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Arsenal favourites despite tricky away trip to Naples

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Arsenal’s Europa League journey continues tonight with the tricky away trip to Napoli. The Gunners go into the 2nd leg tie with a 2-0 lead following victory in London last week.

Whilst they are taking a fairly comfortable lead to Naples, it is by no means a tie-winning one.

Napoli have a tremendous home record this year – 2nd in Serie A. Their only defeat this season at the Stadio San Paolo was a 2-1 defeat to table toppers Juventus.

Earlier this season they beat Liverpool at home in the Champions League.

Napoli’s ground will be a fortress of hate, and you couple their good home form with Arsenal’s poor away and it is going to be a rollercoaster of a tie.

Victory against Watford on Monday was Arsenal’s 3rd away win since December 1st. The other two coming in the FA Cup against Blackpool and against bottom of the table Huddersfield Town in the Premier League. It is certainly not the form that would have you feeling comfortable travelling to Italy today.

The game against Watford showed just how psychologically damaged Arsenal are away from home.

Despite being a goal up and facing 10-men from the 11th minute, Arsenal laboured to the win. Vulnerable at the back and lacking creativity up top, Watford had their chances.

At least Arsenal did come away from Vicarage Road with the 3 points which pushed Arsenal into 4th and ensured they have two routes to Champions League football next season.

Last season Arsenal won just 4 games away in the league. This season it is 6. 10 away wins out of 35 is worrying form.

Worryingly, Arsenal have also lost both knock-out away legs in the Europa League this season – away to BATE Borisov and Rennes.

The positivity from Arsenal’s point of view is the clean sheet that they bring from London. This gives the side a huge advantage and would mean that if they do get the away goal; Napoli would need to score 4 to go through.

Arsenal’s last away match in Italy was at the Last 16 stage of last season’s Europa League, winning 2-0 against AC Milan. They have also progressed in Europe 16 out of 17 times they have led by two or more goals.

Napoli have not overturned a first leg deficit in Europe since 1989 – a run of 8 consecutive ties, whilst Unai Emery has one more Europa League knockout stage matches than any other manager – 25.

Whilst all the historical statistics point to Arsenal progressing, there is that away form.

The first goal tonight will be key.

Arsenal get it and the tie is dead. Napoli surely will not score 4. If Napoli get it, and get it early, it is “game-on”.

All those going out there, stay safe and look after each other
Hopefully by tomorrow morning we are all booking package holidays to Benidorm for the semi-final.

Up The Arsenal

Keenos

Arsenal target the “New Gervinho” (but he could also be the “New Hazard”)

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July 2011 Arsenal made the £10.8million signing of Gervinho from Lille.

The 23-year-old Ivorian was an exciting, naturally gifted talent who was a key member in Lille’s title winning team.

With 36 goals in his previous two seasons, Arsenal were adding pace, power, trickery and an end product out wide.

Gervinho never really settled in England.

His struggled began when he was sent off on his debut against Newcastle. Reports that he was being bullied by Emmanuel Frimpong, Carl Jenkinson and Jack Wilshere – who had nicknamed him Retardino – did not help.

Playing in the African Cup of Nations also stunted his development – he seemed to come back from the 2012 tournament a worse player and failed to score a single goal for Arsenal upon his return.

Gervinho’s 2nd season at Arsenal started brightly, with 5 goals in his first 7 games, but after this spell his form completely disappeared as he failed to score again until March.

Haunted by a miss against Bradford – Gervinho took a lot of the blame for Arsenal’s exit at the quarter final stage of the League Cup against the League 2 side. This turned a lot of fans against him.

By the time Gervinho had returned 2nd African Cup of Nations tournament in the space of a year, he lacked confidence and was clearly a player on his way out.

Arsenal sold him to Roma after just 2-years at the club.

8-years after the disaster signing of Gervinho, Arsenal are heavily linked with Nicolas Pepe.

Pepe is a 23-year-old Ivoirian currently playing for Lille.

With 33 goals in the last two years, he would be adding pace, power, trickery and an end product out wide.

The comparisons that could be made between the two are eerie.

On paper, Pepe would be an exciting signing for Arsenal.

He would provide a goal scoring threat from out wide and, alongside Alex Iwobi, Reiss Nelson and Henrikh Mkhitaryan, would give Arsenal plenty of options out wide.

The only downside is the flash backs to Gervinho.

It is very easy to make the comparison, with them both being 23-years-old (at the time of transfer), both play for Ivory Coast, and both coming from Lille with a similar goal scoring record. It is perhaps lazy to make the comparison.

Maybe instead we should make the comparison to another Lille alumni – Eden Hazard.

Pepe has just as much chance being the “new Gervinho” as he has being the “new Hazard”.

He will be a gamble, but every transfer is.

With no African cup of Nations until 2021, Pepe would have a much better chance of settling than Gervinho did.

Despite playing for Ivory Coast, Pepe was born in Northern France – a small town on the outskirts of Paris; basically France’s answer to Basildon. This will make it a lot easier to settle, and a lot easier for him to go home.

He would be joining a squad that contains fellow Frenchmen Matteo Guendouzi and Alexandre Lacazette, as well as French born Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

The bullying of Gervinho would not be allowed to happen to Pepe with those 3 about.

Pepe would be an excellent addition to the Arsenal squad this summer.

Keenos

Match Report: Watford 0 – 1 Arsenal

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Watford (0) 0 Arsenal (1) 1

Premier League

Vicarage Road, Watford, WD18 0ER

Monday, 15th April 2019. Kick-off time: 8.00pm

(4-2-3-1) Leno; Mustafi, Mavropanos, Koscielny, Monreal; Torreira, Xhaka; Mkhitaryan, Ramsey, Iwobi; Aubameyang.

Substitutes: Čech, Elneny, Lacazette, Özil, Maitland-Niles, Guendouzi, Kolašinac.

Scorer: Aubameyang

Referee: Craig Pawson

Attendance: 21,120

And so we won an away match in the Premiership at last, and in doing so, have launched ourselves into fourth place in the table. That is at least how the commentators and pundits will say about tonight’s game at Vicarage Road, but in essence there was far more to this encounter than mere simple soundbites.

The event that turned the match came as early as the eleventh minute, shortly after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored the only goal of the game. Lucas Torreira was the victim of a vicious forearm smash by Watford striker Troy Deeney; to the credit of referee Craig Pawson, he saw the incident and immediately issued a red card to the Watford striker, who unbelievably seemed nonplussed by the decision. Perhaps when he sees his handiwork again on television tonight, he may well see things differently (or not).

Previous to this fracas, our striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored perhaps what will become his most unbelievable goal this season. From a pointless back pass from a defender, Hornets goalkeeper Ben Foster found himself in difficulty as the Arsenal man chased in to challenge; as the goalkeeper attempted to clear the danger, the ball struck the underside of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s boot and into the goal. It may well have been odd, but hey, any goal is a good goal.

Strangely enough, two things should have happened after these two events; firstly, the home side should have caved in having been reduced to ten men, and secondly, more importantly, Arsenal should have capitalised on this and scored more goals. Neither of these theories came to fruition. Instead, it was a hard and sometimes painful first half for us. Watford pinned us into our own half and nearly scored on two occasions, with Arsenal being forced to defend deep and try and bust out in a classic Arsenal thirties’ “smash-and-grab” movement, but that proved easier to think about but increasingly hard to implement.

After the break, Mr. Emery did what he always does best; introduce substitutes at the right time in the match. Enter the much maligned Mesut Özil for a subdued Lucas Torreira, who to be fair, never really recovered fully from the earlier incident. The formation was changed to accommodate him, giving Aaron Ramsey a far more fluid role and in doing so put the home side under pressure. For the next quarter of an hour, Arsenal were in the ascendancy; both Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan were desperately unlucky not to score and it seemed as if it would be merely a matter of time before we chalked up a second goal. But it was not to be. Watford too, made a vital substitution, changed formation and brought trouble to our door. Their pressure was relentless, and they dominated us for large chunks of what remained of the match, and we can consider ourselves very lucky indeed that Watford did not at least draw level, particularly in the dying minutes of this Monday night match.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief that this game is now over, and we have got our three points and have found ourselves in fourth position in the Premiership. And still we live dangerously in away matches, and still we ride our luck, and still we have an inability to impose ourselves in matches away from The Emirates. How there can be such a difference between our home form and our away games is becoming more than just a mystery, it’s a downright enigma in all its variations. And still no Denis Suárez, not even on the bench tonight. Will we ever see him start a match? Who knows? Mr. Emery obviously does, and he’s not saying a word. Napoli are our next opponents in the Europa Cup in Naples on Thursday evening; dear God, let us hold firm, win the match and get through to the semi-finals. 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