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
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 