Patino decides to leave Arsenal this summer as club focus on next generation

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Happy Friday! Well done for making it through another week.

Is that it for Liverpool? Not long ago I spoke about how it felt they were in a similar position to us last season – just getting through games, looking like they had run out of steam and about to drop off.

Now I am not saying I am right, but last night against Atalanta they were shocking. A 3-nil home defeat coming off the back of the weekend draw at Manchester United.

In their last 5 games in all competitions, they have won just twice against Brighton (2-1) and Sheffield United (3-1). Before this run, they also needed a 95th minute goal to beat Nottingham Forest.

Now I am not saying they will not win the league. They are clearly still in the title race and things can change quickly. But as we saw with us last season, momentum is a huge thing in football.

I expect them to win this weekend. Then they have those 3 Premier League away games in a row, followed by Spurs at Anfield. Sandwiched in between is the return journey to Atalanta.

The wheels can come off quickly, and they might find themselves out of the title race in a blink of an eye.

There is not much real Arsenal news floating about. Press conferences are today ahead of this weekend’s football, so we will blog about them tomorrow.

There is talk that Charlie Patino has decided to leave the club this summer. Not a huge surprise.

Patino was supposed to be the next big thing, in a long line of next big things. But like most of those before him, he has shown how hard it is to go from dominant youth team football to having an impact in the man’s game.

As a 15-year-old, Patino was part of the England youth set up alongside Jude Bellingham and Jamal Musiala. Whilst they have kicked on, he simple has not.

I have watched him on loan at Swansea City and he still looks lightweight. He has not really bulked him since that performance against Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup back in 2022 which showed he was not ready for men’s football.

He has had two OK loan spells at Blackpool and Swansea, but has not dominated. The reports are he wants to see more first team football, but his performances over the last 2-years would not be good enough for The Arsenal.

We are at a different stage of our evolution compared to where we were 3-years ago. The level you need to be playing at if you want to be part of our first team squad is much higher; as seen with the reduced game time of Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson.

Smith Rowe is clearly superior to Patino, and if he is not seeing much game time, there is not much hope for the younger man.

Football at a youth level is very fast moving. One day you are the biggest prospect at the club, and within a blink of an eye you are in your 20s and there are other 17-year-olds everyone is talking about.

Ethan Nwaneri & Myles Lewis-Skelly are the pair looking to usurp Patino.

If the club think these lads have a higher ceiling, then they are better off investing time in them rather than Patino. A bit like when we cast aside Henri Lansbury to give Jack Wilshere more opportunity.

One thing you always have to remember is Arsenal’s coaches would have seen a lot more of Patino, and other youngsters, than anyone else. Whilst fans might cry on Twitter about them not getting a chance, they are basing their opinion on very little evidence.

Patino is clearly technically gifted. Someone will take a punt on him and we should get above £5m cash money!

Enjoy your Friday. Grab yourself a beer at 4pm! You deserve it.

Keenos

Arsenal need to seek clarification over goal kicks

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Death and taxes. We can now add to that list:

Harry Kane scoring a penalty at the Emirates
Harry Kane finishing league top scorer
Harry Kane failing to win a trophy

I am not sure why drawing at home to Bayern Munich in the Champions League led to so much negativity towards Arsenal.

We now live in a world of extremes. You can not suffer a defeat (or draw even!) without people making over-the-top comments such as “Arsenal bottled it.”

The bottled it is a boring narrative often rolled out by opposing fans who have never seen their team win a trophy, and Arsenal fans who just hate Mikel Arteta for some weird reason. It is used by the sort of fan that type things such as “assnal” or “totnum”.

Grow up lads and learn to actually have a real opinion on the game rather than just looking to troll and / or be driven by impressions. What is crazy is this sort of talk is not even done by kids who do not know better. I see adults using the terminology.

I guess age ain’t nothing but a number and whilst someone might be in their 40s, their lack of intelligence means they have more in common with a 14-year-old, and that comes across online.

Back in the 90s, if these adults were speaking to kids at the park, they would be called out for what they are. But the current era with social media brings children closer to their mentally deficient predators and no one batters an eyelid!

Anyway, back to Arsenal.

A 2-2 draw in the Champions League is not a bad result, especially since they removed the away goal rule.

The removal of this rule is why we now see much more attacking football in the Champions League (10-goals in the first two games). Home teams can now play more expansive without having to worry too much about the huge disadvantage of conceding the away goal.

Unlike previous Champions League seasons when we have given ourselves a mountain to climb, we are in the tie and that is what your aim is after the first leg.

Harry Kane got his usual goal from the penalty spot. The goal was his 6th at the Emirates, with 5 coming from the penalty spot.

Many of those penalties were soft ones (for fouls on wobbly Son – only takes a gust of wind to blow him over!). If referees were as keen to give Arsenal a penalty at the Emirates as they were Kane, then the Swedish official would have blown up for the blatant foul on Bukayo Saka in those closing minutes.

Manuel Neuer made no attempt to play the ball and absolutely clattered Saka. As has been said elsewhere, Kane going down like that in the Allianz and it would be a stonewall penalty.

Considering how quick the ref was to blow his whistle throughout the game, and give any contact as a free kick, tt just shows that European refs are as inconsistent as English ones.

As for Thomas Tuchel claiming that Munich should have had a second penalty, it clearly was not one.

Whilst the ref had blown his whistle to restart play, David Raya was clearly passing the ball to Gabriel so that he could take the goal kick. It was not handball.

If we start calling this for handball, then everytime a player throws the ball underarm to a teammate so that they can take a throw on, it should be called for a foul throw. People do not seem to understand that whilst the rules are on paper, they allow for ingame infringements like this where a team has clearly not restarted play.

With the hoo-har around it though, Raya and Gabriel will need to be careful in the future. You can see a ref looking to make a name for himself calling it as a penalty. A bit like when Jonny Bairstow was given out last summer.

To crush the situation, we should speak to the PGMOL for clarification. If they say that they deem the goal kick to be taken, then Raya will need to roll it to Gabriel. If they wouldn’t deem it to be taken, then that message will be sent to every English ref and VAR and the directive will be that the goal kick is not deemed as being taken.

We are top of the league, in the Champions League quarter final and just drew 2-2 with Bayern Munich. I am not sure how the narrative is currently being written so negatively.

Onto the next one…

Keenos

MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 2 – 2 Bayern Munich

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Arsenal (1) 2 Bayern Munich (2) 2
Champions League Quarter Final First Leg
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Tuesday, 9th April 2024. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-3-3) David Raya; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho, Declan Rice; Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Gabriel Martinelli.
Substitutes: Aaron Ramsdale; Thomas Partey, Gabriel Jesus, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Leandro Trossard, Fábio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Mohamed Elneny, Karl Hein, Oleksandr Zinchenko

Scorers: Bukayo Saka (12 mins), Leandro Trossard (76 mins)
Yellow Cards: Thomas Partey
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 59%

Referee: Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)
Assistant Referees: Mahbod Beigi (Sweden), Andreas Söderqvist (Sweden)
Fourth Official: Adam Ladebäck (Sweden)
UEFA Referee Observer: Carlos Velasco Carballo (Spain)
UEFA VAR Team in Geneva: VAR Pol van Boekel (Netherlands); AVAR Dennis Higler (Netherlands)

Attendance: c.60,000

Tonight, we are hoping to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League for the first time in fifteen years, and so far the team news is good with no new injuries reported. Bayern Munich are a formidable European opponent, as we have seen to our cost in the past, but this evening’s match here at the Emirates is one of our most important matches for quite a few years now, and nothing else but a victory will do.

An incredible cacophony of sound, a wall of sound if you will, greeted the players as they walked onto the pitch tonight.

The visitors kicked off this quarter-final game and immediately both teams sprung into action. Of course, both Eric Dier and Harry Kane received boos and jeers as soon as they touched the ball, but that was only to be expected.

There was an early touch for former Gunner Serge Gnabry, but we were playing patiently from the back but veteran Bayern goalie Manuel Neuer has had nothing to do so soon in the game.

Bukayo Saka neatly robbed Alphonso Davies and slotted it neatly to our captain. Martin Ødegaard was not able to do much with it when the ball came to him on the edge of the penalty area, so he squared it for Gabriel Martinelli who was in a little more space, from which he whacked a superb effort just wide of Manuel Neuer’s far post.

On the twelfth minute, we took the lead when Ben White passed the ball to Bukayo Saka, whose left-footed shot from the right side of the penalty area flew past Manuel Neuer and ended up in the bottom left-hand corner of the net. A great start!

We almost grabbed a second goal a couple of minutes later when an extremely weak header from Serge Gnabry fell for Kai Havertz who played the ball through to Ben White with only Manuel Neuer to beat, but he shot the ball straight at the goalie, who saved it easily.

The visitors drew level when Serge Gnabry ran onto a ball from Leon Goretzka and he coolly put the ball through David Raya’s legs for the equaliser. Just afterwards, a Declan Rice cross met the head of Jakob Kiwior, whose weak header easily found the open arms of Manuel Neuer.

A Bukayo Saka corner found both Jakob Kiwior and Ben White, but the Bayern goalie pounced dramatically on the ball to claim it. On the half hour, Leroy Sane was brought down by William Saliba in the penalty area; referee Glenn Nyberg gave the penalty and Harry Kane (who else?) scored for the visitors.

A few minutes later, Leroy Sane ran through the middle of the pitch, and just as he was going to pull the trigger, Ben White made a world-class tackle to deny him a goalscoring chance.

With three minutes left of the first half, Martin Ødegaard won a corner, and Bukayo Saka got the ball to the back post this time with a decent delivery which Kai Havertz met first, before referee Glenn Nyberg spotted a push in the back on Harry Kane from Kai Havertz and awarded a free-kick to the visitors.

The half-time whistle was blown a little while later and we went into the break two-one down.

We started the second half well, and with Mikel Arteta replacing Jakob Kiwior with Oleksandr Zinchenko, we could hopefully see more action in the midfield areas now.

A lovely ball from William Saliba found Kai Havertz, who got towards the byline and looked up for Gabriel Martinelli running in at the back post, but Joshua Kimmich was there first, who headed it back neatly to Manuel Neuer.

We were awarded a free-kick in which Declan Rice hit the ball over the crossbar, and as both teams were trying desperately to find a way through these tight defences, Harry Kane received a well deserved yellow card for putting an elbow into Gabriel’s jaw.

The corresponding free-kick was cleared by the Bayern defence, and a couple of minutes later, Bukayo Saka was brutally brought down by Konrad Laimer and unfortunately the following free-kick was chipped into nowhere by our captain.

The visitors were absorbing pressure and were devastating on the break; somehow we have to gain control of this game. Kai Havertz went down in the Bayern penalty area, but our calls for a penalty were denied by the referee, and then Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus replaced Gabriel Martinelli and Jorginho in an effort to grab that all-important goal.

Martin Ødegaard slotted the ball to Gabriel Jesus, who intelligently gave the ball to Declan Rice, whose shot was disappointingly blocked by a Bayern defender.

Leandro Trossard and Gabriel Jesus combined well before feeding Bukayo Saka out on the right wing. He put the ball into the back post for Leandro Trossard, but unfortunately he was beaten in the air by Matthijs de Ligt.

With fourteen minutes of the match remaining, we grabbed the equaliser when Martin Ødegaard flicked the ball round the corner to Bukayo Saka, who played Gabriel Jesus into the penalty area. He held onto it past a few challenges and squared it beautifully for Leandro Trossard to roll it into the far corner. What a goal!

The visitors came back at us, which was to be expected, but we managed to hold them off. After a shot by Bukayo Saka that went inches past the post, Kai Havertz was replaced by Thomas Partey for the last five minutes of this incredible match, who within no time at all received a yellow card for a tough tackle on Jumal Musiala.

We got a real let-off when Kinglsey Coman, who put the ball through David Raya’s legs and smacked it against the base of the post and back into play. During the five minutes injury time, there was controversy when Bukayo Saka ran through on goal and Manuel Neuer came out and they clashed, with the result being that our man hit the ground, and how the referee did not give us a penalty was a crime within itself. But a draw it was, and the second leg next week in Munich should be an absolute cracker!

What a match! So much to talk about, so many incidents, with the main one being the penalty that never was at the end of the match.

How the referee did not give that, was unbelievable, but we need to recover and focus on the second leg next week.

The substitutes utilised by Mikel Arteta were inspirational, and we have every chance of beating them back in Germany in the return leg. Every man played their part, every man did the best that they possibly could and a draw is absolutely no disgrace tonight. All to play for at the Allianz Arena! 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: Aston Villa at the Emirates on Sunday, 14th April at 2.30pm (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