MATCH REPORT: Arsenal 2 – 1 Brentford

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Arsenal (1) 2 Brentford (1) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Saturday, 9th March 2024. Kick-off time: 5.30pm

(4-3-3) Aaron Ramsdale; Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhães, Jakob Kiwior; Martin Ødegaard (c), Declan Rice, (Jorge Luiz Frello Filho) Jorginho; Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Leandro Trossard.

Substitutes: Thomas Partey, Gabriel Jesus, Emile Smith-Rowe, Eddie Nketiah, Cédric Soares, Fábio Vieira, Reiss Nelson, Karl Hein, Oleksandr Zinchenko.

Scorers: Declan Rice (19 mins), Kai Havertz (85 mins)

Yellow Cards: Gabriel, Kai Havertz

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 72%

Referee: Rob Jones

Assistant Referees: James Mainwaring, Nick Hopton

Fourth Official: Darren England

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Paul Tierney; AVAR Steve Meredith

Attendance: 60,331

Of course, our first choice goalkeeper David Raya is ineligible to face his parent club, so Aaron Ramsdale will be between the sticks this afternoon, whilst Takehiro Tomiyasu is likely to remain out of action due to injury today, unfortunately. However, the good news is that Mikel Arteta is confident that Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli will be fit to play against the Bees today, who have not beaten us at home since 15th April 1938, but that was at The Old Place across the road; of course, that was the season in which we won the old First Division Championship for the fifth time in eight years, the last occasion before the Second World War. Could this be an omen of a season to remember for us now, we wonder?

The Bees kicked off proceedings in this electric atmosphere and although they came at us straight from the off, we soaked up their pressure excellently. An early corner from Declan Rice found the head of Jakob Kiwior, whose header went narrowly past the far post, and shortly afterwards Leandro Trossard was brought down from behind by Frank Onyeka, who received the first yellow card of the afternoon for his trouble. We started to settle down and gain control of the match early on by keeping the ball in Brentford’s half, who were struggling to get out, which was impressive to see. However, when they did break out, Gabriel (who received a yellow card) brought Yoane Wissa down just outside our penalty area, and the resulting free kick from Keane Lewis-Potter went well wide of Aaron Ramsdale’s goal, which was a blessing. Following an Ivan Toney header on goal following a Brentford corner, our goalkeeper threw an amazing ball some forty yards out that went to the feet of Leandro Trossard, who somehow managed to get the ball to Kai Havertz, who had his shot blocked. Just after we had a penalty appeal turned down by Rob Jones (and VAR), a brilliant cross from the right wing by Bukayo Saka found the head of Declan Rice, who made no mistake with his head. Despite a couple of chances for Brentford, we continued our pressure on the visitors. We almost grabbed a second goal when a pass from Jorginho found Kai Havertz inside the penalty area but it was just about cleared by defender Mathias Jorgensen. We were in complete control, but we just could not score a second goal, not matter what we did. Just after Kai Havertz blasted yet another chance over the crossbar, he was booked after an aerial challenge with Kristoffer Ajer which was rash by Rob Jones to say the least. During injury time, when literally out of nowhere, Brentford were back on level terms as Aaron Ramsdale hesitated after a simple back-pass and Yoane Wissa was close on hand in to score a messy goal. Everyone in the ground was stunned, and as we went into the break honours even, nobody can actually believe what they have just seen.

We kicked off the second half, and almost immediately we won a throw-in deep inside Brentford’s half. The move ended with captain Martin Ødegaard lashing it high and wide. We turned up the pressure on the visitors and were trying desperately to score a second goal. Again, out of the blue, Ivan Toney hit a cheeky ball from about thirty yards, which was acrobatically saved by Aaron Ramsdale, thankfully. We had a surefire penalty appeal denied by both VAR and the referee when Mads Roerslev clearly had his arms all around Leandro Trossard, and then Kai Havertz also should have had a penalty decision go his way after Nathan Collins challenged him and he went to the ground. Unbelievable! Tempers were getting frayed out there as our frustration was there for all to see as we were doing everything but scoring today. With twenty minutes of the game remaining, Jorginho was replaced by Gabriel Jesus in an attempt to grab a second goal. Our hearts were in our mouths when a cross by Kristoffer Ajer found Nathan Collins unmarked inside our penalty area and his goal-bound header was somehow kept out by our athletic goalkeeper, miraculously. A twenty-five yard shot from Declan Rice bounced off the crossbar with goalie Mark Flekken just standing and watching the flight of the ball, simply amazed that it did not hit the back of the net, just like everyone else did in the stadium. Leandro Trossard and Jakob Kiwior were replaced by Reiss Nelson and Oleksandr Zinchenko with about ten minutes of the game remaining, and still we kept coming forward, desperately trying to find a way through this Brentford defence. With just five minutes of the game remaining, our captain slotted the ball to Ben White on the right wing, who crossed it for Kai Havertz to head the ball into the net. At last! In the seven minutes of injury time, we had yet another surefire penalty appeal turned down after a VAR inquiry, and after Thomas Partey replaced Martin Ødegaard (who passed the captain’s armband to Gabriel Jesus), game management became the order of the day, and as referee Rob Jones blew the whistle signalling the end of the match, there was quite a few relieved faces in the stadium tonight. 

This hard won, nail-biting victory propelled us to the top of the Premiership this evening, and well deserved it was too. Despite Aaron Ramsdale’s embarrassing faux pasat the end of the first half, he redeemed himself, showed real character and put in a great second half performance, and make no mistake about it, this was a massive win for us at the Emirates. We worked very hard, ground down the opposition, kept going and eventually the winning goal came; we earned the right to win the match, and despite losing our rhythm once or twice, we got the three points. Momentum is a wonderful thing! 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: Porto at the Emirates on Tuesday, 12th March at 8.00pm (Champions 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

30 goals in 7 games – we go again

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Game day!

Sadly I will not be there today as I continue my recovery from Egypt. The illness has completely taken it out of me, although if I can keep the weight off it might have to become a yearly trip!

I have lost count how many times this year I have blogged about how we “cannot expect another big result”, and everytime I do it we score a hatful again!

30 goals in 7 league games is truly incredible, and we have conceded just 3 goals in that time. But at some point this steamrolling still stop and we will need to fight for a scrappy 1-nil win.

I remember when we lost to West Ham, I blogged about how “that’s football”, and that we really did not deserve to lose 2-nil.

After that defeat, a lot of Arsenal fans were losing their heads and the old Arteta-Outers were crawling out from their Spanish bedsits. But the performance and statistics did not justify the response.

In that game, we had 74% possession, 30 shots and 77 touches in West Ham’s box. It should have been more than enough for us to score 5 or 6 but it did not happen.

Since then, we have produced similar stats against Crystal Palace, Burnley, West Ham (away), Newcastle and Sheffield United and not stopped scoring.

Today Brentford are without their first choice back 4, so the hope is there that we can do it again. But we need to be cautious.

The news that we have gone cold on Ivan Toney has been leaked at a bad time. He will be super motivated today and it could be a “former lover scorned” situation. Toney will be looking to prove to Arsenal what we are “missing”.

Brentford will look to slow the game down at every opportunity and play for set pieces. They will then take an age over them as they look to deliver with precision. We need to remain focused for 90 minutes.

As long as we play our game, we should come away with 3 points. And then it is feet up and relax whilst Man City face Liverpool tomorrow.

But we need to ignore that game for now and get our own job done. Get those 3 points in the bag.

Keenos

The Arsenal peaking at the right time

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Morning! Hope you all haven’t missed me too much.

Just over a week ago I returned from 10-days in Egypt and bought something back with my that has seen over a stone in weight loss in that time. Some will say that is not a bad thing for me! The stomach bug hit me for 6 and completely drained my energy.

Today is the first morning I have woken up and not had a bowel movement that resembles the Niagra Falls. Sorry to all those tucking into a Friday morning bacon roll!

Sadly the illness led me to miss the Sheffield United victory (and could not even get out of bed to watch it on TV) and I have also sold my Brentford ticket. Hopefully this is now the recovery and not a false dawn!

This blog was never supposed to be a daily one. I only ever really wrote when I fancied it. But in the last year and a half, it had become something I was doing each and every day. The last 3 couple of days with no blog broke a daily writing streak of more than 500 days!

That Sheffield United victory seems a lifetime ago right now.

I remember writing to some mockery back end of last year that Mikel Arteta was ‘negative splitting’ his season. That we were holding back in the first half of the season deliberately to ensure that we had more energy for the final kick.

This is something you see distance runners and swimmers do. They will try and complete the second half of the race quicker than the first half, taking advantage of others who might have put too much energy into the first half of the race.

It is something Manchester City under Pep Guardiola have always done so well. Done just enough to get through games in the first half of the season before being unbeatable in the second.

Last season was the perfect example of how a team that has a better 2nd half of the season will usually finish ahead of a team who start fast and has a good first half.

Now some will argue that “we have left too much to do” and started out drive to the finish line too late. I really do not think being 2 points off top after 27 games is leaving ourselves with too much to do.

Yes, these fans will point to Fulham (both games), West Ham and other fixtures, but football is not perfect. If you say “Arsenal should have won those games” then you also have to concede that Liverpool and Manchester City “should” have won games they did not. The issue with fans at times is that they expect their own team to be perfect all the time, but do not hold the same bar of expectation to others.

On to Brentford tomorrow. A late kick off and a game I was really looking forward too. Instead I will be watching it from the comfort of my sofa, hopefully having kept down the last 48 hours food!

Have a good Friday.

Keenos