
Today’s match versus Burnley brings back reminiscences of the second match I ever attended at Highbury in the 1968-69 season. My first match two week’s earlier on 1st February had resulted in a one all draw with Nottingham Forest and I was already sufficiently smitten that my mother had already given up the ghost of opposing me being present at my new spiritual home to see Arsenal v Burnley on 15th February 1969. I had no clue as to where Burnley was situated but I had already become the sort of obsessive to have memorised the names of all the stadia in Division One, as it was in those days. Turf Moor, had to me, conjured up some romantic Brontë-esque vision of a un-tamed, northern, brooding landscape of desolation and fog. My Highbury was more akin to the setting of Jane Austen’s novel, Emma: elegant, urbane and charming. In fact, if you remove the word ‘romantic’ from my above preconception it wasn’t completely wide of the mark, as outlined so well by Bathgooner’s excellent match preview for today’s fixture! That day, the ‘foreign’ members of the Arsenal team came from north of the border (and even Bob Wilson being Scottish seemed a bit of a stretch to me at the time) and I don’t recall much more about the game other than I was by now completely and utterly in love with every team member having witnessed my first Arsenal win of two goals to nil with both goals coming from a blue and white besocked Bobby Gould.

To be honest, I had to look up who the goalscorer was on the day although two things I do remember were that Burnley’s star player, Ralph Coates, seemed to me to be old enough to be my grandfather and that I also recall feeling rather perturbed about Arsenal’s blue and white socks being part of our kit in contrast to our beloved red and white. Little did I realise that this would be a gentle precursor of future worse kit horrors to come.
So, fast forwarding to Burnley versus Arsenal 2021, would there be repeat of 2-0 to the Arsenal, as predicted by Martin Keown prior to the match as well as Bathgooner’s suggested punt on the ‘holic pound in his match report? With five changes made from our defeat of Leicester, with rotation necessary due to four difficult games looming in the next nine days who would have predicted Chambers being slotted in at right back? Xhaka’s presence on the first team sheet seems to be made in indelible ink, and has been under the previous three managers irrespective as to what the fixture list throws up, but more on him later. Before the game started, I jotted down that Kevin Friend would be the VAR adjudicator – unfortunately, a sign of the times as VAR seems to play as big a role in the settling of matches these days as the sides playing. Just as I was celebrating the first five minutes at not conceding an early goal as we have been wont to do, we went one better as Willian drove through the centre of midfield, sending a pass out wide to Aubameyang on the left who with a couple of step overs shot low into the left hand corner squeezing the ball under Pope, the Burnley keeper. Early dominant possession and pressure from Arsenal had resulted in an unusually early goal for a change. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that – for obvious reasons it would turn out!
Arsenal continued to dominate but their common ailment of profligacy in front of goal continued; Aubameyang had two chances one of which was blocked with the other one finding the side netting before presenting Saka with a glorious opportunity that one would normally bet on him taking. Unfortunately, the ball seemed to arrive on Saka’s weaker right foot and he was unable to take advantage. Ominously, it felt like an opportunity lost as Arsenal failed to convert their clear dominance into goals. Partey also shot over the bar after being lined up by Odegaard on 28 minutes. With ten minutes to go in the first half, Arsenal were comfortably in charge and with Burnley showing little or no threat, the inevitable happened with Arsenal’s common predilection towards self destruction. With Arsenal playing out from the back with Burnley pressing, Leno passed the ball out to Xhaka who often displays a penchant for playing risky balls across the box. On this occasion, his attempted pass to David Luiz struck Chris Woods’ hip diverting the ball past Leno for an undeserved Burnley equaliser. Judging by Chris Wood’s reaction, Burnley couldn’t believe their luck. So, that was the end of any prediction or repeat of a two nil win to the Arsenal. It was hard not to believe that we wouldn’t pay the price for the error and while it might be easy to point the finger of blame at Xhaka, Leno was also guilty of not clearing the ball and there seems to be too many Arsenal players capable of making regularly unforced and costly errors. For Xhaka, you could read Cedric. Or Luiz? Or?
With the momentum lost, Arsenal struggled to make an impact early in the second half and were now looking bereft of any creativity. In the 62nd minute, the lightweight Odegaard was replaced by Lacazette, and in the 66th minute a further change was made with Pepe replacing Willian. However, the real impact substitute would turn out to be Pieters, coming on in the 63rd minute for Burnley’s Taylor, who would be involved in the most significant and dramatic deciding factors of the game, two of them involving the hapless Pepe. The first incident involved Pepe twisting and turning in the box with the ball bouncing up to hit Pieters’ arm on two occasions. The first claim for a penalty looked dubious but the second was a clear case with Pieters extending his arm to deflect the ball away. Even Peter Walton, BT Sport’s former referee commentator and no friend of Arsenal, could not explain away VAR’s and Kevin Friend’s decision of ‘no penalty’. Insult was almost added to injury when Pieters let fly from 30 yards resulting in a sensational tip over the bar by Leno. Burnley had started to play. With 10 minutes to go, Pepe managed to miss a ‘sitter’ resulting from a low cross from Tierney in the box; the sort of spurned chance designed to make his transfer fee seem ever more ludicrous. Pepe was involved in the next controversial incident when his shot hit the omnipresent arm of Pieters yet again. The referee was quick with his decision: a red card and a penalty but VAR was quick to reverse it. No wonder I jotted down Kevin Friend’s name at the start of the match as VAR picked up yet another Man of the Match award! It was probably a correct decision in this instance but I am in no mood to side with it! After Spurs’ ludicrous escape of a penalty against Fulham earlier in the week, that’s two points gained for Spurs and two lost for Arsenal due to VAR lottery decisions which does not make for a happy weekend.
Unfortunately, as is too often the case, Arsenal did not show sufficient urgency until it was too late and there was to be no happy ending with Ceballos hitting the post after a game of pin ball in the box in the dying minutes. As we have witnessed all too often with this side, Arsenal threw their opportunity for three points well and truly away and, on this occasion, there was no Bobby Gould with his blue and white socks to rescue them.