For close to a decade under Arsene Wenger, and then under Unai Emery, all most of asked was for us to be challenging for the title at the business end of the season.
Our victory against Bournemouth means that we are taking our title challenge to the last week of the season. We can not demand much more than that.
Early season questions surrounding whether we could back up last season remarkable breakthrough have been put to bed. With 2 games to go, we have 1-point less than 2022/23 scored the same amount of goals and conceded 15 less. Mikel Arteta has proved himself to be a top, top manager.
But all of this could be for nothing. The title is in Manchester City’s hands and I can not see them getting into any trouble in their last 3 games.
For us, the equation is simple. Beat Manchester United at Old Trafford and we take our title challenge to the last game. Lose and City could clinch the title with a game to go against Tottenham.
If we finish 2nd, the usual suspects will be looking to blame someone. Those that listen to far too much TalkSport will jump straight on the “Arsenal bottled it again” bandwagon. Finishing 2nd to Manchester City is not bottling it.
If we win our final two games, our 2024 form will read: P18 W16 D1 L1. That is title winning form, not the form of a team that bottle it towards the end.
It is incredible that we could put that run together and still finish second. But then you look at City.
If Man City win their final 3 games, they would have gone on a 23-game unbeaten run, winning 19 and drawing 4. That truly is incredible form for 60% of the season. And we should be proud that we have been able to keep up with their pace.
Yes, we did start a slower this compared to last. But we were holding back a little to ensure we were still at 100% come the last 10 games. And that is exactly what have happened.
For decades, top teams such as Arsenal, Manchester United, Chelsea and Manchester City have done “just enough” in the opening 15 games of the season to get wins and keep up with the league leaders. As Christmas comes and goes, they then find an extra gear. That is where we now are.
Had we started stronger, there is no guarantee we would have been able to keep it going. Evidence 1: Arsenal last season. Evidence 2: Liverpool this season.
Come the beginning of February, Liverpool were 5 points clear of both ManchesterCity and Arsenal. At the time of writing (on a sunny Sunday morning), they are 8 points behind us and 7 behind City. They are out of the title race, could well be out of the race for the top 2 by the time this is published, and have fallen away.
I would not say Liverpool have bottled it. They have just ran out of steam like Arsenal did last season. Manchester City have created a league that you can not afford to lose even once in the last 18 games of the season if you want to be champions. That leads to huge physical and mental fatigue to those teams who do not have their resources.
This time next week we will know whether we are going to be taking our season to the last game of the season, or whether we have gifted Tottenham fans the opportunity to celebrate a league title at their ground. And I am sure Spurs fans will be delirious watching City lift the title at White Hart Lane.
As always, we just need to focus on ourselves. City play again before our next game. We could be facing Man U in second place, or playing them with the title being back in our hands.
Arsenal (1) 3 AFC Bournemouth (0) 0 Premier League Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU Saturday, 4th May 2024. Kick-off time:12.30pm
(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Takehiro Tomiyasu; Martin Ødegaard (c), Thomas Partey, Declan Rice; Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Leandro Trossard. Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale, Gabriel Jesus, Emile Smith-Rowe, Gabriel Martinelli, Eddie Nketiah, Jakob Kiwior, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Fábio Vieira, Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Scorers: Bukayo Saka (45 mins, pen), Leandro Trossard (70 mins), Declan Rice (90+8 mins) Yellow Cards: Thomas Partey, Kai Havertz Arsenal Possession Percentage: 50%
Referee: David Coote Assistant Referees: Tim Wood, Mark Scholes Fourth Official: Darren England VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Peter Bankes; AVAR Stuart Burt Attendance: 60,348
Matchday Thirty-Six, three matches to go, with today being the penultimate home game, of course. This afternoon’s opponents, AFC Bournemouth, are currently mid-table, but that does not mean that they could be dangerous on their day.
To stop today being “their day”, we have to bring the match to them, and finish them off as soon as possible. No room for complacency now, boys.
Almost immediately after kick off, our Premier League Golden Glove winner David Raya had an early shot to save from Dango Ouattara and he quickly distributed the ball out to Martin Ødegaard who tried to pick out Bukayo Saka but the ball went straight to Cherries’ goalie Mark Travers who easily scooped it up.
Soon afterwards, Ben White scooped the ball into the penalty area for Kai Havertz, who tried to lay the ball off to Bukayo Saka but it was intercepted by a visiting defender who stopped our attack in its tracks.
Our raids on the Bournemouth goal started to become more frequent with Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard, Bukayo Saka and Kai Havertz all getting close to scoring.
On the fourteenth minute of the match, there was a huge round of applause in the stadium for fourteen year old Gunners fan Daniel Anjorin, who was sadly killed in the sword attack in Hainault last Tuesday, with a huge banner which said “R.I.P. Daniel” printed on it, which was a touching gesture by fellow Arsenal fans. Shortly afterwards, Takehiro Tomiyasu had a shot which was cleared off the goal-line, and our pressure on the visitors’ goal was relentless at this point of the game.
On the half-hour mark, Thomas Partey was nicely teed up on the edge of the penalty area and although he tried to place it into the left hand corner of the net, goalie Mark Travers somehow got across the goal quickly to push the ball behind for a corner.
The match started to calm down and level out for a while, until six minutes before the break, when Bukayo Saka drilled the ball across the face of the goal and it bounced off Kai Havertz to simply dribble harmlessly wide of the post, even though Ben White was adjudged to have been in an offside position.
Declan Rice had a couple of goalscoring chances, both of which, to be fair, were good enough to have been goals. Just before the break, Kai Havertz was played in behind the Cherries’ defence, and he then successfully went around goalkeeper Mark Travers and his trailing leg made contact with him.
After the usual VAR check, we were quite properly awarded a penalty and Bukayo Saka slotted it away with some aplomb to open the scoring this afternoon, which was the score at the half time break.
A couple of minutes after the restart, Ryan Christie curled in a dangerous cross from the right wing but fortunately, there was nobody in our penalty area to connect with it, which was a huge let-off (and a wake-up call) for us.
And wake-up we certainly did, as a few minutes later, Thomas Partey slotted the ball to the feet of Kai Havertz on the edge of the penalty area. He spun around smartly and hit a superb shot towards the right hand corner of the net with Mark Travers stretching to get to it, but he did somehow.
We started to ramp up the pressure and everyone in the stadium thought that Bukayo Saka was certain to score from close range, but incredibly defender Lewis Cook went to ground and merely pushed the ball away from our man, which was a piece of excellent defending, it has to be said.
On the hour mark, Thomas Partey accidentally caught Dango Ouattara a wee bit late and unjustly received a yellow card from referee David Coote for his trouble.
The visitors then attacked our goal, but Ben White did very well to sprint back into his defensive position to close down Justin Kluivert just as he threatened to get in behind our defence, and then Antoine Semenyo received a long pass and started to bear down on our goal, but fortunately William Saliba was on hand to neutralise the Cherries’ goalscoring threat, thankfully.
With twenty minutes left on the clock, we grabbed our second goal of the afternoon when the ball was superbly held up by Bukayo Saka, got it to Declan Rice and he slipped it cleverly to Leandro Trossard on his left, who coolly introduced the ball to the back of the net to give us a comfortable two-goal cushion.
A few minutes later there was drama at our end when Antoine Semenyo managed to get the ball past David Raya, but fortunately VAR cancelled the goal out when it became obvious that Dominic Solanke fouled our goalie in the build-up to the goal, so despite protestations from the Bournemouth players, the goal was rightly cancelled out.
With nine minutes of the match remaining, Leandro Trossard was replaced by Gabriel Martinelli, and the pressure for us to get that elusive third goal of the afternoon continued. Just after Bukayo Saka was replaced by Gabriel Jesus, shortly afterwards, Gabriel hit an absolute screamer that hit the back of the net, but unfortunately Kai Havertz was deemed to have been offside in the build-up to the goal which was a terrible shame.
Literally, in the eighth minute of injury time, Gabriel Jesus held the ball up on the right, waited patiently for Declan Rice, who was running in like an express train, beautifully slipped it to him in the Cherries’ penalty area and he fired it into the far corner of the net. Game set and match to the Arsenal!
A superb win today, with everyone playing their part in front of a capacity crowd, with Mikel Arteta using the same starting eleven as he picked against Tottenham Hotspur last Sunday afternoon.
Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard, Thomas Partey, Martin Ødegaard and Takehiro Tomiyasu were absolutely fabulous today, and although there were times in the first half where frustration set in, as soon as the penalty was scored by Bukayo Saka just on the cusp of half time, the Cherries’ fate was sealed with a sublime second half team performance.
Today’s victory was our fourth win on the bounce as we kept up the pressure on Manchester City and we just hope that the Champions drop points in the title race against Wolverhampton Wanderers this evening at Molineux. 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: Manchester United at Old Trafford on Sunday, 12th May 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
When we launched the blog a decade ago, the plan was never to make it a daily thing. It was just a place for me to let off steam in a longer format beyond social media.
In the last few years, SheWore.com did become a daily blog, with us publishing something for around 400 days straight.
That streak stopped when I returned from Egypt and was basically bed bound for two weeks. I could barely even get to the toilet, let alone wrote a blog.
Since my return to fitness, I have been able to get back to writing daily again. But that is all changing soon.
Life is getting busy right now – both work and personal. I will not always have a spare hour in the morning to smash out a blog, or hour in the evening to write something for the next day.
Back during my “streak” days, I would sometimes write 3 or 4 blogs on a Saturday or Sunday (depending on when we were not playing). Those blogs could then be used as filler when I did not have something fresh to write!
I will still be writing, and the blog will go on. But you might not always get your daily read.
As always, if you want to write something, share your thoughts, you can. Just email your article to shewore@gmail.com. That is exactly what happened yesterday when we got an email from PcB with his musing on Declan Rice and Arsenal.
Today I am writing from the Central Line as I head in for our early kick off. I have no idea about any team news or injury updates as I have not had a chance to catch up yet. That is what life is like right now! And I assure you all that it is busy in a good way!
Three points today will take our title race to the last week of the season. All those years under Wenger and that short spell under Emery, this is what we all demanded. To still be there at the end.
This weekend we could also secure 2nd place if Liverpool fail to beat Tottenham and we win!
Enjoy your day. Enjoy your bank holiday weekend. There will be the usual match report tomorrow from the brilliant Steve.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 