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Match Report: Arsenal 3 – 1 Burnley

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Arsenal (1) 3 Burnley (0) 1
Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Saturday, 22nd December 2018. Kick-off time: 12.30pm
(4-2-3-1) Leno: Maitland-Niles, Sokratis, Monreal, Kolašinac; Elneny, Xhaka; Guendouzi, Özil, Aubameyang; Lacazette,
Substitutes: Čech, Lichtsteiner, Ramsey, Torreira, Iwobi, Nketiah, Saka
Scorers: Aubameyang, Iwobi
Yellow Cards: Sokratis, Guendouzi
Referee: Kevin Friend
Attendance: 59,493
Burnley are one of those seemingly forgotten Lancashire clubs that have fallen from grace a while ago, but there was a time of course, when they were considered to be one of the top sides in the old First Division, and Turf Moor was always a tough place to go to try obtain a result. In fact, one of our most famous matches was played against them at The Old Place on Friday 1st May 1953 when our 3-2 victory not only saw us win our seventh League Championship in sixteen peace-time seasons over title rivals Preston North End, but we also did it by one of the closest margins of all time; under the old goal average system, we became champions by 0.009 of a goal – 1.516 against PNE’s 1.417! Ironically, Preston North End beat us by two clear goals the week before; had they beaten us by just one more goal, it would have been them, and not us who would have been champions. A very close run thing indeed.

This match was a physically tough affair with absolutely no quarter given nor taken, as today, we desperately needed a result here at The Emirates not only consign the last two results to the dustbin of history, but to give ourselves a massive confidence boost to get through the maelstrom of the often oh-so-difficult Christmas league programme. The first goal of the match came within the first quarter of an hour, with our captain of the day Mesut Özil, orchestrating proceedings in his first full start for us since early November. A slick pass incising the Burnley defence found Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang (viaSead Kolašinac), who wasted no time in introducing the match ball to the back of the The Clarets’ net by way of a well-taken volley. Being one-up so early in the game, this now gave everyone confidence to score more goals; despite some very wild physical tackles we assumed our dominance by half-time. The only bad issue to report from the business in the first half was an injury to Nacho Monreal, less than ten minutes before the break; he was replaced by the experienced Stephan Lichtsteiner, and in doing so, Mr. Emery changed the formation of the team, which changed the flow of the game.
Amazingly, this was the first occasion this season that we led at the break, and within minutes of the restart we reopened our account professionally and cleanly. After a bit of a mix-up in our defence, the ball found its way to Matteo Guendouzi, who in a blink of eye distributed it to Sead Kolašinac; looking up, he could see movement from our forwards, so he slotted it nicely to Alexandre Lacazette who delivered the opportunity to score on a plate to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. He composed himself well, and made no mistake in putting Arsenal two up, despite the ball taking an unfortunate deflection past the Burnley goalkeeper. The visitors, to be fair, did not even blink an eyelid and came at Arsenal with vigour and agression. They grabbed a goal back just after the hour and for the rest of match, it was looking rather like Burnley would steal an equaliser at some point. It was indeed fortunate that Mr. Emery had already substituted Mohamed Elneny for Lucas Torreira as his dogged and determined style of play enabled us to neutralise the visitors’ threats. The coup de grâce came in the 91st minute when Alex Iwobi scored from close range to put the match beyound any reasonable doubt. Maybe the nasty undercurrent mood of the match spilled over at the end when it appeared that the two managers exchanged angry words with each other near the players’ tunnel, but it all appeared to be a Yuletide storm in a December teacup that disappeared into nothing.
Overall, we should be both pleased and relieved that this match is over; after the disappointment of the previous two games, we desperately needed to get back on track with a good win to keep up the with the top four Champions League places, and now that we have, the team can march on to the clash with Brighton on St. Stephen’s Day with renewed confidence. Of course, it all depends on results around us, but at this moment in time, Arsenal showed beyond doubt that skill and teamwork can overcome all issues. 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.

Arsenal fans have plenty to look forward too…Merry Christmas

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So today is the last you will here from me for a while (some will probably be pleased with that).

Christmas is coming, my last day of work was yesterday, so it is off to Suffolk to spend a few days with the family before returning to work on 27th December.

What a year it has been.

Firstly thanks to everyone who has read the blog. This year has been the most successful in terms of views. Whilst other Wenger-obsessed blogs have fallen away since Arsene left, we have stayed strong. It just shows what good, honest content can do.

Also thanks to everyone who has bought something from the She Wore Shop. By buying from us you are not buying from the club, putting money into Stan Kroenke’s pocket, you are helping a man pay his mortgage, pay for his daughters dance shoes, his sons football boots. I must say the Clock End Watch was a fabulous idea.

Finally thanks to everyone that follows us on Twitter and Facebook. These days the majority of our views and hits come from social media rather than news aggregators (like News Now). we truly are by the fans; for the fans.

It has been a year of change at Arsenal with Arsene Wenger leaving.

No matter what you felt about the man at the end of his tenure, he is an Arsenal legend. He took us to another level. His records may never be beaten – Most FA Cups, Invincible season, 49 undefeated. We thank you for the memories Arsene.

As we go into the New Year, we have a new Arsenal.

Wenger has gone, Ivan Gazidis has gone. The majority of the coaching staff have gone. Usmanov has gone. This truly is a new era.

We have Raul Sanllehi now running the club, alongside Vinai Venkatesham and Sven Mislintat.

These are good football people with experience and a track record of success. Add in Unai Emery and there is plenty to be excited about in the coming months and years.

emery has had a fabulous start to life at Arsenal.

Despite the double defeat on the opening 2 games of the season and the recent double defeat to Tottenham and Southampton, he sits with a 65% win ratio=. That is well above the 55% of Jurgen Klopp and Mauricio Pochettino, and not too far behind the 70% wins Pep Guardiola has had at Manchester City.

It is going to take some time to make Arsenal title challengers again. Half a dozen transfer windows and about £300m. But we are on the right tracks with the right personnel.

This time last year I was not looking forward to the second half of the season. 12 months on and I can not wait for the second half to start.

Up The Arsenal and Merry Christmas.

Keenos

Do Arsenal have an ageing concern?

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In a recent discussion with a couple of people, a concern was raised about Arsenal’s ageing squad, and how we need to be in the Champions League so that we can afford to replace them.

Whilst being in the Champions League is important to generate more income, I am of the belief that we can replace the ageing players in the squad with little issue, and that replacing them is not a big problem.

Raul Sanhelli and Sven Mislintat will have a long term plan.

In their transfer war room, which only Emery, Mislintat and Emery will likely have access to, the future of Arsenal will be mapped up. What the team looks like now, what they want it to look like next season, 3 seasons time, 5 seasons and so on.

They might not have the names of new players already in the squad, but they will have the positions that need replacing.

Next to the players names will be dates of when players will be expected to be replaced. Their replacements might be bought earlier, but there will be “expected departure date”.

Pretending to be a German hipster who walks around with a man bag, I attempted to put myself in Mislintat’s boots, to think like he does and predict the departure date of many in the current Arsenal squad:

I have long been of the opinion that it will take 6 transfer windows to fix a lot of the issues in the squad. We have had one already. The above would take us through to the summer of 2021 – which would be the 7th transfer window since Arsene Wenger left.

Firstly this coming summer we are set to lose the likes of Cech and David Ospina. Both do not need replacing. We need to sign 1 reserve goal keeper.

Lichsteiner is unlikely to have his contract renewed. I would not expect Arsenal having to replace him, with Carl Jenkinson and Ainsley Maitland-Niles job sharing.

Over the next two transfer windows (January 2019 & summer 2019), I expect us to sign a centre back (long term Koscielny replacement), left back (long term Monreal replacement) and a winger (long term Mkhitaryan replacement). As above, Eddie Nketiah is the natural replacement Danny Welbeck.

Even before doing this exercise, there were the 3 key areas I am sure we could agree on that needed improving.

So that lease us in 2019 signing 4 players:

A central defender, a left back, a winger and a reserve goal keeper.

Moving into 2020, Koscielny’s contract runs out and I would expect the club to cash in on Mkhitaryan. I would expect us to sign another centre back – a long term replacement for Sokratis – who can then partner the central defender that we signed 12 months earlier.

Obviously depending on progress, either Rob Holding or Kostadinos Mavropanos could become a long term replacement for either. At which point we still need to sign back up defenders.

2021 is the big summer. It is then that I think we will let Ozil and Aubameyang go. Our two highest paid players.

With Arsenal only slated to sign a central defender in 2020, it would give us 2 summers (4 windows) from 2020 – 2021 to get in a long term Ozil & Aubameyang replacement’s – remembering that we will have a 30 year old Alexandre Lacazette in the squad still.

I have deliberately left Calum Chambers and Shkodran Mustafi off the list.

My opinion on them is we might cash in on them this summer, using the funds from them to buy a single replacement – who becomes Koscielny’s long term successor.

Also Elneny probably does not need replacing. We should not rush to let him go; but if he decides he wants first team football elsewhere the door is open.

So in summary:

2019:
Centre back
Left back
Winger
Reserve GK

2020:
Centre back
Aubameyang / Ozil Replacement

2021:
Aubameyang / Ozil Replacement

Anyone else that leaves (Iwobi, Xhaka, Kolasinac)  will simply be replaced as and when.

It would mean that in 2021, we only have Alexandre Lacazette, Granit Xhaka, Saed Kolasinac, Rob Holding and Alex Iwobi who were recruited under Arsene Wenger.

with a whole host of talented youngsters coming through (Saka, Medley, Willock); there is little to be worried about.

(edit: I did not add a Ramsey leaving date. but we all know he is gone this summer).

Keenos