Painting a Picture
I must admit I was tempted to submit only the headline and a picture of a relieved looking Arsenal fan at 05:30 of an Osaka morn as my review of our latest must-win game. However, here at GHF such gimmickry is frowned upon by the stern, serious guardians of the flame and so without further blithering here is my report of the goings on at Molineux yesterday evening.
Successive defeats had, understandably, left the atmosphere around The Arsenal camp somewhat fraught in the lead-up to a tricky away fixture. In the charming olden days, Mikel could, bestudded cudgel in hand, have strolled amongst the shaded groves of the faithful delivering savage thrashings at the first signs of defeatist bleating from the less resolute in the flock, however, in the enlightened modern era motivation is fashionably preferred to fear as an approach. Admirable no doubt, but several degrees more complicated and I was curious to see the results on the field, as well as the XI that Mikel would entrust front and centre. Although there were three changes from the starting XI in Munich (Jorginho, Tomi, Gabi out and Leo, Jesus and Jakub in) there was, more tellingly I feel, only one change from the XI that started against Villa – Jakub for Zin, a natural enough precaution away from home. The message was simple enough, I trust you, now trust yourselves and go win the game.
Wolves vs The Arsenal 1st Half
Would it be a nervous, hesitant start? No, not really was the first question answered. We started well, dominating the first quarter of the game and Wolves barely got a kick in our half let alone a shot. Would we score early to settle the nerves? No was the answer to this question too. Not for want of trying as we had 6 shots in the first 15 minutes and could have scored in the first minute when a good effort from Kai was unfortunately straight at the keeper. In the second minute Toti went through Saka to “let him know he was there” as they say in the commentary box. Or in other words, one player ran up to another player and deliberately kicked him. To my annoyance, but not surprise, the referee did not book him. I am trying to remember a saying about evil flourishing when the mediocre Tierney does nothing but the exact wording escapes me. Anyway, as the 1st half progressed Wolves did finally start to gain a toehold in midfield, managing their first shot in the 23rd minute before coming far closer when Raya parried a fierce drive from Gomes onto the post. Shortly afterwards, William Saliba had uncharacteristically passed straight to Bueno on the edge of our area giving him a free shot, fortunately Bueno’s shot did not live up to his name and he skewed it well wide. In hindsight that was probably the golden age of this game for Wolves. As half-time approached normal service had started to resume but I must admit to some concern. Our intent had been good, we’d gotten plenty of shots in and mostly controlled the game, but the usual litany of “not quites” were starting to accumulate in my notes – final pass just astray, slightly poor contact, couldn’t get enough power on the shot, ball hadn’t dropped kindly, misunderstanding between xx and xx player etc etc. Given that my in-depth pre-match analysis had clearly shown that not booting the ball in the net was fatal to our chances of winning the game I was starting to notice a worrying similarity to our previous two games. O me of little faith.
Wolves 0 The Arsenal 1
The goal when it did arrive, at a very opportune moment just before half-time, was excellent. Kai swung a nicely weighted cross from the right-hand edge of the box to Gabi J slightly to the left of the penalty spot. Jesus held it well under pressure and laid a short ball off to Leo who calmly placed it into the top right corner. Another one for Leo’s increasingly big Book of Important Arsenal Goals. Wolves complained, personally I couldn’t see why at the time, unless they were telling the ref “it’s not fair they have better players than we do”. However, later I read it was because Doherty fell over. I also read some nonsense about the goal being somewhat fortuitous – sheer jealousy and as Leo himself said afterwards “obviously top bins, so it’s really a great goal”. Spot on Mr. Trossard.
Wolves vs The Arsenal 2nd Half
The 2nd half began much as the first half had with The Arsenal well on top and pressing hard for a goal. Actually, to my eye, we were more confident having taken the lead and I saw an increased assertiveness as we strove to kill off our weaker opponent. You’d have thought Wolves, given their name, would have understood the sentiment but in fact they just started kicking us more. The ref did nothing. Unfortunately, though we created several more chances, our efforts did not bring a deserved second goal and as in the first half Wolves started to come more into the game for a while without ever really threatening. We were starting to look somewhat leggy when Mikel made his first sub – Gabi M for Leo – after about 70 minutes. The game meandered along after that with Wolves huffing and puffing ineffectually (they had 1 shot second half) until the introduction of Partey for Jesus on 80 minutes. What I had thought of as a slightly defensive substitution in fact made for an entertaining final 15 minutes. Freed from his defensive duties Declan started to run more at a tiring Wolves side and basically ensured we finished off the match well on top. His energy seems boundless and we could have scored 4 more goals in added time alone! First, he won the ball in midfield, fed a short ball to Bukayo who ran past a couple before blasting over the bar, next a dangerous Declan cross from the right byline was cleared for a corner, another shot from Bukayo followed and then we finally got the second we had been chasing all half.
Wolves 0 The Arsenal 2
As Declan piled forward once more Wolves defenders had to commit and the ball was laid off to Martin at the back post, his attempted cut back was blocked but came back to him and this time the captain made no mistake as he passed the ball into the net from an acute angle. There was still just time for Gabi M to miss a one on one with the keeper before the referee brought the proceedings to a highly satisfactory end, or least highly satisfactory to the travelling faithful whom I could hear singing away lustily in the background.
A few thoughts
It was, in truth, a good time to play Wolves as they had several players out, notably in attack and had not been in good form. In other words, when their few chances did come, they lacked the quality to punish us, which made for a more comfortable game and a record 6th consecutive clean sheet away from home. I would give a lot for a lucky 7th at the Spuds.
Just my opinion but Wolves should have finished with 9 men. Kilman (straight red) and Toti (2 yellows) should both have gone.
We showed huge character in adversity again and I love this side.
We (including myself) have talked about a lack of energy especially 2nd half in the last two defeats but actually at the end of this game Declan, Bukayo and Martin were happily piling forward and running back. There have been some fair points made about under-utilization of the squad but is the issue more mental than physical? The old chestnut of the difference a goal makes.
The final thought to Mikel “I didn’t think it was our best performance. Today was all about the 3 points and we got them.”
Chelsea next, just win.
Ohayou gozaimasu, Matt. Excellent report. Exactly the game I saw.
Impressive win in a very demanding test after a difficult week at the races. Your comments on the strength of Wolves eleven are correct and appropriate. There was a spell after they made their substitutions when they looked dangerous and with Neto and Cuhna available things might have been very different..
I had hoped to see Partey start and was pleased by his introduction, albeit late in the game. Based on this small sample (and the couple of others we’ve seen of late) he isn’t the player who shone brightly as one of the best in the League last season. Great pity. With him as a rock at DM and Declan wandering free in the left 8, there is a potential potency that is otherwise missing.
Just off to meet Bath and cheer Fulham on to a win at the Cottage.
Cheers, Matt. Very fair and entertaining match report. The big thing is we steadied the ship just in time for our huge last five games. On to the Chavs, who gave us a handful at the Bridge.
An excellent report Matt. It was a lovely, quite warm spring evening at Molineux. Supper was from the away concourse, a very decent pie and a pint of Guinness. The setup for away fans is very strange, a shallow bank of supporters running all the way along one side. This makes it quite difficult to get the songs going as you can be 100 yards from other Gooners. cf Brighton two weeks ago when we were all behind the goal. Well that and half the crowd only returned from Munich on Friday and were still visibly hungover.
The match seemed tense because we were only one nil up until deep in the second half. But, truth be told, we were far superior to the very depleted Wolves but couldn’t convert our many chances into goals. Eventually Leo toe poked one in and a new song was born, which was sung for the rest of the game and out through the concourse to the night air.
Trossard again Ole, Ole
Trossard again Ole, Ole
Trossard again
Trossard again
Trossard again Ole, Ole
That goal completely changed the game and I never thought we were going to concede. Odegaard’s late, late second just meant we could start singing that we were top of the league.
We got through it, but recent exertions were clearly still in the legs. Tuesday’s game against Chelsea will be our fifth in 14 days. Crazy.
We go again! Five more Cup finals to go.
Spot on, OM. Declan Rice has a slightly unusual gait, very upright, which makes him seem laboured when he is driving forward, yet he keeps on going like the Energizer Bunny.
Matt,
You top and tailed this fixture brilliantly and your report of the game is a very fair and accurate summary. I was a nervous wreck in the second half while telling myself that we were comfortably in control .
It is ridiculous that we will meet the Spuds on Sunday having played four extra games since they last played . All three title chasers look knackered but I thought we managed the game well once we got the lead .
For once Jamie Redknapp spoke a lot of sense ( did I really write that ?) on Sky when he said he really fancied us for the title next season , whatever happens this . I share his view but in an idle moment I did a wish list of arrivals and departures which I abandoned when I identified twelve potential departures. We will never get that amount of business done but if we don’t we will struggle to stay within FFP parameters . I hope Edu has already taken his holiday .
I particularly rated Raya , Gabriel and Rice and thought Havertz and Odegaard worked incredibly hard . Jesus did too but we need to find a better finisher than him . Kiwior was better in the second half but come back Jurrien Timber asap.
We did more than just win and it was a very welcome result.
Verdict on Fulham Liverpool, those who were between Bishops Park and the river today?
TTG@5: I can’t disagree that a goal every three hours and fifty-three and a half minutes of playing time is an underwhelming scoring rate for someone wearing Arsenal’s No 9 shirt, but I will say this for Jesus, when he got hauled down by Doherty in the penalty area, he had the presence of mind to get up and get a pass off to Trossard to score when plenty of others would have stayed down and pleaded for a penalty, not doubt in vain with Tierney reffing.
We should be OK on both UEFA’s and the PL’s financial sustainability rules. Our loss over the past three financial years, allowing for the offsets allowed under the PL’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules, is £15 million, which is the rules’ lower threshold for compliance. However, KSE’s ‘secure funding’ should qualify for us the higher threshold of £105 million in losses over the three seasons, which gives a comfortable £90 million of headroom.
This season. we would have to make an adjusted profit of £3 million to stay within the rules, but, while we are having to pay for some new high earners like Rice and Havertz, we will also have a lot more CL money (at least 90 million euros) and start to benefit from some of the new commercial deals and renewals. UEFA’s rules have been reset, so won’t kick in for a couple of years.
That said, it would help the P&L, if not the squad depth if we could sell some players. Profit from player sales halved to £11 million in 2022/23. Players that come through the Academy are booked as pure profit. Selling ESR, Eddie Nketiah and Reiss Nelson should pad the profitability ceiling by £60 million — enough for half a new striker.
Thanks, Matt – a fine report and final thoughts I fully agree with. The general opinion expressed in the media is that Arsenal have been lucky with injuries this season, whereas Timber has been out for it’s entirety, Partey not much less, Zinchenko has had his usual leg issues, Tomiyasu and Jesus have suffered long after international fortnights, and Smith-Rowe only really figured in the manager’s thinking from about end- February.
That hasn’t left much room for rotation whether Arteta would have liked to ring a few changes or not.
Anyway, I have to check on the current situation now as my second preview in 6 days is due out tomorrow. Games coming now like Aaron Lennon – thick and fast !
However did Dave do it ?
Ned
Thanks for those numbers which are back of envelope but he.pful in pointing the direction of travel.
I would like us to SELL in the summer –
Ramsdale
Tierney
Tavares
Partey
Lokonga
Patino
Nelson
Nketiah
Vieira .
We also are likely to be interested in selling Biereth, Norton- Cuffy and Okonkwo . Factor in the departures of Elneny and Cedric and one can see how busy the departure lounge could be . If we were to sell them ( and others like Jesus, Kiwior and Zinchenko might depart ) I’d estimate we’d raise over £150 million in fees and save well over £50 m in wages . But apart from the fact that Edu would lose valuable barbecuing time an exodus on that scale destroys team spirit and means you have to do a very good job of selecting and introducing replacements . We’d need a defender , reserve goalie, ( possibly two if Hein is loaned out ) two midfielders and two forwards . So the arrivals lounge would be pretty full too although we could possibly promote the likes of Walters, Nwaneri, Lewis- Skelly and OCD
Good summary Matt
Never thought we were in any danger of losing, we came out on the front foot and mainly stayed there.
Game management in 2nd half was excellent and necessary, given the quick turnaround from Bayern game, and the same to Chelsea on Tuesday.
interesting stat on MM’s Bayern 2nd leg post, that we have 7 players that have played 40 games this season, City have none.
Trust and lack of depth in certain positions, ??
No wonder we look knackered.
If we win the thing it will be a bloody miracle.
That’s the game I saw, OM, very well summarised and a far better read than the game was ‘a watch’ live. I was much less relaxed than C100 as we struggled to put the ball in the net in the first half then failed to secure the points until the final minutes. I shared your concern and TTG’s stress. I think that I suffer from PTSD arising from so many of those late Wenger era games that we completely dominated yet failed to secure and ended up losing or drawing as a result of oppositions scoring from their first attempt on goal after racing through an absent midfield and past an isolated, sometimes feckless defender. I realise this team eschews the faults of many of their predecessors but yet those scars are still there and the angst is intensified by the knowledge that the prize is almost within reach and to drop any points now would probably be fatal.
The butt of much criticism over many weeks, Raya deserves credit for his reaction save from Wolves’ only serious attempt on our goal. A vicious shot that he tipped onto the woodwork that, had it been scored, at 0-0, would have left us chasing that game with a team that has been looking somewhat leggy in the previous two games. Given how difficult we found it to score yesterday, I’m not confident that we would have salvaged all three points from that situation. As it panned out, we seemed to be flagging a bit when Leo’s toe poke screwed its way into the top corner and a timely thing of beauty it was too.
An early second would have been nice but as the match report observes, we pretty much had the game under control in the second half though that didn’t prevent the PTSD kicking in! That was indeed a remarkable surge in energy from Rice and Saka in the dying minutes of the game that could have added a couple more goals to the tally. I exclude Ødegaard from that observation as it is no longer remarkable that our Captain Fantastic keeps running, creating, pressing and tackling for every 90-plus minutes.
Another job done. Now for the Chavs. Go win, Gunners.
C100 @6, after an excellent Sunday roast at the Duke’s Head, BtM and I were treated to an excellent first half in which Fulham rode their luck a bit in the early stages but equally created several chances from which they should have scored. They went behind to an excellent TAA free kick from the second of two free kicks on the edge of the box, both of which looked extremely soft from our perspective in the Johnny Haynes Stand, but deservedly equalised following a period of prolonged pressure in the visitors’ box. In that half, Iwobi was an energetic driving force but seemed incapable of putting in a half decent cross. The second half was sadly a different story. Liverpool were business-like and pressed Fulham back from the restart, took the lead from close range following a gift of a square pass from Iwobi as Fulham broke out of defence. That they then settled the game with a third was no surprise. Fulham simply had no answer in the remaining 20 minutes.
Take aways. Liverpool looked entirely focused on winning this game though were rattled by Fulham’s equaliser and their defence ain’t what it used to be – they will surely drop points before the season’s end. Fulham will not take any points off C115y; although they had several excellent moves that should have brought rewards, they are toothless in the box as Muniz, who has had a recent run of form has reverted to his mean – we need someone else to puncture the petrodollar-primed poseurs’ plan.
Thanks all, it was a pleasure to be positive to end the week!
Shame about Fulham, but I have a little hope for Brighton.
On a good day they can be very tough.
BtM,
Yeah, I feel the same about Partey. He was brilliant for 6 months
but he’s just too injury prone in the 2nd half of seasons it seems.
Pity, as he actually had a good injury record before he joined us
– or so I read anyway.
Do we have a legal team at GHF ?
I notice today that that arseblog chappie has reproduced an old headline of mine absolutely character for character. Outrageous ! It’s a good job he’s such a nice bloke or ………
@16
I am willing to appear for the prosecution if necessary Trev as I clearly remember
thé piece. 😃. Transport costs are covered for me right?
Anyway, it’s actually quite an amusing piece from.Blogs. It would have been funny if Coventry has rolled them out but never mind we will always have that Spud final.
The other bit about Forest is probably correct in the assumption that a large fine is on the way. On the other hand it is exceedingly dim to put a Luton fan in the VAR chair.
Matt, of course travel costs are covered. A new pair of Speedos and some decent walking boots should get you here – eventually 😉
Re: Forest ask PGMOL to release audio from Everton game
What a farce that any club should have to get special permission to hear the arguments that went into key (or any) decisions that decide their fate. Mic up all the refs and vars now!
bt8 – Rugby refs are miked up and that works brilliantly. It’s almost as though PGMOL doesn’t want transparency, which couldn’t possibly be the case.
U21’s available on .com tonight at 7 pm UK time. Timber is in the squad apparently.
Excellent report Matt! I saw the match recorded, a day later and already aware the result so that might have influenced might impression of the game, but I think we never looked to have lost control of the proceedings, not even when Kiwior got skinned a couple of times in the first half and once Raya had to make that superb save, but just lacking the bit of precision and confidence in the final third to turn our dominance into goals.
The injury depleted Wolves played fairly well, but a more on song version of Arsenal wraps this game up by the 60th minute. However, I feel that this win after a troubled week will bring back the sharpness of mind to be more incisive and decisive when required.
Jesus gets his fair share of criticism for not scoring enough goals, but his technical abilities in tight spaces along with the bullish tenacity was again proven to be a key in unlocking dogged defense. I think he brings a rather unique combination of qualities that complement the rest of the attack well in days like this.
Trev@18: 🙂
Crazier yet, I think the Coventry strike would have been ruled onside in the Premier League. The PL’s guidance for offside this season says, For marginal offside decisions, after the one-pixel lines are applied, the VAR puts on the thicker broadcast lines and where they overlap, those situations will now be deemed as onside.
https://www.premierleague.com/news/1488423
You’d think the same approach would apply in the Cup, but who knows with the FA? I assume it has a separate contract with the PGMOL. So different guidance might apply. It hasn’t made public anything that I can find about how it interprets marginal offside, not that it is the most communicative of organisations to start with.
The sad thing is that this will all be forgotten by the time of the final. It is not how you win semis that matters, just that you win them.
Jurrien Timber returned at left back for the U21s tonight at Blackburn……..and scored a cracker within ten minutes!
>>>>>>>