Arsenal (3) 5 Wolverhampton Wanderers (0) 0
Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Sunday, 28th May 2023. Kick-off time: 4.30pm
(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale; Thomas Partey, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Leandro Trossard.
Substitutes: Kieran Tierney, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Rob Holding, Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Matt Turner, Mauro Gomes Bandeira, Reuell Walters.
Scorers: Granit Xhaka (11 mins, 14 mins), Bukayo Saka (27 mins), Gabriel Jesus (58 mins), Jakob Kiwior (78 mins)
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 51%
Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistant Referees: Simon Long, Scott Ledger
Fourth Official: James Linington
VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Tony Harrington; AVAR Stuart Burt
Attendance: 60,095
As we already know, today’s match is a “dead rubber”, to use a popular sporting parlance. All we can do this afternoon is to end the season with a win against the West Midlanders, and finish this campaign with our heads held high, and look towards a summer of pure speculation and hope that the club are able to sign some more top players in order to try to bring silverware back to the Emirates next season. This afternoon the medical team are reviewing the fitness of Reiss Nelson, (who missed the defeat at Nottingham Forest through illness), along with Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard. However, it is believed that Gabriel Martinelli, William Saliba, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Mohamed Elneny remain sidelined through injury.
The visitors started the better of the two sides today, and within five minutes they had the first chance of the day when a long-range Matheus Nunes right-footed shot from a difficult angle was thankfully blocked, but minutes later, we took the lead when a Gabriel Jesus cross was met by Granit Xhaka, who headed the ball into the back of the net from close range. Three minutes later, he scored our second goal, when his left-footed shot from the centre of the box ended up in the bottom left-hand corner of the net. We were certainly fired up by two early goals, as Martin Ødegaard then set up Leandro Trossard, whose strong shot was blocked by a Wolves defender. Play was stopped for a short while because of an injury to Gabriel Jesus, but he did not appear to be too badly hurt as he carried on playing. The match appeared to settle down, with both teams giving away silly free-kicks due to late tackles. However, we were fortunate not to concede a goal when a Nathan Collins right-footed shot from the left-hand side of the six-yard box went wide following a free-kick from the visitors. This effort appeared to wake us up a bit, as almost immediately at the other end, Leandro Trossard slotted the ball to Bukayo Saka, whose left-footed shot from the right-hand side of the box ended up in the the bottom left-hand corner of the net for our third goal, and all before the thirty minute mark as well. Bukayo Saka almost grabbed our fourth goal a couple of minutes later when Martin Ødegaard nicely set him up to score, but his right-footed shot was saved awkwardly by the Wolves goalkeeper, José Sá. The visitors’ defence looks all over the place, as a huge chance appeared for Granit Xhaka to grab his hat-trick but he stuck it wide of the Wolves goal from close range. Four minutes from the break, club captain Martin Ødegaard had a superb left-footed shot from outside the Wolves penalty area, which was blocked whilst travelling towards the goal. Although referee Andre Marriner played three minutes’ injury time, nothing of any note happened and we easily went into half time with a comfortable three goal lead in our top pocket.
The last forty-five minutes of the 2022-23 season started reasonably slowly, but almost immediately, play was stopped due to an injury to Bukayo Saka, who continued after getting some treatment from the medical team. The visitors started to come at us, and our defenders managed to block two good chances to score from Adama Traoré and Nélson Semedo but it mattered not, as a few minutes later, we grabbed our fourth goal of the day when Leandro Trossard crossed the ball for Gabriel Jesus to head the ball neatly into the bottom right-hand corner of the net. To say we are comforable is an understatement; however, on the hour, Reiss Nelson replaced Bukayo Saka because of an injury, and a couple of minutes after he entered the field of play, Martin Ødegaard set up Reiss Nelson with a gold-plated chance to score, but unfortunately his shot went wide of the goal. Shortly after a Leandro Trossard shot which was acrobatically saved by José Sá, a double substitution was made when Emile Smith-Rowe and Fábio Vieira replaced Martin Ødegaard and two-goal Granit Xhaka with fifteen minutes of the match remaining. Shortly afterwards, following a corner, Emile Smith-Rowe placed the ball into the Wolves penalty area for Jakub Kiwior to hit a right footed shot from the centre of the penalty area to the centre of the goal for our fifth goal of the day, and his debut goal for Arsenal as well. With ten minutes of the match remaining, another double substitution happened when Kieran Tierney and Eddie Nketiah replaced Jakub Kiwior and Leandro Trossard for the remainder of the match, and despite the score, we carried on trying to grab more goals. An Eddie Nketiah shot went narrowly close of the goal, and then Reiss Nelson passed the ball to Jorginho, but sadly his shot went high and wide to the right of the Wolves goal. The match started to slow down, and after five minutes injury time, referee Andre Marriner brought our season to an end.
Our title challenge may well have collapsed in recent weeks, but we looked back to our very best in this victory and were helped to this by a very lacklustre Wolverhampton Wanderers side. Although we are completely assured of second place, Arsenal ended the campaign on eighty-four points, which is our highest points tally since the Invincibles stormed to the title with ninety points back in 2003-04. Also we only finished five points behind Manchester City, and who knows what may have happened if we had won those drawn matches against Southampton, Liverpool and West Ham United? Still, we are back in the Champions League for the firsst time since 2016-17, and finishing second to Manchester City is no disgrace; who knows what may happen next year?
Remember everyone, keep the faith. Stick with the winners. Have a great summer, everyone! 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
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 
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