Tag Archives: Premier League

The apprehension and excitment of Tottenham away

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Morning all and Happy North London Derby Day.

Tottenham away, a game I look forward too and at the same time dread. Today is my first visit to their new ground.

Not much will beat the nervous energy, the antacipation walking down the High Road. With your mates. Us against them, ready for whatever happens.

But White Hart Lane has not been a happy hunting ground for us in recent years. The North London Derby has massively favoured the home teams over the last decade or so.

We have not beaten Tottenham away since the 2015 League Cup, Mathieu Flamini with those two goals. I was there that night, and what a night it was.

Our last league win was 2014, Tomas Rosicky with the only goal.

Before you think “Keenos is a luck omen, glad he is going today”, they are the only two occassions I have seen us win at their place. Three if you include a FA Youth Cup game when Jack Wilshere pulled the strings!

Since Tottenham ended out 21-game unbeaten run against them in 2008, we have won just 2 of 16 away games at White Hart Lane (or Wembley). Both mentioned above.

And in recent years, the away game against that lot have been where our hopes and dreams have crashed and burned.

Last season, a victory against Tottenham with 3 games to go would have guaranteed us a top 4 place, and finishing above them for the first time since 2016. We were turned over 3-0 with Harry Kane opening the scoring with his customary North London Derby penalty.

2019 is also a North London Derby day that bitterly sticks in the memory.

1-1 and Pierre Emerick-Aubameyang is bought down for an 89th minute penalty. Our talisman gets up, dusts himself down, and takes tne penalty. SAVED.

And then to add insult to injury, just as Aubameyang looked set to tap into the empty net, Jan Vertonghen makes a last-ditch slide challenge.

Vertonghen had encroached deeply into the area on the penalty but he got away with it. Without that, he would not have been able to make the tackle. And there was no VAR in those days.

Two points dropped, and they ended up being crucial as we finished a single point behind Tottenham, and failed to make the top 4.

So I make no apologies for feeling apprehensive ahead of the game today. Although after a few beers in Islington and that journey to the stadium I will be bang up for it.

It does feel like we are in the middle of our most crucial period of the season.

We have already faced Brighton (A) & Newcastle (H). Both sides in the top 8.

Today it is a trip to Tottenham (5th), followed by a resurgent Manchester United (4th). We then have a tricky away trip to Everton – Goodison Park is never an easy win despite how poor they are.

That is followed by games against Brentford (9th) and Manchester City (2nd).

I have refused to get to embroiled in the title talk. Yes, we are in the race but we are certainly not favourites. The bookied have had Man City odds-on since before the season began. It should not be seen as a failure if Man City overhaul us and we end up 2nd.

If we are still above City after we have hosted them, I might allow a bit of belief to slip in. But even then we have a double header away in the Midlands against Aston Villa and Leicester City.

It is only really in March that it eases up a bit – we have a run of 3 out of 4 games at home , facing Bournemouth, Fulham (A), Crystal Palace and Leeds United.

And then we have the 6 games that will ultimately decide our future – Liverpool (A), West Ham (A), Manchester City (A), Chelsea (H) and Newcastle (A). The only bit of restbite is Southampton at home.

Today is all about getting the 3 points against Tottenham. And I think we will do that if Harry Kane does not get his usual penalty.

We will never hear the end of it if Kane equals, and breaks, Jimmy Greaves goal scoring record against us. But that will never make up for signing their captain for free, 1971 and 2004.

UTA

Keenos

League Cup exit won’t change Arsenal’s transfer plans

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I hate being knocked out of the cup competitions.

For those saying “it is good, we can now concentrate on the league”, my guess is football is a TV show for you.

Winning trophies and days out. That is what football is about. And the League Cup can often throw up so cheeky different away days, and concludes with a trip to Wembley.

Due to the World Cup, we do have to fit games into to a shorter period of time, but “freeing up time” by being knocked out of the League Cup means nothing if you finish the season trophyless.

I also think it would have been a huge advantage getting through to the next round.

The last 16 of the League Cup is due to be played around the 19th of December – a week before Premier League football returns after the World Cup.

Even if you are in the “glad we are out camp”, you have to admit it would have been nice to have a competitive game to blow the cobwebs off prior to the game against West Ham.

I am not upset about the team Mikel Arteta put out. It was pretty much the team I expected.

And we looked decent, taking the lead with a fantastically worked goal. Then Karl Hein slipped coming out for the ball and it was penalty, 1-1.

We shouldn’t pile onto the young keeper. He is a talent and what happened is a once in a career incident.

At 1-1 we had the chance to win, but could not finish. Then we went 2-1 down and the heads seemed to drop.

For those saying “our squad is too weak, we need to improve it”…this is not exactly breaking news or an insightful take.

We all know that we need better cover for Thomas Partey, a new winger to provide competition to Gabriel and Bukayo Saka, and perhaps a new striker.

We may or may not make signings in January.

It will be a bit like last year where we won’t sign a player for the sake of it. A new signing will only be someone who is one of our top targets.

There is not point going for a 6th or 7th choice winger, who we do not really want, and then you don’t have the money in the summer to sign your 1st or 2nd choice.

Mykhailo Mudryk is a name we have been linked with a lot. If he is not available until the summer, I would rather wait than spend £15-20m on someone else who we do not want for the long term.

Some might say “that could cost us the title”, but realistically I do not think we will win the title this year. And would making a Lucas Perez-style signing really make a difference in the title chase.

Tomorrow, we need to bounce back strongly. Beat Wolves and go into the World Cup top of the league.

Enjoy your Friday.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 4 – 0 Norwich

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Arsenal (2) 4 Norwich City (0) 0

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Wednesday, 1st July 2020. Kick-off time: 6.00pm

(3-4-2-1) Emiliano Martínez; Shkodran Mustafi, David Luiz, Sead Kolašinac; Hector Bellerin, Dani Ceballos, Granit Xhaka, Kieran Tierney; Reiss Nelson, Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Substitutes: Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Rob Holding, Cédric Soares, Nicolas Pépé, Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah, Matt Macey, Bukayo Saka

Scorers: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (32 mins, 67 mins), Granit Xhaka (37 mins), Cédric Soares (80 mins)

Yellow Cards: Emiliano Martínez

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 52%

Referee: Peter Bankes

Attendance: A maximum of 300 attendees due to UK government coronavirus restructions

For the first time since the one-nil victory over West Ham United on Saturday 7th March, we find ourselves finally playing a home game in the Premiership, even though none of our wonderful supporters will be present in the stadium to witness this evening’s match, sadly. It goes beyond words to state that every point is precious now, and each man must play their part for the club until the end of this topsy-turvy season. Our visitors tonight may well be currently residing at the bottom of the Premiership table, but that does not mean that should they should not be taken just as seriously as anyone else who plys their trade in the Premier League. Great to see young Reiss Nelson getting a start tonight, as well as Cédric Soares included as part of the substitutes’ bench too; this shows good intent and a real desire to change things around by Mikel Arteta. Nothing more than a victory tonight will do.

Arsenal certainly got the best of the early exchanges, and although Norwich were on the back foot, they certainly didn’t crumble under the relentless pressure from our forwards. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got the first shot on target after ten minutes, and it became apparent that we had everything under control so early in the game. Hector Bellerin and Kieran Tierney were working the wings very well, moving into the spaces that Norwich had kindly left open for our speedy wing-backs to exploit. After twenty minutes, our defenders sloppily left just enough space for Ben Godfrey to hit the post from circa thirty yards with Emiliano Martínez grasping for air, and after the drinks break, we took control of the match again. David Luiz was unlucky not to score from a thirty-yard free kick on the half hour, and by now it was looking like we would be the first team to score. Tim Krol made a horrific error on the edge of his area; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang blocked the ball, then simply took the ball around him and with the most simplest of tasks, put Arsenal one-up on the night. A few minutes later, David Luiz placed a long ball over to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on the left, who quickly slotted the ball to Kieran Tierney. He took the ball to the byline, and crossed it for Granit Xhaka to finish the job and score our second goal of the night. In injury time, Emiliano Martínez made an acrobatic save to deny the vistors a goal; the subsequent corner led to nothing, and so we went into the break comfortably in the lead, overall.

Rob Holding replaced Shkodran Mustafi for the second half, and although Norwich started to wake up a bit, with one or two excitble chances, Arsenal were hardly bothered, to be fair. We contained the visitors very well, and we found that the best way to deal with them was to play a high pressing game, but in doing that, we left one or two spaces at the back, which Norwich tried desperately to capitalise on. Joe Willock replaced Reiss Nelson after fifty-seven minutes, and in doing so, changed the shape of the team by moving Alexandre Lacazette up with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to make a double-pronged attack on the Norwich defence. The visitors had a tepid penalty call, which was denied by the VAR team at Stockley Park; good to see them get something right for a change. Joe Willock blasted a ball over the bar from just inside the penalty area, then Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang got our third of the night after sixty-seven minutes following another dreadful defensive error from Norwich, and with fifiteen minutes left, Hector Bellerin and Alexandre Lacazette were replaced by Eddie Nketiah and Cédric Soares to get fresh legs out there for the remainder of the match. Cédric Soares, on his debut, blasted Arsenal’s fourth goal of the night from twenty yards, and two-goal Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was substituted for Nicolas Pépé with nine minutes remaining. By now of course, the job was done, and the rest of the match was simply one of containment on our part.

There’s nothing like a good win to put a smile on everyone’s face, and with three wins in a week, life is good. Everyone played their part tonight, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was in unbelievable form, whilst Emiliano Martínez pulled off some fine saves to prevent Norwich getting on the score sheet. Our debutant Cédric Soares scored a dream third goal, whilst David Luiz, it has to be said, was superb at the back. Oh, and we are a point above Spurs in the table too! Saturday’s match against Wolves at Molineux will be a better test for us, but with the confidence that tonight’s win under our collective belts can give us, who knows? 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: Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux Stadium, Waterloo Road, Wolverhampton WV1 4QR on Saturday, 4th July at 5.30pm(Premier League). 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.