Category Archives: Arsenal

MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 3 – 0 AFC Wimbledon

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Arsenal (1) 3 AFC Wimbledon (0) 0

Carabao Cup (EFL Cup) Third Round

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Wednesday, 22nd September 2021. Kick-off time: 7.45pm

(4-3-1-2) Bernd Leno; Cédric Soares, Rob Holding, Pablo Marí, Nuno Tavares; Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Thomas Partey, Alexandre Lacazette; Albert Sambi Lokonga; Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith-Rowe, Calum Chambers, Mohamed Elneny, Folarin Balogun, Sead Kolašinac, Karl Hein.

Scorers: Alexandre Lacazette (11 mins), Emile Smith-Rowe (77 mins), Eddie Nketiah (80 mins)

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 62%

Referee: Jarred Gillett

Assistant Referees: Lee Betts and Constantine Hatzidakis

Fourth Official: David Coote

Attendance: Attendance: 56,276

And so the third round of the Carabao Cup comes around quicker than we believed, and with it the early expectation of proceeding towards a Wembley final next year. However, as we have found out to our cost in the past, let us not run before we can walk, put such lofty thoughts away and just concentrate on the match in hand. As we know, Granit Xhaka is not available tonight as he is serving the last of a three-match ban for his red card at the Etihad Stadium just over three weeks hence, and although Mohamed Elneny’s hamstring will be assessed ahead of the game, the rest of the squad is fully fit and ready to do battle with The Dons here at the Emirates this evening.

Another match, another new starting formation, hopefully one that will be successful tonight. Thomas Partey had a good start to the match, looking confident in midfield, putting in tackles when needed and spraying balls around to the forwards. After just eleven minutes, Gabriel Martinelli was brought down in the penalty area, and the referee had no option but to point to the spot; Alexandre Lacazette made no mistake in opening the scoring for us tonight, sending the Wimbledon goalkeeper the wrong way. In the ascendancy now, we are playing confident football. Thomas Partey and Ainsley Maitland-Niles exchange a couple of one-touch passes in midfield before the latter cleverly threaded the ball through for goalscorer Alexandre Lacazette, who tried to backheel it into the path of Gabriel Martinelli but the visitors’ defence neutralised the move. Wimbledon started to come back into the match with one or two interesting moves which led to a half-hearted attempt by Luke McCormick which was easily dealt with by Gabriel Martinelli, who slumped to the ground with an injury, but thankfully it appeared to be a minor one, and he soon resumed playing after a couple of minutes, getting into the thick of the action with a superb cross into the Wimbledon penalty area for Alexandre Lacazette, which was cleared by Will Nightingale. We started to dominate the match now, and it looked like the visitors had no answers for our quick, passing play in and around the box, with Alexandre Lacazette, Albert Sambi Lokonga and Eddie Nketiah getting mighty close to scoring with their superb efforts. Gabriel Martinelli came close to scoring after clever link-up play with Alexandre Lacazette, and as half-time approached, it would have been good to grab a second goal to firm things up a bit. Then, incredibly, a Cédric Soares corner was whipped into the Wimbledon penalty area, but a defender headed it up in the air and it dropped back onto the line, where goalkeeper Nik Tzanev pushed it onto the bar, before any of our players could force it home. Incredibly, a couple of minutes later, the half-time whistle blew and how we did not manage to grab a second goal before the break was nothing short of unbelievable.

And so the second half started, with Arsenal not moving the ball around as quick as they did in the first half, but still dominating possession nonetheless. Thomas Partey and Gabriel Martinelli were linking together well tonight, and both were doing their best to unlock the Wimbledon defence. On the hour, Thomas Partey was replaced by Emile Smith-Rowe to give the lads a bit of bite for the last half hour of the match, and almost immediately he got into the game and made himself a nuisance by passing a great ball to Cédric Soares, whose right-footed shot was miraculously saved by the goalkeeper. The match started to stagnate, then Mikel Arteta sent on Bukayo Saka, who replaced a fatigued Gabriel Martinelli.and within minutes, thanks to the zest and fire of the substitutes, we grabbed our second goal of the night. Alexandre Lacazette noticed that Emile Smith-Rowe was in a predatory position, so he slotted the ball to him, and he wasted no time in scoring a superb goal from just inside the penalty area with his trusty left foot. Our confidence was on the up now, and just after Albert Sambi Lokonga’s shot was blocked by a Wimbledon defender, Cédric Soares delivered the ball to Eddie Nketiah, who made no mistake in scoring our third goal of the night from close range with a clever backheeled shot. That goal was the last act of the night for Eddie Nketiah, who was replaced by Folarin Balogun with just ten minutes of the match remaining. By now, we were doing exactly what we wanted to with clever off-the-ball movements and superb passing between the players. Literally, on the ninetieth minute, Bukayo Saka picked the ball up just inside the Wimbledon half, turned the defender, then cut inside onto his left foot and curled the ball inches wide of the far post; there was one or two efforts in injury time, but in essence, the match was over, and when referee Jarred Gillett blew the whistle for full-time, the sense of relief from the Wimbledon team was obvious. We now go on to meet Leeds United in the fourth round of the Carabao Cup at the Emirates on Wednesday, 27th October.

To be fair, the statistics of the match tell their own story. Despite one or two iffy moments, Wimbledon didn’t manage a shot on our goal, and with sixty-two percent possession, our dominance was thre for all to see. The nost important thing was that we finished the game with no injuries, and with the North London derby coming up on Sunday afternoon, we need all out players fit for the visit of Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates.

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: Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates on Sunday, 26th September at 4.30pm (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.

Thomas Partey – Arsenal’s One Man Midfield

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I watched a lot of Thomas Partey when he was at Atletico Madrid.

He always came across as a Patrick Vieira type midfielder.

Whilst he could be classed as a defensive midfielder, he was much more than that. He was at his best when he was free to let his presence be known across the pitch, using his power and fitness to press and win the ball.

To do so he needed a static midfielder in behind him. Someone who was defensively disciplined and would remain in place when Partey went hunting for the ball.

It is for that reason I did not see Partey as a replacement for Granit Xhaka but a partner.

In my mind it was simple.

Partey would press high up the pitch whilst Xhaka sat. He would drive forward with the ball at his feet whilst Xhaka dictated play from deeper with his passing.

It would be reminiscent to the Petit / Vieira days.

Jorginho and N’Golo Kante is perhaps a more modern example at Chelsea.

Against Burnley, Partey played as the deepest midfielder – with Emile Smith Rowe and Martin Odegaard further forward. And it was a tactic that worked very well.

Many often question why Arsenal (and others) play 2 defensive minded players against lesser sides.

Chelsea almost always play with Jorginho and Kante. As do Manchester United (usually 2 of Fred, Matic and McTominay). Liverpool often played with 3 in their title winning season (Fabinho, Jordan Henderson and Georginio Wijnaldum).

Likewise Man City look their most balanced when both Ilkay Gundogan and Ferdandinho play together.

Mikel Arteta took the risk and played with just Partey which allowed him to get more creativity on the pitch.

When Burnley were on the ball, Partey would drop into the back 4 creating 3 centre backs.

This a tactic allowed Ben White and Gabriel to man mark Chris Wood and Ashley Barnes. Partey then became the arial attacker when the ball went high.

Capable of dropping into the defence and attacking the high ball. It worked brilliant.

Partey showed in the game that he can perform as the deepest of the midfielders. That he had the positional discipline not to leave the defence exposed.

The only thing to raise is it was Burnley.

Arteta was able to do this due to Burnley playing a traditional 442.

They had no attacking midfielder occupying the space between Arsenal’s defence and midfield; and their own two midfielders were pre occupied with Odegaard and Smith Rowe.

This almost always left Partey as a free man.

Against sides that play with an attacking midfielder, or a striker that drops deeper, Arsenal might find themselves quickly over run in midfield.

Against someone like Chelsea, Partey wild be occupied with Kai Havertz. That would then always leave Mason Mount free.

Liverpool would drop Firmino deeper which would then free up Thiago to dictate the midfield.

Even lesser teams like Leicester City would stick James Maddison on Partey freeing up Youri Tielemans.

It is a tactic that worked against Burnley because of the way Burnley set up.

But what Partey showed is that he can play as the deeper of the midfielders. And what that means moving forward is that Arteta can play one of Albert-Sambi Lokonga or Ainsley Maitland-Niles alongside him; rather than Granit Xhaka.

I am not naive enough to say things like “Partey has just ended Xhaka’s career” but it is now quiet clearly “Partey + 1 depending on the opponent” rather than “Partey & Xhaka”.

Now we just need to hope Partey stays fit.

Keenos

More transparency needed for Gold Member voting

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For years we have been petitioning the club for a more open and transparent process as to how they appoint members of the Fans Forum.

The lack fo fan input at high levels of the club was shown during the European Super League dibacle.

Not just with Arsenal, but with all 6 clubs involved, the decision to get involved in a closed shop European Super League was one made by the CEO’s and senior exectutives of clubs. all of whom only cared about the money it would generate.

The clubs might pretend that fans were “consultated and considered” with the decision but the truth is they were not.

For a long time, Arsenal have had a “fans forum” which is supposed to act as a sounding board. Theyu are supposedly consultated on most major decisions from the club – including ticket & membership prices, safe standing, ticket allocation for cup finals and “other projects with significant impact on fans”.

Whilst in theory the fans forum is a good thing, it his hidden behind clsoed doors, with non-disclosure agreements.

In the day of technoloigy, these is no reason these meetings can not be recording and streamed. Not necessarily live but at a later date once any information they do not wish to be shared has been redacted.

There has also always been lack of clarity as to who gets onto the fans forum.

Anyone has always been able to apply to be a fans representative (gold, silver, red, juniro Gunner, gay, ethinic minrotiy, female and disabled are just some of the groups repsented) but how those represenatives are chosen has not always been clear.

One of the things we called for was that applicants should be chosen by fellow fans, and not club members.

So we were delighted this week when the club announced that applications for the new Gold Member representative would go to a fans vote.

We were however surprised that the vote was on an “open page” on the clubs website.

When we were campaigning for this, what we wanted was for members to pick their representative.

So gold members pick the gold representative, silver the silver, red the red, purple (disabled) the purple, Junior Gunners pick the JG representative and so on.

In our minds, it was fairly simple.

The vote page should be in the members area of the clubs website, where you have to log on using your membership numbers. This would straight away restrict it to members only.

Then if you are a gold member, you will only see the gold members vote. When the silver member position comes available, only silver members will see the vote within their area.

This would lead to true fan representation.

Having it as an open vote seems to go against the spirit of the exercise, as fans would be able to vote on someone that does not represent them.

It would be like allowing voters to vote for a Member of Parliament in a different constituency to the one they are registered to vote in.

Our worry was that non-Arsenal fans could also infiltrate the vote.

So we approached the club to share our concerns in what seems to be a free-for-all voting system.

We asked the simple question:

“Why was there not a log in to vote?”

In response, the club have informed us that only the members votes will count.

We pushed further and asked how they would ensure only members votes would count but were told no need to you to know.

We deemed this unacceptable.

One of the biggest issues at the club in recent years has been the lack of transparency. The majority of gold member applications have raised this as a key issue. So to have been blocked from asking a simple question was disappointing.

So we are taking it further and this morning have Emailed Vinai Venkatesham.

What we have asked him is:

1) Are the club arranging and counting these votes or is it a 3rd party?

2) It seems anyone can vote on the website for the Gold rep, how are the club/3rd party filtering the votes so only Gold members votes are counted?

3) By which date are you planning on all reps being fan chosen by (silver, red, club level, etc)

4) Will the number of votes cast per candidate be published?

The club came back to us quickly answering the above questions as follows:

1) Are the club arranging and counting these votes or is it a 3rd party?

  • The Club will be arranging and counting the votes

2) It seems anyone can vote on the website for the Gold rep, how are the club/3rd party filtering the votes so only Gold members votes are counted?

  • All members votes will be validated and any non-members votes wil lbe discounted

    • 3) By which date are you planning on all reps being fan chosen by (silver, red, club level, etc)

  • The final group of ‘non-elected’ reps reach the end of their term at the end of 23/24 season, so for the beginning of the 24/25 season all reps will be elected by their peers

    • 4) Will the number of only gold members votes wil lbe counted for gold membersvotes cast per candidate be published?

  • The club will publish full results

    • Whilst we appreciate that the club came back to us swiftly, we still have many concerns such as:

    1. Why has the club not been transparent with the fact that only gold member votes will be counted
    2. Three years too long to have a full fan elected fans forum – every position should have been up for election

    The fact that the club are not being transparent with the process and waiting for 3 years before we have a fully elected fans forum shows that they still do not get it.

    This move was done to make the club appear more engaging with fans following the European Super League dibacle. but all it has done is raise more questions.

    Fan involvement with the club is a positive. But it has to be real fan involvement. Not just the club playing lip-service

    She Wore