Category Archives: Arsenal

Arsenal’s undroppable defensive trio as Arteta set to rotate in attack

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Morning!

As is the way at this time of the year, games are coming thick and fast! Top of the league, we look to build on our recent good form against Wolves.

Gary O’Neil is a fantastic young manager and surely destined for bigger things. His team come into the game as a wounded animal having had yet more VAR decisions go against them last weekend.

On 15 points from 13 games, they could quite easily been on 21 had decisions gone there way. That would have them sitting in 9th, ahead of West Ham and just 1 point behind Brighton and 2 behind Newcastle.

It feels this season that the quality in the Premier League runs deep.

The likes of Aston Villa, Newcastle, Brighton, Brentford, West Ham and Wolves have recruited well and clsoed the gap between them and the “Big 6”. The fact these teams are regularly buying players from Champions League clubs such as Atletico Madrid highlights just how far financially the Premier League is these days.

You always worry about playing on a Wednesday and then Saturday. Luckily for us, both games are at home. Things would have been tricker had we just travelled to Lens and then had to go up north to Wolverhampton.

Games like today are where you need to lean on your squad a little bit. We have a squad of 25 and it is important that we use them. With Luton Town coming up on Tuesday and Aston Villa next Saturday, it will be important to rotate.

Oleksandr Zinchenko and Takehiro Tomiyasu were both taken off at half time on Wednesday as Mikel Arteta swapped out his full backs. Tomiyasu has been brilliant at right back and left back this season.

I think over the next 3 games, Zinchenko, Tomi and Ben White will all play two-games each as Arteta gives each of them a break.

One area where Arteta will not be rotating is our defensive triangle of Gabriel, William Saliba and Declan Rice. They are up there with any defensive trio in world football.

Lens was the first time this season we saw Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli start together. The result was 6 goals from 6 different goal scorers and our best attacking performance of the season.

With Emile Smith Rowe and Fabio Vieira both out until the New Year, Arteta’s rotation options are limited. The quintet above are covered by Leandro Trossard, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson.

Considering Jesus and Odegaard are both returning from injury, I do think that 5 games in 15 days will be too much for them. Arteta will have to pick and chose which games to give them a rest for. And the same probably goes for the rest of the squad.

Today is probably the easiest of the next 3 games (being at home), so it might the match where Arteta decides to give both Odegaard and Jesus a bit of a break. I can see Nketiah and Trossard starting.

That will give the pair an almost 7 day break before Luton away on Tuesday and that trip to Villa Park. Due to us securing top spot in the Champions League, everyone should miss out on PSV and get a weeks rest.

Luton Town might be a game where Arteta decides to rest one of Saka or Martinelli – with Trossard coming in for whichever misses out. The goal will then be to have the quintent back on the field together for the Aston Villa match.

But it is also easy to fall into that trap of looking too far ahead. We need to focus on today. Get the 3 points and solidify our place at the top of the league.

With other teams not playing, a win will take us 4-points clear. It is nothing to be too excited about considering we have played a game more (note: Tottenham were celebrating their “biggest lead in Premier League history” when they went 5-points clear earlier this season having played one game more).

On Sunday, Tottenham travel to Manchester City, so if we win we will either be extending our league on 2nd place, or extending our lead on 5th. If we end the weekend 7 points ahead of Spurs, I think the media will need to put to be the narrative that they are transformed under the Austalian Harry Redknapp.

Hopeully we are a bit more awake as a fanbase today than Wednesday.

Wednesday’s crowd was odd. It often is for these Champions League games as season ticket holders living outside London tend to stay away. This results in a rise of casual fans getting tickdets from the TX. Mix in the cold weather and us being 5-nil up at half time made for an atmospherically dull 2nd half.

Finally, a reminder that at the Wolves game, Islington Food Bank will have a drop off point on podium level, adjacent to the Tony Adams statue. They will be collecting items from 1pm til kick off. Basic essentials requested, such as baked beans, tinned fish, tinned soup, tinned fish & Pasta.

Please give what you can, and if you can not make the game, consider giving them a small donationL https://islington.foodbank.org.uk.

UTA.

Keenos

Arsenal hit attacking stride as quintet start together for the first time

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Lovely win on Wednesday. That is how you qualify for the knock out stages of the Champions League in style!

The 6-nil victory over Lens not only secured our progression, but also means we finish top of the league.

Again, i would like to point out that Arsenal are top of both the Premier League and our Champions League group despite “Arteta being found out”. It is crazy that some still dismiss him as a poor manager. It is clear that they have their own agenda at play…

Finishing top means that we avoid other group winners in the next stage – so no Bayern Munich, Real Madrid or Manchester City. We are also likely to avoid Barcelona, Dortmund and Atletico Madrid.

Currently in second are Copenhagen, Napoli, Inter Milan, Lazio, PSG, RB Leipzig and Porto.

The victory was our best attacking performance of the season. Not a surprise when it was the first time Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz had played together this season.

That quintet is up there as one of the best attacking units in European football!

A few have commented about how we are less exciting in attack this season, and I have often blogged that the lack of Jesus is the reason behind this.

Jesus is instinctive and causes chaos for opponents. The way he plays excites and gets bums off seats. It is no surprise that we are a little less exciting when he is upfront. It will be interesting to see if we stick with the 5 man front line against Wolves!

It is interesting how quickly fan opinions can change in football.

Following a bucket load of debatable decisions, Arsenal fans were told by Newcastle fans, former players, and pundits, to basically “shut up and accept it” and to “respect the referees decision”.

An international break later and Newcastle themselves were on the wrong end of a debatable decision that saw a victory in Paris snatched away from them at the last minute. And the response was ever so predictable.

The same fans who told Arsenal fans to “get over it” were up in arms. Alan Shearer was tweeting his hatred of VAR. And pundits were coming out saying that the decision making was not good enough.

Newcastle fans have shown themselves as a microcosm of all football fans – tribal hypocrites.

When I blogged about the Newcastle debacle, I made the point that fans, managers and the media need to come together as one to make it clear that the VAR decision making was not good enough. That rivalries needed to be put aside.

There is no point saying “love VAR” and mocking opponents when a decision goes your way, then saying “f**K VAR” and demanding changes when it does not. Fans need to stay consistent and call out all poor VAR decisions – even if they go your way.

We have seen poor VAR decisions go against Liverpool, Wolves, Arsenal and Newcastle this season. There is probably more to mention as well. But the PGMOL will feel under no pressure to improve whilst fans continually fight amongst themselves and go out of their way to defend bad decisions that go for them (or against a rival).

I will not follow Newcastle fans lead by mocking them for the PSG decision. I will say that they as a fan base need to do better. That celebrating poor decisions does not lead to improvements.

UTA!

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 6 (six) – 0 Lens

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Arsenal (5) 6 RC Lens (0) 0
Champions League Group B, Matchday 5 of 6
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Wednesday, 29th November 2023. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Takehiro Tomiyasu, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Oleksandr Zinchenko; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.
Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Ben White, Eddie Nketiah, Jakob Kiwior, Cédric Soares, Leandro Trossard, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Karl Hein, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Ethan Nwaneri

Scorers: Kai Havertz (13 mins), Gabriel Jesus (21 mins), Bukayo Saka (23 mins), Gabriel Martinelli (27 mins), Martin Ødegaard (45+1 mins), Jorginho (86 mins)
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 48%

Referee: Artur Manuel Soares Dias (Portugal)
Assistant Referees: Paulo Soares (Portugal), Pedro Ribeiro (Portugal)
Fourth Official: Miguel Nogueira (Portugal)
UEFA Referee Observer: Kyros Vassaras (Greece)
UEFA VAR Team in Geneva: VAR Tiago Martins (Portugal); AVAR Hugo Miguel (Portugal)

Attendance: c.60,000

If we are victorious tonight against our French opponents, we will secure top spot in Group B, which will be a fantastic position to be in, going into the New Year. Fábio Vieira is ruled out of tonight’s game after having surgery on a groin injury, but Kai Havertz will be starting this evening after he came off the bench to score the winner against Brentford on Saturday.

Arsenal kicked off the fifth match of six (and the last home game in Group B for us) in a fantastic atmosphere here at the Emirates tonight. We started off calmly, in control, looking for our men with every measured pass.

We dominated possession of the match in the early stages, and over on the right wing, Takehiro Tomiyasu was causing the RC Lens defenders one or two issues that they don’t appear to be too happy about. Shortly afterwards, a Bukayo Saka pass found Gabriel Jesus, who tried to flick the ball back into Bukayo Saka’s path, but it went askew.

Just after a Kai Havertz header (courtesy of Takehiro Tomiyasu) went narrowly wide of the right-hand post, we took the lead on the thirteenth minute when a high ball was played into the penalty area, Gabriel Jesus laid it off for Kai Havertz, who simply knocked the ball into the back of the net from six yards.

Shortly after the restart, Bukayo Saka was “sandwiched” between two RC Lens players and he crumpled to the ground, holding his leg; he managed to get up and carry on, but he was hobbling around a fair bit.

We grabbed our second goal after just twenty-one minutes when Bukayo Saka drifted in from the right wing and although he almost lost the ball twice, he retrieved it both times before merely poking it to Gabriel Jesus in the penalty area. The little Brazilian sidestepped a defender, leaving him prostrate on the ground, he jinked and turned, and slotted the ball into the bottom corner of the net.

A couple of minutes later, David Raya pumped a long ball up the pitch into the path of Kai Havertz, who in turn slotted the ball into the path of Gabriel Martinelli, whose lovely curling shot was parried by goalie Brice Samba, right into the chest of Bukayo Saka, who simply bundled the ball into the net.

Four minutes later, we scored our fourth goal of the evening when Gabriel Martinelli ran quickly onto a long ball down the left wing, lost a few defenders, took his time and beautifully curled a shot into the far corner of the net.

One major point of concern tonight was the amount of fouls that Bukayo Saka was receiving, both on and off the ball; if ever a player needs protection from the match officials tonight, it must surely be him.

The visitors claim for a penalty was denied when a ball hit Kai Havertz’s leg and went onto his arm; VAR took a look and quite rightly cancelled it out. Facundo Medina hit a screamer from twenty-five yards, which hit the post and bounced back into play, but we appeared to take it in our stride and carried on pressurising the visitors.

Just before the break, Bukayo Saka passed the ball to Gabriel Martinelli, but he whacked his shot into the side netting, and in the first minute of injury time, our fifth goal was scored when Bukayo Saka ran deep into the RC Lens half, and passed the ball to Takehiro Tomiyasu on the overlap, who immediately crossed it and our captain Martin Ødegaard volleyed the ball into the bottom corner of the net from about ten yards. Five-nil to the Arsenal at the half-time break! Phew!

Mikel Arteta has made a double substitution for the second half, with Ben White and Jakob Kiwior replacing Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oleksandr Zinchenko. The visitors were making a better fist of things in the early stages of the second half far more than they did in the whole of the previous one, showing more spirit and fight. However, we started to wake up a bit and play the kind of football that got us five goals in the previous half, although obviously, the urgency has dissipated somewhat.

Gabriel Jesus hassled and harried the ball back off from the visitors, but sadly commited a foul in the process. Gabriel Martinelli made a fantastic run through the middle of the pitch, but he was tackled by a phalanx of defenders and he lost the ball in the process, obviously.

The visitors were trying to split our defence using the long ball style of play, but our defenders were easily clearing the ball out of harm’s way.

Bukayo Saka was replaced by Reiss Nelson after sixty-five minutes, and we almost grabbed a sixth goal when Kai Havertz caused mayhem out on the left wing and pulled it back for our captain to shoot.

Martin Ødegaard’s shot was somehow saved by Brice Samba, who dropped the ball but gathered it up just before Gabriel Jesus could pounce on it. Ben White whacked a ball over the bar following a Martin Ødegaard corner, and with fifteen minutes of the match remaining, Jorginho replaced Declan Rice (with an eye towards the Wolverhampton Wanderers match on Saturday afternoon) and just after Eddie Nketiah replaced Gabriel Jesus, we were awarded a penalty when Gabriel Martinelli was elbowed across the face; normally our captain takes the penalties, but he graciously handed the ball to Jorginho, who made no mistake from the penalty spot.

In the three minutes injury time, the visitors had a couple of chances which were easily dealt with, and despite some good possession play from our boys, the match petered out to its natural conclusion.

A fantastic performance by the boys here at the Emirates tonight; six-nil, with six different goalscorers.

The first half sealed the visitors’ fate, and although we played some great football in the second half, the damage to RC Lens had already been done. Sensible substitutions by Mikel Arteta throughout the second half preserved some legs for the Wolverhamtpon Wanderers game on Saturday afternoon, which is going to be an inportant match for everyone. Anyway, as far as tonight was concerned, top of Group B, and we qualified as group leaders with a match to spare. 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: Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Emirates on Saturday, 2nd December 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