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Match report: Arsenal 2-0 Sevilla

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Arsenal (1) 2 Sevilla (0) 0

Champions League Group B, Matchday 4 of 6
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Wednesday, 8th November 2023. Kick-off time:8.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Takehiro Tomiyasu; Kai Havertz, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Declan Rice; Bukayo Saka, Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Jakob Kiwior, Cédric Soares, Fábio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Karl Hein, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Amario Cozier-Duberry, Charles Sagoe Jr.

Scorers: Leandro Trossard (29 mins), Bukayo Saka (64 mins)
Yellow Cards: Oleksandr Zinchenko, Declan Rice
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 62%

Referee: Istvan Kovacs (Romania)
Assistant Referees: Vasile Marinescu (Romania), Ovidiu Artene (Romania)
Fourth Official: Horațiu Feșnic (Romania)
UEFA Referee Observer: Costas Kapitanis (Cyprus)
UEFA VAR Team in Geneva: VAR Bastian Dankert (Germany); AVAR Benoît Millot (France)

Attendance: c.60,000

We proudly sit on top of Group B on six points whilst our opponents tonight are in third position, four points behind us, and of course, they will be searching for their first victory in this season’s Champions League competition. Sadly, Gabriel Jesus will not be playing tonight due to the hamstring injury he suffered in our away win at Sevilla on 24th October; also our captain Martin Ødegaard is doubtful after missing Saturday’s defeat against Newcastle United at St. James’ Park, as is Eddie Nketiah with an ankle injury.

We kicked off proceedings tonight and within a minute, we had been awarded a corner, and Gabriel Martinelli’s corner was headed just wide by Kai Havertz. Arsenal are very competitive tonight, passing well and pressurising Sevilla, dominating possession in the early stages of the game. The visitors are having issues in not only winning the ball, but holding onto it, as there is an Arsenal man immediately in their scope of vision ready to relieve them of the ball. After Bukayo Saka was fouled by Nemanja Gudelj and a free kick was awarded, the subsequent ball into the penalty area was wasted, and slowly we started to look for the opening goal of the evening. Although we were doing well, with some good shots on goal, the match was starting to look a little flat, which can be dangerous, as we all know. Gabriel Martinelli is causing massive problems for the the Sevilla defenders on the left-hand side, as his cut-back pass fell beautifully for Jorginho on the edge of the penalty area and he set up Ben White to shoot; he tried to curl it into the far corner of the net but it was wide and high, unfortunately. We had a penalty appeal turned down when Bukayo Saka was brought down just inside the penalty area, and just a couple of minutes later, Bukayo Saka cut down the right wing, slotted the ball into the middle of the penalty area for Leandro Trossard who made no mistake in side footing the ball into the net. As soon as the match restarted, we continued to put the Sevilla defenders under pressure, with Gabriel Martinelli turning their defence inside and out, and on the other wing, Bukayo Saka was doing just as much damage in his own way to them too. Kike Salas fouled Bukayo Saka and the subsequent free-kick was punched away by the goalie and the visitors attempted to catch us on the break, but an excellent world-class tackle by William Saliba on Adriá Pedrosa in our penalty area neutralised the danger perfectly. As half-time approached, we still looked for more goals. Gabriel Martinelli cleverly chipped the ball past the defender on the by-line and although he managed to get the ball over into the penalty area, nobody was there to pick it up. Although there was a minute’s injury time, the score remained the same as the teams walked off the pitch for the half-time break.

The visitors kicked off the second half, and they must surely be wondering what on earth happened to them in the previous forty-five minutes and how they can possibly turn this around. For the second half, Takehiro Tomiyasu was replaced by Oleksandr Zinchenko and immediately this highly experienced player found himself in the thick of the action. Bukayo Saka exploded into life, running the length of the pitch before crossing the ball for Kai Havertz, who blasted it over the bar. Just as in the first half, Gabriel Martinelli was turning the defenders inside out and seemingly with ease, flicking over the ball for our strikers to attempt to score. Kai Havertz ran with the ball on the edge of the penalty area, and his superb left-footed shot curled inches past the post. Sevilla were struggling to get out of their half now, and although the visitors were trying to make things difficult for us, we still looked the most likely team to score a goal in this half. After some clever play from Declan Rice, he flicked a ball into the path of Leandro Trossard, whose left-footed shot went wide of the post, and shortly afterwards, we finally got a well-deerved second goal when a quick throw-in sent Gabriel Martinelli on his way into the midfield area, and he spun away and slotted the ball through to Bukayo Saka, who had space to run into on the right wing; he cut inside, beat the full-back and simply slotted the ball past goalkeeper Marko Dmitrović after sixty-four minutes. We really had the bit between our teeth now, and Ben White’s cross was far too high for Kai Havertz, but fortunately it fell naturally to Oleksandr Zinchenko on the edge of the penalty area and his strong half-volley was somehow saved athletically by Marko Dmitrović in the Sevilla goal. Juanlu Sánchez received a well deserved yellow card for cynically chopping down Gabriel Martinelli, and shortly afterwards, after the visitors made some substitutions, we continued marching forward in order to try and score more goals, with Gabriel Martinelli leading the charge. With eleven minutes of the game remaining, Reiss Nelson and Fábio Vieira replaced Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Martinelli, obviously to rest them for Saturday’s match against Burnley. Soon afterwards, Bukayo Saka hobbled off the pitch, to be replaced by Jakob Kiwior, and then, just minutes later, Jorginho was replaced by Mohamed Elneny just on the cusp of full-time, and as we entered the six minutes injury time, we looked extremely comfortable indeed. Declan Rice powered past a few Sevilla players in midfield and the ball was eventually chipped over the top for Kai Havertz, who could not bring it under control, and it was taken off him by a Sevilla defender. There was a VAR check when it was thought that the ball hit Fábio Vieira’s hand, but it was not pursued by the referee, and a minute or so later, he blew the final whistle to bring matters to a close.

A good evening’s work all round. The boys all played very well, and Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka along with Leandro Trossard were exceptional, and William Saliba was truly awesone at the back as well. The opposition just fell to bits in the end, and with one shot on our goal throughout the whole game, the gulf in class was evident. Anyway, we are top of Group B, and we will qualify for the last sixteen of the Champions League if we chalk up one victory from any one of our last two matches in the group. Well done chaps.

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: Burnley at the Emirates on Saturday, 11th November 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

Awful Arsenal look to secure Champions League qualification tonight

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Tonight, we could secure Champions League qualification with two games to go. This despite us being “awful” according to many.

Beat Burnley by an England cricket score on Saturday and we could be watching Match of the Day from the top of the table. Not bad considering Mikel Arteta has been “found out” this season.

Following the Newcastle game, we blogged about how strong the Premier League was looking this season, and that the eventual champions will probably lose 6 or 7 games.

Manchester City have already lost twice in 11 games this season.
Liverpool struggled to a draw away to Luton Town on Sunday
Aston Villa were beaten comprehensively by Nottingham Forest
Tottenham were thrashed at home to Chelsea
Brighton were held at Everton

Of the Top 7 going into last weekend, only 2 got all 3 points – Newcastle and Manchester City. It is tight at the top and Arsenal could well finish the weekend top of the tree, or in 5th place…

That is why we have to learn to ignore the noise behind every defeat, every draw. Because all it is is noise.

Compare the fall-out from us losing away to a very good Newcastle team to Tottenham who lost 4-1 at home to Chelsea.

Tottenham, rightly, went down to 9-men. Both men sent off could have been shown a red card earlier in the game.

There brilliant, young up and coming manager, 58-year-old Ange Postecoglou, then deployed kamakazi tactics that you would not even see in the 3rd Division of the Essex Corinthians League. And yet the Aussie manager and his team came out of the game with praise.

They lost 4-1 at home, their players were ill-disciplined and their manager tactically naive. I am not sure why Sky were heaping so much praise on them.

Were this Arsenal, and it was Granit Xhaka and Shkodran Mustafi sent off, Sky would have dedicated a whole new show to the pair letting the club down again. About how they were a liability. About how Wenger (who would have been managing us then) was tactically arrogant.

Instead, Ange deflected. He played the nice-guy act. Praised the referees who got every decision right. And all Gary Neville et al could go on about was “how nice is the Tottenham manager” rather than “how bad were Tottenham”.

My view is Neville, Jamie Carragher, Michael Owen and others have a deep -seated hateed for Arsenal. This leads them to overly criticise our club, trying to make a negative mountain our of every molehill.

Due to this hatred against Arsenal, then they love Tottenham. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

They overly praise Tottenham for poor performances and their manager as a dig at Arsenal, not because they actually think Tottenham have done well.

I also think the relationship between the PGMOL and Sky Sports needs to be investigated.

Following the Liverpool game, where Sky pundits correctly heavily criticised officials, the PGMOL released the audio of the decision making exclusively to Sky. Since then, they have continued to exclusively release audio to Sky for them to discuss the weekend decisions ahead of Monday Night Football.

And the pundit often left to lead the analysis of the PGMOL audio? Gary Neville. And who is he often joined by? The Professional Game Match Officials Limited Chief Refereeing Officer, Howard Webb.

Is it not a conflict of interests that Sky release audio exclusively to one channel, and the PGMOL is also associated with that channel?

Have the PGMOL told Sky executives “tell your pundits to tone down their criticism of our officials and we will provide you with more access”. It would not be a surprise if that was the case.

My final thought on this is would Jamie Carragher’s response have been different if it was Liverpool who got those decisions against Newcastle? Had Jurgen Klopp come out and said what Arteta did? And had Liverpool made the statement of how they are looking to work with the PGMOL to improve?

He would probably be praising his former team for looking to work with the PGMOL on improvements rather than just criticising.

Tonight, we beat Sevilla and we are through to the knockout stages as long as PSV do not beat Lens. We will join Manchester City and RB Leipzig as the teams guaranteed qualifcation after just 4 games.

So block out the negative noise, The Arsenal are in a good place both domestically and in Europe, and we have not got close to hitting top gear yeat.

UTA

Keenos

Arsenal should be looking to replace Gabriel Jesus (and not Eddie Nketiah)

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Eddie Nketiah was poor against Newcastle. He was also poor in the West Hma League Cup game. Those back to back performances came off the back of his hattrick against Sheffield United.

I have long been a defender of Nketiah – or more a defender of our position against buying another striker.

My thinking has never been that there is not better strikers out there than Eddie. It has always been would a better striker be happy joining us to sit on the bench and basically only play when Gabriel Jesus.

Last season, Eddie played just 1,073 Premier League minutes. That would not be enough to keep a better striker (Ollie Watkins?) happy.

What Eddie has shown us in the last couple of weeks is probably what we all knew of him – he is a decent option to play up-top gainst those lower teams in the Premier League, but does not have the quality if we need someone to come in long term for Gabriel Jesus.

Eddie’s issue he is now facing is that come the end of the seaosn he is 25-years-old. He will unlikely improve much more than his current level. And that level is not good enough if Jesus continues to miss 10-12 Premier League games a season.

The question, however, still rmeians as to who else is there? One option is to be clinical with Gabriel Jesus.

The Brazilian missed a few games last season through injury, and is already on his 2nd injury this season. Is it time to change our thinking from “we need better cover for Jesus” to “we need better than Jesus, and Gabi can be the cover”.

You go and sign an Ivan Toney or Victor Osimhen as first choice, and then Jesus is their cover. Taking into account he can also play left and right wing, there will be plenty of games to keep Jesus happy.

The alternative is that we look for someone who is up and coming, that we might think might quickly overtake Eddie’s level and be a better back-up striker.

This alternative obviously has more risk – especially as that replacement will come from abroad (Nicolas Jackson has looked no better than Eddie this season). There is no gaurantee that the replacement will come in and be a better option.

On a side note, we were strill right in selling Folarin Balogun in the summer. Remember, he was not content with being 2nd choice and fighting for first. He wanted gauranteed first team football. He has not exactly set the French league alight in his 2nd season.

So what options are there?

Better than Gabriel Jesus

For me, there are only really two strikers that I would be interested in if we decided to improve on Gabriel Jesus – Victor Osimhen and Ivan Toney.

Osimhen was key for Napoli last season and has the presence, athleticism, strength, pace and eye for goal to take us to the next level.

I was actually surpsied he remained at Napoli last summer taking into account that both Manchester United and Chelsea were on the look out for a new centre forward. “Why did he not leave?” is a genuine question to ask despite him having just won the league with Napoli.

Napoli have not been as scintilating this season, and currently sit in 4th place. It is increasingly looking like last seaosn was the peak of their project, not the start of a period of dominance. That could mean Osimhen will be on the market come the summer.

I have a feeling that the Nigerian will end up replacing Kylian Mbappe at PSG (who in turn will finally get his move to Real Madrid).

The alternative is Ivan Toney.

I did laugh after the Newcastle game when “journalist” Henry Winter said something like ‘the £65m spent on Kai Havertz could have gone towards the £100m for Ivan Toney, a finisher Arsenal need’.

Winter completely ignoring the fact that Toney is currently serving a ban, so his suggested recruitment would have made zero difference. That changes in January when he can begin playing football again – 16 January to exact.

Toney would be a perfect fit for Arsenal. He is a natural finisher and, like Jesus, also has a fantastic work rate.

He turns 28 in March, which is a slight worry, but then that was the age(ish?) that we signed Ian Wright. And Toney’s journey to the top level is not to disimilar to the Arsenal legend.

Toney has had to fight his way up through the league, and has been no stranger to controversy during his rise. He is a rought diamond and Arsenal might be able to put that final bit of polish on him like we did Wrighty.

But £100m for a soon-to-be 28-year-old does not seem like a sensible investment. We have surely learned out lesson spending big on strikers who might only have 2-3 years left at the top (although unlike Aubameyang, Toney dos not rely on blistering pace. I can see him performing at a high level for much longer).

If we can get a deal done for closer to £40million (can Brentford be bullied to that low?) then we do not even need to think about it. He would be a great signing.

Both Osimhen and Toney would see Jesus return to the “back-up dancer” role that led him to leave Manchester City. But considering his injuries (44 games played, 22 missed for Arsenal), he will surely have to understand that he can not be relied upon for 50 games.

You can easily see Osimhen or Toney starting 40 games up top, with Jesus playing the other 10. Jesus would then start another 10-15 games as he is rotated with Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka out wide, and then probably have another 20 substitute appearances. That will see him playing over 40 games!

Back up for Gabriel Jesus

If we are not yet done with Gabriel Jesus as our first choice striker, the other option will be to scout a 20-23 year old striker who we think could play at a similar level to Nketiah, but perhaps has a higher ceiling. This is where our scouts will earn their money.

Personally, there is no one in England right now who would excite me. There is a reason why Eddie has been called up to Gareth Southgate’s recent squad. If a player comes in to replace Eddie, they will probably have to be currently playing abroad.

Last summer, I looked at those who we might move for and non looked ready to step up and replace Eddie. Some players on my watch list have gone to another level, and I am sure that during the course of this season some new names will appear.

So who should we be currently watching?

Akor Adams – Montpellier – with 7 goals in 10 games for Montpellier, this has been the breakthrough season for the 6ft 3 Nigerian.

Prior to joining the French team in the summer, Adams had spent two seasons playing in Norway, scoring 22 goals in 36 league games. A physical presence, he turns 24 in January. Would one good season make him a better option than Eddie? My feeling is his level is similar to that of fella Nigerian Taiwo Awoniyi. One to wach still.

Elye Wahi – Lens – Lots of clubs were watching him last season, he ended up leaving Montpellier (do be repalced by Adams) and joined Lens.

He comes with a lot of baggage, but could much of that be put down to immaturity (most of his controversies occured as a 14/15 year old).

Just one goal in Ligue 1 this season (against 19 last). Only 20-years-old so clearly a talent. We would have to ensure he is not another Mario Balotelli.

Bryan Mbeumo – Brentford – I recently blogged on why Ivan Toney’s short term epalcement down the middle at Brentford could be a genuine option for us. Plays on the wing, plays down the middle. Having a very good season.

Santiago Giménez – Feyenoord – The Argentine forward has backed up a very good debut season in Europe this season. Now has 38 goals in 58 games for the Dutch team. He reminds me a lot of Olivier Giroud with his near post runs. He gives away some physicality in comparison to the Frenchman, but is certainly sharper.

Worry is for every Robin van Persie or Luis Suarez who have come across from Holland, there is a Afonso Alves, Luuk De Jong, Alireza Jahanbakhsh, Sebastian Haller, Vincent Jansen or Memphis Depay.

Evan Ferguson – Brighton – The hype around the Irishman now seems to have died down a little.

After a hattrick against Newcastle that led some to claim he was a £100m man, he has done very little. – just the 1 goal for Brighton in the 9 games since. Will be a huge price tag for someone who has yet to show much consistency, but clearly has a lot of talent.

Loïs Openda – RB Leipzig – Cam onto my radar 12 months ago whilst keeping an eye on Balogun. Felt he was the same level as the English-turned-American whilst in Ligue 1. Whilst Balogun seems to have taken two steps backwards, Openda has gone up another level after his £35m move to Germany.

8 goals in 9 Bundesliga games, I wonder if we have “missed the boat” with him? Probably too good to be our number 2, but maybe not yet good enough to be our first choice. Would also cost £60m+.

That opinion could quickly change if he continues his fine form in the Bundesliga. Openda might become one of those that we class as “better than Jesus”.

There are a few options beginning to appear that were not really there during the summer.

The question now for the club is should we be looking to repalce Eddie Nketiah as secondchoice, or replace Gabriel Jesus as first choice.

My preference, today, is that we look to replace Gabriel Jesus as first choice. Go get Toney, Osimhen or (potentially) Openda. Jesus then becomes the back-up option, and also covers both wings. Eddie then departs for pastures knew, probably at Leicester City.

Keenos