Arsenal (2) 5 Sunderland AFC (1) 1

Carabao Cup (EFL Cup) Quarter-Final

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Tuesday, 21st December 2021. Kick-off time: 7.45pm

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Cédric Soares, Rob Holding, Ben White, Nuno Tavares; Mohamed Elneny, Martin Ødegaard; Nicolas Pépé, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah; Folarin Balogun.

Substitutes: Kieran Tierney, Thomas Partey, Gabriel Magalhães, Bukayo Saka, Alexandre Lacazette, Aaron Ramsdale, Granit Xhaka, Gabriel Martinelli, Charlie Patino.

Scorers: Eddie Nketiah (17 mins, 49 mins, 57 mins), Nicolas Pépé (27 mins), Charlie Patino (90+1 mins)

Yellow Cards: Folarin Balogun

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 68%

Referee: Robert Jones

Assistant Referees: Harry Lennard, Derek Eaton

Fourth Official: John Brooks

Attendance: 59,027

Such a truly great achievement for the chaps to reach the quarter-final stage of this continually mocked and oft-derided competition; if things go our way against the Black Cats here this evening, then we can go into Christmas being semi-finalists in the Carabao Cup, as well as enjoying the lofty position of attaining fourth position in the Premier League! Mikel Arteta has made nine changes to the team that were victorious over Leeds United last weekend, with Ben White and Martin Ødegaard being the only players to keep their place tonight. Unforunately, the club have confirmed that Albert Sambi Lokonga, Pablo Marí and Calum Chambers have all been sidelined due to positive testing for COVID-19; additionally, Ainsley Maitland-Niles is also unavailable as he has an unrelated and unspecified illness. By the way, there is no VAR to be used in the Carabao Cup until the semi-final stage.

We kicked off proceedings here at the Emirates, on a cold December night in North London. Quite an energetic start from both teams, with attempts on goal and interesting movements both on and off the ball. The visitors had a penalty appeal denied after five minutes, and although they made a good account of themselves, we slowly gained control. We nearly scored the opening goal, when after twelve minutes, Nuno Tavares’ cross took a deflection from the boot of Elliot Embleton, who almost converted it into his own goal; the ball hit the crossbar and Eddie Nketiah’s follow-up was blocked, and it went off for an Arsenal corner, which went nowhere, sadly. However, after just seventeen minutes, a Cédric Soares corner flew into the visitors’ penalty area, and Rob Holding’s powerful header was well saved by goalkeeper Lee Burge, but unluckily for him, the rebound fell to Eddie Nketiah, who tapped the ball into the net from close range. The goal certainly inspired us to hunt for more goals, and over the next few minutes, Folarin Balogun was desperately unlucky not to score our second goal of the evening when his two excellent attempts were saved by the goalkeeper. After twenty-seven minutes, we finally grabbed our second goal when Nicolas Pépé ran down the right wing and found Cédric Soares on the overlap, and he then pulled the ball back to Nicolas Pépé in the box; the Ivory Coast international took the shot and after a deflection off Callum Doyle, ended up in the top right hand corner of the net. However, three minutes later, a lack of concentration in the midfield area, saw the Black Cats grab a goal when Nathan Broadhead slotted the ball past Bernd Leno. The match became real end-to-end stuff with both teams looking likely to score; it has to be said, however, that in our goal, Bernd Leno made a superb save when he turned Alex Pritchard’s goalbound shot around his right-hand post. Sunderland started to press our defence but thankfully the line held, and with just a few minutes left on the clock before the break, we had a penalty appeal demied when Nicolas Pépé went to the ground in the visitors’ penalty area, courtesy of Lynden Gooch. Sunderland half-cleared a cross and Emile Smith-Rowe’s twenty yard volley was punched away confidently by goalie Lee Burge. In the three minutes’ injury time, despite one or two close shaves by the visitors, we went into the break deservedly in the lead.

Our visitors, the Black Cats, began the second half off in earnest and started to bring the match to us. However, just four minutes after the restart, Nuno Tavares and Folarin Balogun played a clever “one-two” on the left and Nuno Tavares whipped in a cross, and Eddie Nketiah just nicked the ball past Lee Burge for our third goal of the night from six yards with a clever finish. Just after the goal, young Folarin Balogun picked up a yellow card from referee Robert Jones for a silly challenge on Denver Hume, and Mikel Arteta almost immediately substituted him for the more experienced Granit Xhaka. The visitors hit the woodwork with an excellent twenty yard strike from Elliot Embleton with Bernd Leno grasping for air; it mattered not, as we scored our fourth goal of the night when Granit Xhaka placed an inch-perfect pass out to Nicolas Pépé on the right wing, who beat Denver Hume quite easily (via a “nutmeg”), and slotted it across into the six-yard box for Eddie Nketiah to score his first senior hat-trick with a classy backheeled flick from close range with some aplomb. Just superb, just like Eddie. A few minutes later. it looked as if a carbon copy of the last goal was about to be scored when Nicolas Pépé beat his man in the same way, but Martin Ødegaard’s shot was blocked by goalkeeper Lee Burge. As we appeared to be in complete control of the match now, game management was the buzzword of the moment. Martin Ødegaard went very close with a well-taken free-kick after seventy minutes, and a double substitution was made soon after when Gabriel and Gabriel Martinelli replaced Ben White and Martin Ødegaard to save their tired legs for more important matches on the fixtures horizon. With thirteen minutes of the match remaining, Mikel Arteta gave 18-year-old Charlie Patino his first class debut, when he replaced Emile Smith-Rowe to the generous applause of the sporting crowd. The match was halted when there was a clash of heads between Bailey Wright and Gabriel Martinelli; after treatment from their respective medical teams, they continued to play on, thankfully. We had a penalty appeal turned down when Gabriel Martinelli found Eddie Nketiah with a superb pass, who touched the ball past Callum Doyle and went down. The television replay showed that Callum Doyle didn’t touch him (apparently), and we continued onwards and upwards. Literally, in the final minutes of the match, Charlie Patino scored on his professional debut, when he threw himself at Nicolas Pépé’s low ball across the penalty area and slotted it into the back of the net from eight yards. A lovely finish to a great night.

Ultimately, the gulf in class between the two sides told the tale it was always supposed to. However, lots of good things out there on the field of battle tonight, least of all Eddie Nketiah’s hat-trick; he has scored five goals in six games this season, all of his goals have come in three Carabao Cup games. Just how good was it that not only did Mikel Arteta give Charlie Patino his debut, but he also scored the fifth and final goal of the evening too! After tonight’s match, the club can go into Christmas with their heads held high, and their optimism the same; we have come a long way since those early disasters of this season. All to play for now. Happy Christmas everyone!

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: Norwich City at Carrow Road on Sunday, 26th December (Boxing Day) 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.

I would not normally come to Danny Mills’s defence. He is a poor pundit and very bitter about Arsenal.

But Football365, a once well-respected and football website needs to hang its head in shame.

On Sunday, one of its so called ‘journalists’ Joe Williams wrote and article over what Danny Mills said in an interview with Football Insider.

That article was then assigned a headline by an editor or sub editor (at publications the journalist writing the article usually does not write the headline).

This headline read:

Pundit claims Arsenal start Aubameyang ‘slapped Arteta in the face’

But Mills did not say that.

So what did he say?

Slapping someone in the face is an idiom. It means (according to the Oxford Languages) “an unexpected rejection or affront.”

It is a well used idiom in the English language. One many of you reading would have used in the past.

Aubameyang’s behaviour was a slap in the face for Arteta after the chances he had given them.

It is gutter press at its worst. A fabricated headline taking what was said out of context for hits and clicks regardless of what damage it causes.

This situation highlights the problem with fake news – both in football and beyond.

It is more important to be “fast” rather than correct. Headlines without reading the data.

We live in a media world driven by how many clicks an article gets (which lead to advertising revenue) rather than driven by the accuracy of an article.

At time, the media attempt to create the news rather than report.

The screenshot of the headline went viral. Passed “many times” through WhatsApp groups. But how many times were the actual Mills quotes passed on? How many took the time to see if the headline was correct.

It too kmy 30s to read the original quotes and debunk the headline. Sadly thousands more, maybe even millions, would not have taken that time. And like that, the news that Aubameyang slapped Arteta has become real.

I am sure other Arsenal blogs, vlogs and social media idiots will repeat the live over the next 24 hours. They will do so because again, they need the advertising revenue or attention. They will not take a moment to publish the truth.

I have done that. Published the truth.

As I said, I am not Mills’ biggest fan. But he should sue Football365.

Keenos

Under Mikel Arteta, following The Arsenal has been a bit of a rollercaster.

From the highs of winning the FA Cup to the lows of a 7 game winless run a few months later and being bottom of the league after 3 games with no goals and no points this season.

It has not been easy under Arteta.

Some of the worst football I have seen us play mixed in with poor results. Every time we take two steps forward, we take two steps back.

A run of 8 games without defeat (6 wins, 2 draws) this season was followed by 3 defeats in 4 games. And then we went and won the next 3 games.

18 games in (just one off half way through the season) we sit 4th in the table.

I do not know how we have got there considering the start we had and the 6 defeats; but with a goal difference of just 4 we are top 4.

There is often a lot of debate whether we have progressed under Arteta. As I said above it often feels like 2 steps forward, 2 steps back. But how do we compare after 18 games against previous years?

	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts	Pos
2014/15	18	8	6	4	32	22	10	30	6th
2015/16	18	11	3	4	41	18	23	36	2nd
2016/17	18	11	4	3	39	19	20	37	4th
2017/18	18	10	3	5	31	20	11	33	5th
2018/19	18	11	4	3	40	24	16	37	5th
2019/20	18	5	8	5	24	27	-3	23	11th
2020/21	18	7	3	8	20	19	1	24	11th
2021/22	18	10	2	6	27	23	4	32	4th

A lot of Arteta’s detractors like to make the point that Mikel took over a side that finished 5th the season before and took us to 8th. This is a miss-truth.

When Unai Emery was sacked at the end of November 2019, Arsenal sat 8th in the league table with just 18 points from 13 games.

Arteta took the reigns following Frddie Ljungberg’s 5 game stint in charge which saw us drop to 11th, 23 points from 18 games.

Two seasons from taking over, Arsenal sit 4th after 18 games with 32 points from 18 games. It is undeniable that Arsenal are in a better position now than we were when Arteta took over.

The debate is whether we have moved forward enough, considering the money Arteta has spent.

Despite a clear improvement on the last 2 seasons, we are still 5 points behind where we were in 2018/19 – Emery’s first season.

We are also still one point behind where we were in Arsene Wenger’s final season and 5 points behind where we our total after 18 games in 2016/17 when we finished the season in 5th.

What all this highlights is how far we have fallen since Wenger left (although I do buy into the argument that he started the rot at the club; with many of the problematic players over the last 4 seasons since his departure having been signed by him).

It also highlights just how good we were in the first 6 months under Emery – level on points with the 2015/16 team that challenged Leicester City for the title for 75% of the season.

That Emery team completely fell away in the last 6 games of the season – winning just 2 of its last 7 games as Arsenal dropped from 3rd in the league to 5th and lost the Europa League Final.

Just 4 wins from the opening 13 games of the next season made it 6 wins from 20 games, a run that lost Emery his job.

1 win in 5 under Ljungber saw Arteta take over a team with 7 wins in its last 25 games. The FA Cup victory perhaps papered over what a bad place we were in,

In comparison, we have won 15 of the last 25 games under Arteta.

So what has Arteta done since taken over? He has stablised a rapidly sinking ship under Emry and returned us to where we were in those last few seasons under Wenger.

the argument could be made he is not returning us to glory quick enough; and we have had too many poor runs and performances under him.

But he is a young manager with a young team.

The ultimate question is whether our inconsisten form is due to him being that young manager, or his team being young and at time naive. Or both.

Would Arteta get more out of an experienced team? Would an experienced manager get more out of our young team?

For now, we can only say one thing for certain.

Arteta has taken us forward from December 2019 when he got the job.

The rest you can debate amongst yourselves.

Keenos