MATCH REPORT: Watford 2 – 3 Arsenal

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Watford (1) 2 Arsenal (2) 3

Premier League

Vicaarage Road Stadium, Vicarage Road, Watford WD18 0ER

Sunday, 6th March 2022. Kick-off time: 2.00pm

(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale: Cédric Soares, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, Kieran Tierney; Martin Ødegaard, Thomas Partey, Granit Xhaka; Bukayo Saka, Alexandre Lacazette, Gabriel Martinelli.

Substitutes: Bernd Leno, Rob Holding, Nicolas Pépé, Nuno Tavares, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Mohamed Elneny, Eddie Nketiah, Zak Swanson, Omari Hutchinson.

Scorers: Martin Ødegaard (5 mins), Bukayo Saka (30 mins), Gabriel Martinelli (52 mins)

Yellow Cards: Cédric Soares, Eddie Nketiah

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 57%

Referee: Craig Pawson

Assistant Referees: Lee Betts, Richard West

Fourth Official: Simon Hooper

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Darren England; AVAR Eddie Smart

Attendance: 21,142

Looking objectively at the Premiership table, with West Ham United and Manchester United (the two teams directly above us), playing Liverpool and Manchester City respectively this weekend, this match represents a superb chance for us to make our mark on fourth place, regardless of the fact that we also have three games in hand, all of which we need to win, of course. Three wins in a row for us in the Premiership have improved the mood music at the Emirates nowadays after what was truly a difficult start to the season.

Within seventeen seconds of the kick-off, Emmanuel Dennis ran onto a Joao Pedro pass and got the ball into our net, but thankfully, it was disallowed for offside; however, five minutes later, Martin Ødegaard opened the scoring for Arsenal when he slotted the ball past Ben Foster to hit the back of the net after some clever play from Bukayo Saka out on the right wing. The match got even more frenetic when, on the eleventh minute, Cucho Hernandez equalised for the Hornets with a clever acrobatic shot that gave Aaron Ramsdale no chance to keep out. After such excitement so early on in the game, the match started to gain pace and became an end-to-end one from now onwards. Thomas Partey was desperately unlucky not to score our second goal when his long-range shot deceptively twisted around the right hand side of Ben Foster’s post. Both teams are fiercly competitive and look really dangerous when they get in front of goal, and it was looking as if this match was there for the taking should one side or another get the breaks. Aaron Ramsdale made a fabulous save from Emmanuel Dennis, which he could not hold, but somehow managed to claw it away before Joao Pedro ran in to try to score. However, on the half hour, we got back in front when Bukayo Saka took the ball off Tom Cleverley, slotted it to Alexandre Lacazette who back-flicked it into space for Bukayo Saka to put the ball away with some aplomb. The goal certainly inspired us to go on the hunt for more goals, as we started to pass the ball around with confidence, but we had to be very careful though, as the home side were extremely dangerous on the counter-attack. Three minutes before the break, we had a penalty appeal turned down when Cédric Soares took a tumble in the Watford penalty area, but referee Craig Pawson waved for play to continue. In the two minutes injury time, we continued to press the Watford defence but the scoreline remained in our favour when Craig pawson blew his whistle to signify the hiatus.

With much anticipation, we started the second half here at Vicarage Road this afternoon. The home side commenced rather firmly, with the majority of the action being in our half. There was a heart-stopping moment just after the restart as an attempted clearance by Aaron Ramsdale went straight to a Watford player who was quickly neutralised by our men, which could have been extremely awkward, and then, a minute or so later, Ben White accidentally caught Cucho Hernandez with his arm and the Watford player went down clutching his face. After one or two angry words and pointing fingers from the Watford players, Cucho Hernandez carried on. Seven minutes after the restart, Mikel Arteta retrieved the ball after it went out for a throw-in and Bukayo Saka took it quickly, and in an extremely quick thinking moment, Martin Ødegaard and Alexandre Lacazette combined superbly well together to tee-up Gabriel Martinelli to blast the ball into the net from twenty yards, a real cracker of a goal, worthy of a winning goal in a cup final, no doubt about that. Cédric Soares was booked for a silly tackle on Joao Pedro, and when the match resumed, we just appeared to take control of matters. Watford, to be fair, still looked dangerous as they had done most of the match, but when we moved forward, particularly on the counter-attack, we looked positively lethal, with the feeling amongst the travelling fans in the stadium that we could still get yet more goals today. Gabriel Martinelli was replaced by Nicolas Pépé with eighteen minutes of the match remaining, which gave us a fresh pair of legs in order to grab yet more goals this afternoon. Mikel Arteta could be seen encouraging his players to move forward to increase their goal tally. Alexandre Lacazette made way for Eddie Nketiah with eleven minutes left on the clock, and within a minute of his arrival, our subsitute hit the post with a ferocious shot that left Ben Foster grasping for air. With three minutes of the match remaining, Moussa Sissoko twisted, turned and slipped the ball under Aaron Ramsdale to reduce our hard-earned lead to just one goal now. Martin Ødegaard was substituted for Rob Holding during the first minute of five in the injury time period to try and shore things up a little at the back, and suddenly things started to look a little more pressurised for us. Eddie Nketiah was booked for a reckless challenge and after Samuel Kalu’s shot was easily plucked out of the air by Aaron Ramsdale, we managed to hold on to grab the victory, and for the time being, fourth place in the Premiership.

A superb win today, and some great football played by the boys as well. Just how good was Bukayo Saka this afternoon? This young man is growing in stature in every match he plays, and it was also heartening to see how good Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey were in linking up together in midfield, not to mention the off the ball running of Alexandre Lacazette also. All three goals were dazzling pieces of work, and at last there is a feeling of fourth place in the Premiership being a distinct possibility.

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: Leicester City at the Emirates on Sunday, 19th March 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.

Chelsea ownership was always a money laundering project for Abramovich

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The Chelsea stuff continues to dominate the headlines.

Roman Abramovich has now officially put the club up for sale, stating that he is “writing of the loan” and “net proceeds with be donated to a charity he is setting up for the people of Ukraine”.

It is all PR guff and raises a lot of questions.

Writing off the loan really does not change much.

Chelsea have been valued at around £3bn, and £1.5bn is owed to Roman.

If Abramovich was not “writing off the loan” then he would get nowhere near his value of the club.

A prospective investor would be looking to buy the club for £1.5bn, whilst also paying off the £1.5bn owed to Abramovich. Their total investment would still be £3bn.

By “writing off the loan” Roman can now ask for £3bn from the club, knowing that an investor will pay that to buy a debt-free asset.

In both scenarios, the Russian Oligarch would receive £3bn for the sale of Chelsea.

He also talked in his statement about donating the net proceeds of the sale to charity.

Now what the “net proceeds” are is also up for debate. Will it include what he is owed for the loan or not?

And in the small print, it transpires that Roman is setting up his own charitable fund to distribute the money; rather than giving the money to one of the many existing charities doing great work in Ukraine.

Why set up your own charity? Well so that you can siphon off in “legal” ways as we have seen recently with the Captain Tom Foundation.

This is all just sprots washing and money laundering.

Roman has taken his dirty money, earned during the break up of the Soviet Union where he was gifted national assets by his friend Vladimir Putin.

He has pumped that money into Chelsea, with no one in authority questioning where it came from.

Now he is selling the club, the money comes out clean.

By the time you take into account what he paid for the club and the loan, Roman would have “cleaned” nearly £2bn in ill-gotten gains.

It will then be put into a trust in somewhere like the British Virgin Isles, destined to be “donated to charity” but we all know it won’t be. The dust will die down and it will all be forgotten about.

The worst thing is, there are fans out there supporting Abramovich.

By buying Chelsea, he bought millions of supporters who will back him to the hilt just because he financed their success for 20 years.

There is clearly a split in their fan base.

The older fans are saying “thanks for the memories, time to say goodbye.”

Those that are younger are addicted to the success he bought and will back Roman no matter what it transpires that he has done.

Not really much Arsenal news floating about, but what is happening up at Chelsea does affect us.

Tomorrow we move onto other topics.

Keenos

Guendouzi’s fall from grace as Marseille deal made permanent

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In 12 months time Marseille will sell Matteo Guendouzi for a huge profit.

Having played his 38th game for the French side, the clause to make the deal permanent for £9million from Arsenal was triggered.

Arsenal are losing a good player for way below his market value, but it is still a deal that is good for the club.

Guendouzi is a troubled soul.

There is a reason why last season there was no club interested in him despite Arsenal happy to take a cut price deal.

After a good first season at Arsenal in 2018/19, he was one of the hottest prospects in European football. Transfermarkt valued him at £45million.

At the time he was comparable to Declan Rice. A 20-year-old midfielder with the physical and technical attributes to make it.

But as Rice’s star has continued to rise, Guendouzi’s has fallen.

A tough second season at Arsenal was marred by childish behaviour and fallings out with different managers and coaching staff.

Whilst he is was physically a man, he was clearly mentally immature.

His behaviour led him to be loaned out to Hertha Berlin for the 2020/21 season. Meanwhile Rice was being made vice-captain of West Ham and establishing himself as an England regular.

Guendouzi did not exactly set the world alight in Germany, and his discipline issues kept raising their head.

Summer 2021 hit and whilst Rice was helping England make the European Championships Final, Guendouzi was searching for a new club – and there were very few takers.

He ended up on the French south-coast; Marseille.

But even they were unwilling to make the deal permanent – agreeing a loan deal that would only go permanent if he played a certain amount of games.

Whilst this summer, Rice will be pursued by some of the biggest teams in Europe for a transfer fee worth in excess of £100million, Guendouzi will be joining a 2nd rate team in a 2nd rate league for £9million.

A quick look at Transfermarkt shows they value Guendouzi at £18.6m. Rice £67.5million. A difference of nearly £50million.

Back in December 2019, their value differed just £5million.

Guendouzi and Rice were around the same level in 2019, and the same potential. Rice has kicked on, Guendouzi has not.

Another good year in France for Marseille, keeping his head down and behaving will lead to him getting a big move.

He will be back to being valued over £40million and Marseille will cash in.

Arsenal will then be criticised by some corners for letting a player go so cheap.

But the other side of the coin is that a leopard never changes his spots. That when he gets that big move, he struggles with the increase in pressure and expectation. That he will not like being told what to do and the petulant behaviour rears its head.

Mikel Arteta is clearly building a team of a certain type of character. Ben White, Aaron Ramsdale, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odergaard.

Guendouzi does not fit in with these guys.

Albert Lokonga has replaced Guendouzi as the “bright young midfielder”. We now need to be buying better than Granit Xhaka to improve the squad. Matteo is not that.

Pocket the money, and continue the positive investment.

Keenos