Writing one of these things after a game isn’t easy. What to include, what not to include, how not to be boring. My apologies if I don’t figure out the latter. It turns out that what our dear Goonerholic did for so many years was hard graft; mixed with his talent he shone like the polestar in the constellations of our Arsenal.
But to the task. Arsenal played Rapid Vienna yesterday evening at the Emirates in front of 2,000 excited, mostly masked supporters, who filled the lower bowl at very appropriate social distances. It marked the first time since England’s Covid restrictions were imposed that a crowd sat at a top-tier football game. And they were treated to some beautiful football.
Arsenal lined up in a 4-4-2, or, it could be argued, in a 4-4-1-1. In either formation Lacazette was paired with Eddie up front, either across the width or along the pitch. We played a fairly conventional midfield four, with Maitland-Niles and Elneny holding the center for Pepe and Nelson on the flanks. Our back five had Kolasinac and Cedric playing the corners, though they had license to push up, on either side of Marí and Mustafi. Runarsson patrolled between the sticks.
It was a progressive lineup, though for the first ten minutes or so of the game you’d be forgiven to wonder if they stayed late at the pubs last night. Lots of bitty back and forth, with Arsenal (I can’t even say “the team in red” because we wore our blue third colours for this game) holding most of the ball trying to work triangles on either side of the pitch just inside Vienna’s half. Lacazette and Eddie shuttled across the pitch in support, but we just couldn’t get much going.
Suddenly, from a Vienna throw-in near midfield on the left, we were up 1-0. The ball bounced off Kitagawa for Maitland-Niles to head forward. The ball pinged around a bit and ended up at Lacazette’s feet 40 yards from goal. He looked up, touched the ball once, then unleashed a stinging, swerving, unstoppable drive past Strebinger. If the ball had ripped a hole in the net I’d not have been surprised. What a way to get back into the goals, Laca!
Arsenal 1-0 Rapid (Lacazette, 10)
This led to a period where Arsenal held the ball really well, and made pretty patterns that yielded a few opportunities to increase the lead. A nice sequence of passes after a Vienna goal kick led to a corner, taken short; Pepe left his man for dead and fired a sweet cross that Mustafi headed wide. He should have done better. Smart work by Eddie at the touchline earned us another corner that was wasted, as was a freekick after a foul on Laca…though that led to a corner taken by Pepe. He swung the ball in from the left, and Marí made a darting run leaving the Viennese defense to look like statues on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. His glancing header nestled into the far corner off the post for a well-deserved second goal. Welcome back, Pablo!
Arsenal 2-0 Rapid (Marí, 17)
Again, Arsenal spent the ten minutes after the goal playing some of the best football we’ve seen in weeks. One move down the right started with a ball from Mustafi to Nelson, who played it to Cedric and took off like a rabbit down the side. Cedric passed it to Maitland-Niles, who dummied the ball into Nelson’s path. Only a heavy first touch prevented Reiss from being in one-on-one with the keeper. Another move after a Cedric throw-in led to an exchange of passes with Nelson around the edge of Vienna’s box. Only the post prevented Laca from scoring his second from the D on a beautifully weighted ball from Nelson inside the box.
However, as the clock ticked towards the half hour mark we made more and more mistakes, giving Vienna some forward momentum and blunting what had been some very sharp Arsenal play. An errant deflection in the midfield led to a wild Vienna shot from well outside the box, and they used their increased energy to press us harder. Double-teamed down the right Nelson fed a small square ball to Maitland-Niles, who ran at the defense nearly to the penalty spot, where he tried a little dink that went wide left; he, too, should have done better from such a promising spot.
Even as Vienna (especially the live-wire Kitagawa) was bringing themselves more into the game Arsenal played some lovely stuff. But it looked like the first ten minutes; in the 42nd minute an unfortunate foul by Elneny (that brought an undeserved yellow) on Kitagawa gave Vienna a lifeline from 40 yards out. The freekick came to nought, and ended up after a few passes in Runarsson’s hands for a goal kick. He banged it up left to midfield, where some one-touch passes by Arsenal led to a Laca throughball down the left channel for Pepe. His first time cross was perfectly placed for Nelson to cushion to Eddie, running into the box. Strebinger saved Eddie’s shot, but the rebound came back and Eddie headed it in for Arsenal’s third. A bit of luck, but, as they say, luck favors the prepared.
Arsenal 3-0 Rapid (Nketiah, 44)
The second half started with a slightly different team for Vienna (two players substituted), and Arsenal didn’t handle it easily. Vienna came out and pressed well, penning us mostly in our own half before orchestrating a move down the left. Kitagawa’s pass found Demir, who stung Runarsson’s palms with a close shot; the ball rebounded to Arase whose two attempts were blocked by Kola’s wide body. The second of those blocks fell to Kitagawa who put a sharp volley past Runarsson.
Arsenal 3-1 Rapid (Kitagawa, 46)
As the second half progressed neither team could really stake an advantage. Runarsson had to be called to action to gather a couple of Viennese attempts, while first Laca then Maitland-Niles missed opportunities in the box. We are fortunate such profligacy went unpunished. In the 63rd minute Willian came on for Nelson, Dani for Mo’Neny, and Smith-Rowe entered the fray for Lacazette… taking off our two best players was, to me, a bit of a gamble. However, ESR dug right in, running our midfield with an aplomb belying his age.
Eddie missed a glorious chance from a Pepe cross, where with just a touch he would have fed the gaping goal mouth. But we were not to be denied our fourth goal. After Kitagawa was substituted in the 65th minute, Pepe intercepted a Vienna free kick about thirty yards out from goal and broke down the middle. He fed Maitland-Niles in the box; Ainsley put in a simple cross to the running ESR, who tapped into the empty net from six yards out. Welcome back, Emile!
Arsenal 4-1 Rapid (Smith-Rowe, 66)
Chambers replaced Mustafi (who, it is fair to say, had a decent game) in the 69th minute, Calum making his first appearance with the first team since he ruptured his ACL last December. His grin told the story, and he acquitted himself well. Arsenal continued to play intricate football, with a Willian dummy to Eddie nearly coming back to Eddie through ESR for a shot on goal, but Strebinger gathered. In all the back and forth Vienna took a corner and headed the ball over Runarsson’s goal, and Dani took a freekick from just outside the box that Strebinger tipped over.
In the 83rd minute Balogun replaced Eddie; Folarin was immediately involved, holding the ball up in the box and nearly bringing Maitland-Niles in on goal. I am as excited about him as I am about ESR, and I do love me some ESR. Arsenal saw out the game on a series of corners and moving the ball nicely around their goal, though except for a snapshot by Willian off of a freekick and a Balogun volley over their bar we didn’t really threaten to add a fifth star to the scoreline. The three minutes of added time passed and we ran out 4-1 winners, guaranteed to lead our group into the knockout rounds.
For me Reiss Nelson was MOTM, for others Alexandre Lacazette; let’s say they share the bottle today, both having played excellent games. There wasn’t a lot to complain about, though the middle 20 minutes or so of the game held too many midfield mistakes, any one (or all) of which could have been punished by a Premier League team. But our overall quickness of foot and thought were impressive, our one-touch passing and our intricacy on either flank matched those through the middle of the final third, and we were well worth our 4 goals.
As Clive, among others, suggested in the drinks, we should be playing kids, kids, and more kids in the final group game against Dundalk next week (though he pointed out there might be competing fixtures that would limit our pool from which to choose). I say start as many as we can, as well as our injury returnees (so Chambers and Marí in defense, ESR in midfield) and perhaps their example will lead to us seeing this type of enjoyable technical football return to the Arsenal squad in more than just our Europa League games!
An entertaining and concise summary of an entertaining game, Scruz. Very encouraging to see so many young players taking the chance to perform well. In addition to your comments, I’d mention AMN in midfield for a stand-out performance.
The Arsenal still continued to miss sufficient gilt-edged challenges to make the scoreline 8-1.
I too hope to see all of the youngsters, including Balogun PLEASE, start against Dundalk.
A wonderful report Scruz. We shared so many comments in the drinks last night that it felt like we we were watching the game together, via this blog. For me last night was all about the fans. This is wonderfully described by Henry Winter of the Times this morning, a Gooner who loves the club, who devotes two thirds of his report to the fan experience. I’ll share his first para, then link to his report (paywalled).
“Slowly, they materialised, appearing as if from the mists of time. Gradually, Arsenal fans rose from the Tube, or came into view down familiar byways, the muscle memory strong, the passion undimmed, heading to the Emirates for the first time in nine months.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/fluent-arsenal-ensure-fans-have-return-to-savour-nvdjb8djf
Fans are back baby. Just need to get lucky in the ballot.
A masterful, indeed Faberesque, summary of a most enjoyable match, Scruz. Good job.
Great stuff scruz and never boring!
I did hear that it was UEFA who asked
us to wear blue as they thought our
first two kits clashed with RV’s.
Also to be fair to them Rapid made
nine changes from the XI that started
their last league game.
Course you can only put away the
dinner in front of you and we did that
well.
Excellent report Scruz. A smooth read and definitely the match I saw.
Poor Elneny got carded because some bloke ran into him. I don’t think the ref even saw it. I found myself unaccountably aggrieved by that.
We could have been in double figures with some better execution and decisions. Although 4 goals was a great return and the attacking performances were very good.
What with fans back and a good performance last night was a lot of fun!
I wanted Pepe to take the free kick that Dani ended up taking because I thought the Ivorian was the only one of our players who was allowed to hit them on target.
But then Dani shot on target. That is new.
I wonder if we will try it again?
Not boring at all, Scruz. You’ve captured the game many here saw. So good to hear Gooners back in the stadium.
Glad you gave a shout-out to AMN. He played extremely well. I wonder if he would make a better partner for Partey than Elneny. With ESR in front of them and Saka and a full-flowing Pepe to the side of them, there could be the makings of a midfield there.
Hi, I have written a piece on the matchday experience last night. shall I add it to the comments or send under separate cover? In which case, please let me know how so to do! Ignorance is bliss…
Please post it in the drinks CER. Thank you so much for doing that.
For what it’s worth, my take on last night…
It had been a long time and I wanted to soak it all in. Taking my usual route, I emerged from Finsbury Park station and walked down St Thomas Road. Usually a throng of people, the traffic involuntarily removed from the street through sheer weight of numbers of the crowd, pursuing its collective right to take ownership of the roads; “The Arsenal are at home. North London is ours”.
Not tonight, however. Walking down St Thomas Road, I am literally the only person on the street. I now know how that guy felt in American Werewolf in London, pursued through Tottenham Court Road tube by an unseen ghoul. It is really quite eery. Approaching Gillespie road and suddenly more people hove into sight. And suddenly it begins to feel like a match day. The regular shouts start to go up. The Pavlovian responses to rhetorical questions rush to the fore: “Sh*t; Tottenham; S’alright.” You know the drill. The sense of anticipation mounts and I can feel that great common bond growing again, racing to the surface. Why we’re all here. Yes, it’s the Arsenal, it’s tribal but it’s deeper than that: The human need for company, for belonging. We’re home.
Bounding up the steps beside Highbury House, heart beginning to race now. Some slight dampening of mood when confronted by the ranks of marshals inspecting tickets and ID in ad hoc lanes along the bridge. And then through. The ground is in sight, rising up like the Cathedral we all believe it to be. The lights are on. The night is cold and damp. This is how football nights are supposed to be. Into the ground and straight to an unaccustomed seat but it doesn’t matter because I am now facing the hallowed turf. And it looks good enough to eat.
The players come out and that admixture of fear and joy and expectation comes flooding to the surface. We all feel it and the shouts go up. The players give us all a good round of applause, as relieved to see and hear us as we are to see them and one another.
Usual rules: All standing, shouting, cheering. We know who we hate and we let fly 271 days of pent up emotion at them. After 5 or 10 minutes the wit starts to flow again: “Come to see the Arsenal; you’ve only come to see the Arsenal”; “Your support is f*cking shit” etc. The best of the night to my mind; “Come for the vaccine, you’ve only come for the vaccine”, all aimed at non existent away fans. Yeah. We’re back.
Unfortunately, so are the Hi-Vis wearing Jobsworths who moonlight from their days jobs as traffic wardens and childcatchers to tell everyone to sit down. This immediately kills the atmosphere. Well done, guys. Because as we all know, you can’t catch Covid sitting down. Anyway, the boys on the pitch do their stuff and the game is a walkover. Poor opposition but to my mind the presence of the crown seemed to encourage a certain boldness of play; Far fewer sideways and backwards passes, and lo! Shots on goal. Who knew you could score goals that way?
10 minutes before the end of the game and a few people start leaving. I don’t do it myself, but there are quite a number who in a full crowd will make their way to the exits at this time, trying to avoid the traffic or the queues for the stations. I get it. I don’t approve but I get it. Quite why people who have made such an effort to be here tonight do it, I have no idea. What traffic? What queues? No accounting for human behaviour.
Anyway, the end of the game arrives, and we rise to our feet to cheer our heroes. A great result and more importantly, hopefully, a landmark on the way to returning to that golden land of the past called normality. We file out, floating on a tide of victory and bonhomie, sated, knowing that we’ll be here again, and in numbers. A great night and I’m so glad I made the effort.
Bloody brilliant CER. So evocative it felt like I was there. Top, top stuff.
Shades of Frank McLintock here.
Never have I been lucky enough to read two terrific reports on the same match in this blog but it’s happened now. Firstly Scruz your report is meticulously observed suffused with your love for the club and anything but boring …unless you support the Spuds or Rapud Vienna! Great work mate!
CER- Like C100 says it feels like we were there . So familiar and beautifully described . You are the sort of supporter our club has thrived on over the years .
Now the game- you’re all way OTT . Rapid are crap and played reserves . We played more progressively than of late but let’s see them do it in a proper game . I enjoyed it but honestly we need a reality check. We got the opposite of the Group of Death this year .
Thanks CER!
Great report, I read it happily
though I must admit to a tinge
of envy 😁
Glad you enjoyed it and it’s great
to see and hear the support back
where it belongs.
CER@10: Fantastic! Even us far-flungs on the dark outer reaches of the tribe for whom the Ems is a far-distant Jerusalem on the hill could taste it in your words.
Excellent review Scruz!
And CER@10, wow — that is such a powerfully atmospheric report. Very happy for you and the 1999 other fans who could finally enjoy the rituals and excitements of the match-day. Please keep writing these impressions.
According to ESPN, Arteta assembled his squad on Tuesday to address his team’s poor start as well as other issues, such as a further investigation as to how news of David Luiz and Dani Ceballos’ training ground bust-up was leaked.
So is this a dressing room leak about a dressing room leak? 🙂
Cheers Scruz!
No Cynic.
It is a dressing room leak about an investigation into a dressing room leak.
I wonder if it will be investigated?…
CER.
Absolutely wonderful stuff! Great report, quality writing and completely evoked the atmosphere. Thank you very much for your efforts in putting it together.
I am so glad it was such a good outing for you and the others in attendance.
And please bless us with another report as soon as you get back in the stadium!
Excellent report Scruz, I never would have thought it was a work day. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
And many thanks CER for your fantastic on the spot report. 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Yes Cheers CER top write up. Tim Stillman had his own version of going published in the Guardian today, much shorter than CER’s. Sorry cant find the link any more.
Found it;
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/dec/04/arsenal-return-reminded-me-that-matchdays-are-such-a-precious-ritual
CER’s is better 😜
Esso,
Thanks for attaching that . I’m not a Guardian reader but the quality of their writing on sport is of a consistently high quality .I guess had I been there it would have been very emotional. I’ve got into a habit of switching on just as the game starts , in fact I missed the first fifteen seconds yesterday and couldn’t find tge team in red and white! It was a brutal night here – heavy rain followed by snow early this morning and I wonder in normal circumstances if I would have bothered to go to a dead rubber with a lot of players rested on a Thursday evening with an 8 pm kick-off. I’m glad we have fans like CER and Tim who are a little stauncher than me
C100,
I may blush.
All,
An absolute pleasure. I have been blessed to have had the experience for nigh on 50 years. Fewer than some, more than many. And I know I have taken it for granted at times. I hope my scribblings give the merest taste of the joy I have had the good fortune to experience to those who couldn’t make it or live in far flung places.
COYG
Thanks CER
Keep football live!
glad you all liked it. bt8, i watched during an extended lunch, then had to hit the pavement, so to speak. watched the game again later last night after two excellent negronis and a tasty meal out with mrs. scruz. 🙂
cer, magnificent yourself. i thoroughly enjoyed that. maybe not as much as you enjoyed the game, but only because of the limits of the medium. please keep posting your impressions of the games to which you go.
ttg, your point @13 is well-taken, but if we can start to find those one-touch passes against tougher opposition, we’ll be on our way. and i’d really like to see the kids not just along for the ride, but driving the bus and making decisions on where to eat, as it were. nelson showed so much initiative last night; he just needs to keep showing that, and show he can figure out how to beat a pl defender/defensive setup. a couple of his sequences were stellar.
CER @10, thank you for an excellent eye-witness report giving us a taste of the match day experience that so many of us have missed these last 9 months. Your piece beautifully complements scruz’s match report and I hope you get the chance to do that regularly. As I am now merely a silver member I have no expectation of any opportunity to visit TNHOF this season.
All,
It’s odd. I grew up in N1. We didn’t have much. None of us did. But there’s this British thing about a love of where you come from. We had the Arsenal. It is as our social focus. We had little. But no less than anyone else. What we all had in common was The Arsenal. When I was a kid we even had one of usassan idol, Charlie George. The N7 God. He knew he wasn’t. We knew it. Not the point. For all of us in the playgrounds he represented a way up and out. And some of us took it. He showed us it was possible. And we reached. And some of us succeeded. And some failed. But we tried. Because the example was there.
And that, my friends, is The Arsenal.
A very fine match report Scruz with added perspective of being at the far end of the other side of the pond. It reflected perfectly how the match panned out. An excellent team performance against albeit weak opposition – a 4-1 defeat flattered them.
Then to read CER’s evocative report of actually being there – it was as enjoyable to read as for you being one of the fortunate members to be there. I spent most of my younger days living at the furthest northern outpost of Islington N19 -if I crossed the road it was N6. We were fortunate to have The Arsenal as our local club, all the locals supported them, it was a natural phenomenon. You rekindled many memories for me – the match day walk down Crouch Hill, Stroud Green Road, through the tunnel at Finsbury Park Station, cross over Seven Sisters Road, pass the Finsbury Park Empire along St Thomas’s Rd where by now the crowds were a mass of people all walking in the same direction. The sound of the street vendors, the smell of the hot dog & burger vans and the anticipated excitement as you queued to go through the turnstiles and buying the match day programme ( always at the Clock End, same standing spot). In the late 50s & early/mid 60s the actual football rarely matched the anticipation but we can back for more every other Saturday 3pm kick off – it was The Arsenal.
CER
My dad was born in Custance Road in Hoxton.He could never believe it turned into an uber-trendy place but he used to tell me his memories of being carried on his dad’s shoulders at the age of four to the ground and of joining a crocodile of dads and sons wending their way to Highbury . An evocative sight!
In those times ( as Tom Watt described in The End) Arsenal was a huge beacon of light and enjoyment for the local community . Dad’s support pre-dated Charlie Buchan and the Cardiff final . Towards the end of his life , as a widower and struggling with mobility ( a bit like Xhaka) he used to devour anything on TV about Arsenal and during the last ten years of his life he thought the football was marvellous . Arsenal really was a great part of a very long and productive life
TTG,
I have very good friends from Hoxton and family from nearby Bethnal Green. We come from closer to Upper Street, by the Town Hall. Bizarrely now desirable. As kids, you couldn’t have given it away. We had very little. More than my parents and grandparents. But that wasnt much of a challenge. They had to fight wars and live with the aftermath. Life was hard then.
Scruz, CER,
Many thanks for two very different but to quote Freddie, “fuckin” excellent “ reports.
Great stuff, fellas ! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Keep football live!
Countryman is Martin Tyler!
BUSTED!
Continuing the “what Arsenal meant to me” theme from above –
When I was very young my first experiences of live football were at Barnet FC and the away grounds of the clubs that made up the Athenian League. I was taken by the next door neighbour as my Dad had to work on Saturdays. Finchley, Grays, Wealdstone and others were the palaces of footballing rivals we visited between Saturday afternoons spent beside the slope at Underhill.
I was completely immersed in the wonders of Athenian amateur football – such as a six and seven year old can be – the buzz of the crowd (about 1,800 checking back through the records), the smell of the horse-oils on the players as they emerged from the dressing rooms and walked within touching distance of you onto the pitch – a then customary mix of grass, mud and sand that nonetheless looked like Wembley compared to what we had to play on at school.
And then, when I was eight, something magical happened. My dad took me to an evening match at Highbury. We walked out of Arsenal tube station – I mean, what kind of football club had its own station ! – and made our way to the Clock End where I stood and gazed in disbelief at the lights, the vast crowd, the stands – what incredible stands – and that pitch. This was a truly magical place that in one amazing evening had me hooked for life.
I lived in East Barnet then which, at that time, put me in a very small minority of Arsenal fans compared to the numbers of Spuds all around. It’s now an Arsenal stronghold but in those days there were two of us at junior school and three of us at senior school against pretty much the rest.
That defiance, the struggle, the pride in my first Arsenal shirt one Christmas morning, which allowed me to run out onto an imagined Highbury pitch every time we went for a three-n-in in the local park, school holiday days spent standing at London Colney watching the youth team alongside George Graham and Frank McLintock, that drove Arsenal into my heart.
The successes have been fantastic, the disappointments immense. Whichever way it goes, that are there to stay.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Trev,
Lovely memories . How strong that first pull is and how amazingly atmospheric Highbury was! I was almost the only Arsenal supporter in my schools in South London . Chelsea and Palace country with lots of United fans in the Charlton/ Law/ Best era