Match Report: Arsenal 1 – 1 Brighton

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Arsenal (1) 1 Brighton and Hove Albion (0) 1
Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Sunday, 5th May 2019. Kick-off time: 4.00pm
(4-2-3-1) Leno; Lichtsteiner, Mustafi, Sokratis, Monreal; Mkhitaryan, Xhaka; Özil, Torreira, Lacazette; Aubameyang.
Substitutes: Čech,  Elneny; Koscielny, Iwobi, Guendouzi, Kolašinac, Nketiah.
Scorers: Aubameyang
Yellow Cards: Lichtsteiner, Mustafi, Sokratis, Xhaka, Guendouzi
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Attendance: 59,965
Forty-seven years ago this summer, a singer called Colin Blunstone had a hit record with a song entitled I Don’t Believe In Miracles; maybe that ancient tune should have been played over the Emirates public address system this afternoon to bring home to everyone just what has happened here. Instead of basking in comfortable self-satisfaction, we now have reality staring cold and hard at us in the face; the fact that only picking up one point from the past four Premiership matches means that not only do we finish outside the top four places, but Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea take up positions three and four in the table, thus qualifying for the Champions League competition next season. Agreed, a freaky combo of results that would see Everton beating Tottenham Hotspur, and (wait for it) Arsenal defeating Burnley at Turf Moor by a cricket score could overturn this situation, but quite frankly, it ain’t gonna happen.
And yet, when this match started, like so many others this season, we were all merrily led down the garden path of hope and possibility, that dissipated into a complete farce eventually. Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s shot hit the inside of the post soon after kick-off, then just minutes later, Alireza Jahanbakhsh brought down Nacho Monreal with an extremely clumsy tackle inside the Brighton penalty area. With no hesitation, Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot, and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang wasted no time in scoring the subsequent penalty.
Surely, after such an auspicious start, one would naturally think that Arsenal would build on this fortuitous early lead wouldn’t you? It didn’t happen that way. We simply allowed Brighton to come back into the match, and as the first half carried on, so did the visitors’ confidence levels also. Arsenal have to be thankful for Bernd Leno as their goalkeeper; time and time again over a twenty minutes period he literally saved Arsenal from a fate worse than themselves. In the five minutes or so before the break, we somehow managed to wake up, and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saw their efforts on the Brighton goal come to nothing.
Was the second half going to be any different. Nope. It was almost as if they were raw recruits to the Premiership with no idea of what was going on, instead of the experienced professional footballers they really are. The incident on the hour proved this. Solly March passed Granit Xhaka in the Arsenal penalty area, and as he did, the Arsenal man slapped him on the back. Penalty given, Glenn Murray scored to equalise the game. We then decided to wake up and try to impose some kind of dominance on this match, and when that appeared not to work, Mr. Emery made a triple substitution (Stephan Lichtsteiner, Granit Xhaka and Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Sead Kolašinac, Alex Iwobi and Mattéo Guendouzi) thirteen minutes from time to force the issue, but it became evident to everybody in the stadium that the harder we tried, the less likely we were to score a second goal, although it should be noted that we did come close to scoring literally at the end of the match, but sadly it was not to be.
And so the players went on this ridiculous lap of appreciation that neither they nor the crowd really wanted; the combination of their sad faces and the world-weariness of our supporters told its own story somehow. By rights, we should have dominated this match against Brighton, who have only just secured their Premiership status for the next campaign, but like so many games during the season we had the inability to do so. Oh, by the way, in Spain tonight, our opponents in the semi-final, second leg of the Europa League have just beaten Huesca by six goals to two. Let us hope that València don’t have their shooting boots on against us, otherwise there will be even longer faces than today when the final whistle blows at around 9.50pm Thursday evening. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. 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.

Match Report: Arsenal 3 – 1 Valencia

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Arsenal (2) 3 València (1) 1
UEFA Europa League, Semi-Final First Leg
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Thursday, 2nd May 2019. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Čech; Mustafi, Koscielny, Sokratis, Maitland-Niles; Guendouzi, Xhaka; Kolašinac, Özil, Aubameyang; Lacazette.
Substitutes: Elneny, Leno, Mkhitaryan, Torreira, Iwobi, Monreal, Nketiah.
Scorers: Lacazette (2), Aubameyang
Referee: Clément Turpin (France)
Attendance: circa 60,000

If Arsenal can get anything out of this excellent victory here at The Emirates tonight, it would be a collective sigh of relief, followed by a sense of a job well done in this competition, this, the only chance of silverware for us this season. There were times in the match when we were extremely profligate, yet other times when we looked completely in control. Soon after the start, València showed their intent in earnest. The miss by Ezequiel Garay should have been a warning to us, but we failed to heed it; after just eleven minutes Mouctar Diakhaby scored the opening goal with a strong header in our six-yard box which was just the lift that the visitors needed.

Alexandre Lacazette saved our blushes half a dozen minutes later with an absolutely superb goal which showed his class and professionalism. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang did the hard work in the box, drawing defenders to him; the visitors didn’t see the danger from Alexandre Lacazette initially, but my word, they certainly did when, just seconds later they were picking the ball out of the net after the equaliser had been scored. Arsenal now saw an opportunity to impose their will (and their type of football) on the match. Our two bandits were constantly penetrating the visitors’ defence, and by half -an-hour on the clock, we were in the lead, with yet another well-taken goal by Alexandre Lacazette. A well-delivered cross by Granit Xhaka found our striker, and as he headed the ball down, València ’keeper Murara Neto could only attempt to try to prevent the ball from crossing over the line by hauling it out at the last minute; thankfully the man in the middle with the vibrating watch knew the truth and gave the goal. Until the break, Arsenal were dominant. Time and time again we penetrated the València defence, but to no avail; it looked fairly obvious that the visitors were mightily relieved when the half-time whistle finally came.

Everyone in the Arsenal camp in the stadium were looking forward to the restart, and the thrill that it may bring. Not so. The visitors appeared to have other ideas and were knocking on the door of a possible draw here. Somehow our defence held firm, and in doing so earned the respect of the Arsenal supporters. Laurent Koscielny, despite carrying an injury, time and time again threw himself into the fray, halting dangerous attacks by the visitors; Sokratis showed both his strength, and positional sense, to halt further València goals, and young Ainsley Maitland-Niles, despite his earlier heart-stopping moment in the first half with the headed back pass that never was, composed himself and showed everyone the footballer that we all know that he can be. To be fair, Alexandre Lacazette should have got his hat-trick, but a series of calamitous shots and half-hearted chances meant that it really didn’t happen. But what did happen, was Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s coup de grâce in injury time. After some dilly-dallying on the edge of the penalty area, Sead Kolašinac finally got an awkward ball across for the Gabon international to score the third and final goal from an acute angle.

At last. Not only a win, but an extremely important win at that. Of course we are not in the final just yet, but this victory certainly has gone a long, long way into not only getting us into our first European final in a quarter of a century, but also a massive confidence boost for an otherwise much maligned squad of very good footballers who now need every bit of support they can get in the final weeks of this troubled season. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. 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.

The Arsenal and Me – GC’s Story

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So as a 13yr old (1985) i got fed up with noone taking me over The Arsenal

Dad had long since bugged off, mum thought it was too dangerous (even tho she went every week as a girl in the 50s n 60s) and grandad worked Saturdays.

I got a paper round. Up at 6am cycle 2 miles to the shop to do my round before school.

My £3.50 wages paid my travel, got me in the ground and a bag of chips swimming in salt and onion vinegar after the game.

It was different in the mid 80s. These days there no way my kids would be allowed out at 10am on a Saturday and told to be home by 8pm..

I had a good set of mates who went Arsenal. Everyone covered each other for mid-week games and we would go a few London aways.

We would share the Junior Gunner passes, show the bloke at the turnstile then pass it back to the next mate, so we all got in cheaper.

Some games we would be on the North Bank; messing about from 1pm, running up and down the terraces, having a fag, taking piss out of each other.

After a while we got brave and moved and stood in the middle, jumping about and singing, often hardly even watching the game. Rip roar give us a song, topside runs from middle, Clock End do yah job and all those songs now not socially acceptable. I fucking loved it.

I got away with going games for about a year before my mother found out. I wanted my own jnr gunner membership and needed her to write a cheque.

Anyways I did the route a lot did growing up, school boys- North Bank – pub and Clock End.

In 1990/91 I worked as a van driver for the printing firm who did the match programmes. Some weeks I’d be in the marble halls every other day. On match days I’d deliver the programmes, park up and meet mates in the pub. I’d be Clock End, my mum upper west and my brother stood by the dugouts. My mum still to this day swears she saw me getting pulled out by the police (not guilty).

But all that changed on this day in 1992.

The end of terracing and paying on the day ended at games. Going The Arsenal changed for the worse.

Sitting down, singing less, no jumping about, no choosing were to stand (at least we could still smoke).

My buzz was replaced by boozing, drugs, raving and girls. I’d often go out on a Thursday night and get home Monday morning.

Whilst I never stopped looking for our scores the change in football was too big for me to go and watch live. We ended up with a good mob of us that used to meet in various pubs for the sky games and pubs with overseas satellites. All lads like me that had been going since they were kids some games there would be 25-30 of us in east London boozers. A generation lost due to all-seater stadiums.

In 1999, after no live games for 6 years I took the plunge and went back. I managed to get 4 tickets bang where the ‘middle’ was in the North Bank.

I was like a 14yr old again; excited, nervous and looking forward to a sing song. That lasted about 5 minutes, the man and women sitting next to me didnt even stand to welcome the players on the pitch, let alone sing during the game. At the half time whistle I was up quick to get a beer but was delayed as the couple got out what I can only describe as a picnic. I have never hated an Arsenal fan as much in my life (Piers Morgan aside).

Going The Arsenal had changed for the worse…But atleast I was part of the last generation to experience and grow up on our terraces.

Forever Arsenal

*GC*

If you would like to tell your Arsenal story, click here