That was the common consensus from the majority. And they are right.
But it is also important that we learn from the defeat against Liverpool. And Manchester City. And Chelsea.
At some point we need to move up to the next level. Away from calling it a project; that we are a team in development.
For now, it is fine. We are a team whose target was to compete for top 4. We are in the race.
But if we want to transition from top 4 contenders to title contenders, we need to begin getting results against City, Liverpool and Chelsea.
Those teams comes to Arsenal and do not see it as a “shot to nothing”. They see it as 3 points. Anything less is a failure.
The change won’t happen this season.
Considering how poor we have been and for how long, turning the good ship Arsenal around was always going to take some time.
It feels like we are on the right road. Just at some point we need to find a new gear if we wish to be title challengers.
At the moment we have one of the youngest teams in the league. They were due a capitulation and in the second half at Liverpool it was heads gone.
The game is easy in hindsight.
Mikel Arteta should have probably gone with Kieran Tierney over the inexperienced Nuno Tavares – especially against Mo Salah who is probably the best player on the world right now.
Likewise we probably should have flooded the midfield. Played Ainsley Maitland-Niles ahead Alex Lacazette matching up Liverpool’s midfield 3; with Maitland-Niles also providing extra cover in that wide position against Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold.
As it was Tavares was exposed on the left and we were over run in midfield. Thomas Partey and Albert Sambi-Lokonga provided no cover and no out ball.
But then had we made those changes and lost Arteta would have been criticised for changing a winning team.
We move on with Newcastle at home up next before trips to Everton and Manchester United.
Whilst a trip to Liverpool at the moment is a shot to nothing, we need to be returning to the north-west expecting wins in the coming weeks.
5th in the table after 13 games. I am happy. We dust ourselves down and move on.
Keenos
New beer mats Bottle openers New beer mat prints Bar runners
I am not usually one to go out of his way to defend he Premier League or it’s member clubs.
Too often over the years they have done very little to help the likes of me – a match going fan.
In fact, at times it feels like fans like me are not wanted by the Premier League. By Arsenal.
But on this occasion I will come to the defence of them.
It has been well publicised that the Premier League turned down a request from homeless charity Shelter for home clubs to raise the awareness of rough sleeping.
The league have been criticised by all corners of the media and across social media sites. But they are on the right to turn them down.
Football clubs and the Premier League will have countless requests from charities for support. They can not support them all.
What Shelter have done is wrong.
They have used the rejection to publicly blackmail the league into changing their stance.
Rather than accept the decision and move on; they went to the media.
This was done to shame the Premier League into a u-turn whilst also giving lots of free publicity to Shelter.
That does not sit well with me.
Charities should not be using the rejection of companies and organisations to boost their profile. It is uncharitable.
Take the MacMillan Nurses a few years ago.
They publicly wrote to every Premier League side asking their players to donate a days wages to their charity. Some accepted; others rejected.
MacMillan Nurses then published the list of clubs that rejected their request in the hope the media would pick up on their story. They did and the public flogging began.
Arsenal were one of those clubs to reject the request and became the headline name the papers went with.
What it ignored is that Arsenal had its own charity – the Arsenal Foundation – which distributed funds across many charities across Islington. One of the fundraising activities they already undertook was every player donating a days wages to the Arsenal Foundation.
From this blog we make a small amount of money. We donate that money to charities.
We often get requests from people asking for donations – whether it is or a kids football team or to support someone’s JustGiving charitable drive. We often have to reject them as we simply can not afford to donate to every request.
Whilst football clubs are much richer, they will get countless more requests than our little blog. And whereas we are getting asked to donate £50, they will be getting asked to donate £500,000.
Like us, at some point they have to say no. They can not donate to every charitable request.
It is why Arsenal – and many other clubs – have set up their own foundation. This allows them to point any request towards their own foundation.
If you want a donation, apply to the foundation not the club.
The Premier League are also no different.
They will get daily requests to donate money or publicly support a cause. They can not agree to donate or promote them all.
We already have the support of Black Lives Matter and Mind. As well as Kick It Out and Rainbow Laces. They already do a lot to raise awareness in multiple causes.
But the more causes they agree to raise awareness in, the more diluted that support comes.
It could get to a point where every weekend the Premier League are showing their support for a different cause. And then some will still get rejected.
So you will still have a charity or organisation going to the press saying “our request for support from the Premier League has been rejected”. And it will become a headline story.
A lot of football clubs already run a “Big Sleep Out” event for homelessness.
This is where they encourage people to spend a night sleeping in their stadium to raise funds for homelessness. In 2019 Chelsea raised £25,000 split between the two local homeless charities. Wolves raised £30k in 2019; Bristol Rovers £7k in 2020 and West Ham over £100k for Shelter just last year.
Clubs clearly already do so much to raise awareness and funds for homeless charities.
The sad fact is their rejection of Shelter’s proposal will get more publicity than the positive acts each club does in the area.
What Shelter have done with their public shaming leaves a bitter taste in the mouth.
Instead of praising clubs for the work they do, they could end up alienating them and losing their future support.
Shelter might have just shot themselves in the foot for future funding from clubs.
Over the pandemic every club stepped up and donated a huge amount of food, resources and time to help those who needed it. They also would have rejected a lot of requests to help.
If every rejection was made public, it would have been a daily story.
At some point the Premier League, football clubs and businesses have to say no. They can not support every charity, every cause.
On a final thought, those media companies that have criticised the Premier League in recent days; do they support every charity that requests it?
We should be focusing on the charities, causes and work the Premier League and her members already do. Not criticising them for rejecting one charities public advances.
Move on. Focus on the football.
Keenos
Our 2nd set of Arsenal beer mats are now available
(4-4-1-1) Aaron Ramsdale; Takehiro Tomiyasu, Ben White, Gabriel Magalhães, Nuno Tavares; Bukayo Saka, Albert Sambi Lokonga, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Emile Smith-Rowe; Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Substitutes: Bernd Leno, Kieran Tierney, Martin Ødegaard, Rob Holding, Cédric Soares, Nicolas Pépé, Mohamed Elneny, Eddie Nketiah, Gabriel Martinelli.
Scorers: Emile Smith-Rowe (56 mins)
Yellow Cards: Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Albert Sambi Lokonga, Takehiro Tomiyasu, Gabriel Magalhães
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 61%
Referee: Kevin Friend
Assistant Referees: Adrian Holmes, Simon Beck
Fourth Official: Martin Atkinson
VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Jarred Gillett; AVAR James Mainwaring
Attendance: 59,833
Today’s match will mark the one hundredth game under Mikel Arteta’s tutelage, and what could be a better way to celebrate, with no other than a victory here at the Emirates in a Sunday lunchtimeclash? Arsenal are starting with the successful 4-4-1-1 formation again (which saw its debut in the victory against Leicester City last week), and it is good to see Kieran Tierney on the bench today after recovering from his ankle injury, with the only obvious absentees being Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka, through injury, of course.
After an extremely moving Remembrance Day ceremony involving the managers of both clubs laying wreaths in the centre circle on behalf of the fallen of both world wars which involved the Last Post being played by a solitary trumpeter, we kicked off proceedings on this rather chilly November day in North London. Right from the start of the match, we imposed our will on the visitors by pressing them back deep into their own half. We had a great chance to open the scoring within five mintues of the start when Albert Sambi Lokonga was presented with a golden chance, but instead, he slotted the ball to Alexandre Lacazete, who could not quite get a hold of it, so the visitors managed to clear easily. Bukayo Saka put the ball into the net a couple of minutes later, but unfortuntely it was deemed to be offside, and although it was disappointing, we did not appear to let it break our stride. Our passing was crisp, and our shooting accurate, as our domination became obvious for all to see at this point in the game. Five minutes after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang received our first yellow card of the day, Albert Sambi Lokonga received our second for a silly altercation with Juraj Kucka, and the subsequent free-kick that was awarded to Watford petered out into nothing. The match levelled out for a while with the visitors looking accepting of the fact that we were the stronger side on the day, and patiently we returned to the business of the hour with comfortable possession and incisive attacking movements. Just before the half hour, Takehiro Tomiyasu received our third yellow card of the afternoon after a clumsy tackle on Ismaila Sarr, and after yet another botched Watford free-kick, we regrouped in order to continue to take the game to the visitors, who appeared to be more intent on stopping us scoring, rather than attempting to open the scoring themselves. Danny Rose made a ridiculous and heavy-handed challenge on Alexandre Lacazette in the penalty area; referee Kevin Friend awarded the penalty, and although Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s shot was perfectly placed, goalkeeper Ben Foster dived the right way and kept the shot out of the net. This incident merely served to fire up the Hornets, and they started to become more of a competitor at the Emirates this afternoon, with a goalscoring attempt by Juraj Kucka going inches wide of Aaron Ramsdale’s right-hand post. Just before the break, Gabriel was unlucky not to score with a powerful header, and despite some inspired and physical play from both sides, the half-time whistle blew with honours even.
And so the visitors kicked off the second half and although it was a slow start, the signs were good. Albert Sambi Lokonga had a superb shot on goal from outside the penalty area, which was saved by Ben Foster within a couple of minutes of the restart, and on the touchline, the animation in Mikel Arteta’s movements became obvious to all, as he encouraged his players to keep applying the pressure onto the visitors. Emile Smith-Rowe was unlucky not to score when an inspired effort was cleared by the opposition defence, and as the match became scrappy the visitors’ tactics of stopping us at all costs only served our collective frustration greater. Eleven minutes after the restart, and for the third match in a row, young Emile Smith-Rowe opened the scoring with a blistering low shot that had the beating of goalkeeper Ben Foster all the way, after some sterling work by Ben White. The goal certainly woke the stadium up, with the crowd vocally encouraging the team to go on and score more goals this afternoon. The visitors were also energised, as it was Arsenal’s turn to soak up pressure, as Watford tried to break through our midfield to attempt to score. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was desperately unlucky not to score after trying to meet a high, curling ball from the right-hand flank viathe trusty boot of Bukayo Saka after sixty-seven minutes, and just seconds later Alexandre Lacazette was substituted for Martin Ødegaard and the game continued onwards. Our substitute was instrumental in getting the ball into the Watford net, (courtesy of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang), but it was denied for offside, and with fifteen minutes of the match remaining, we started to look very comfortable indeed. After some clever play in and around the Watford penalty area, Emile Smith-Rowe blasted the ball over the bar from close range after seventy-seven minutes, and just after Gabriel received our fourth yellow card of the day for dangerous kicking, Watford came close to scoring when Aaron Ramsdale misjudged the ball on the right-hand side of the penalty area, and fortunately Joshua King placed the ball into the side netting, which was a truly hair-raising moment. Mohamed Elneny replaced Emile Smith-Rowe with five minutes of the match remaining, and with the visitors going down to ten minutes after a rough tackle on Nuno Tavares by Juraj Kucka, we intensified our desire to secore a second goal. In the six minutes injury time, Albert Sambi Lokonga came close to scoring with a blistering shot that was pushed away by Ben Foster, and as Gabriel Martinelli replaced Bukayo Saka with a couple of minutes of the match remaining, the name of the game appeared to be one of containment now, as the game ebbed away to its conclusion, which was a superb home win for us.
Blimey. How about that then? Ten matches unbeaten, and three games on the bounce as winners! And, as this is being written, fifth in the Premiership as well. The team are playing with renewed confidence, and they all look happy plying their trade under Mikel Arteta these days. too. Mentioned in dispatches today are the magnificent performances by Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who completely dominated the midfield; Ben White, who is growing in confidence with every match; Emile Smith-Rowe, who, pound for pound, must surely be the finest young player of his generation in that position and the rejuvenated Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who is becoming an indispensible member of the team. After the international break next weekend, the following three Premiership matches are Liverpool (away), Newcastle United (home) and Manchester United (away). Dare we dream?
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: Liverpool at Anfield on Saturday, 20th November at 5.30pm (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.
Our 2nd set of Arsenal beer mats are now available
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 