Goonerholics Forever

In the recent history of Arsenal, there is a particular pattern of play that, once it starts to unfold on the matchday, suspends the entire team into a state of somnambulance from which they wake up only after the final whistle has been blown. On those days we move the ball with the alacrity of a sloth hanging upside down, the players fail to find each other in their passes, and fail to cover for each other with such alarming regularity that you wonder whether they have ever even met on a training pitch before. And as the match slowly and excruciatingly burns to its inevitable end, the possibility of a sucker punch transforms itself from the domain of psychic anxiety to scoreboard inevitability.  

Our inglorious exit in the third round of the FA Cup to a lower league opposition – albeit a feisty in-from one, playing with purpose and self-belief, and no little ruggedness – followed that pattern of play perfectly. This has been a feature of the current Arsenal, and every time the team goes on a splendid run of performances, soon after comes this reminder that how much of growth and maturation is still needed before the team can learn to detect the warning signals early in the match and reorient themselves to change the collective gear.

Depleted by AFCON absentees, Covid & injuries, the traveling squad to Nottingham Forest included exciting U-23 names like Mika Biereth, Omari Hutchinson,  Salah Oulad M’Hand, and the supremely talented Charlie Patino (who already had scored on his debut in the League Cup home match against Sunderland last month). With Xhaka, Partey, Elneny all absent, and Ainsley Maintland-Niles having already joined Roma on loan the day before, Charlie got a start along with Sambi Lokonga in the middle of the field.  The bench had only Tierney, Lacazette and Ramsdale as the established first eleven alternatives, with Chambers and Kolasinac complementing the youth brigade.         

Leno

Cedric – White – Holding – Tavares

Lokonga – Patino

Saka – Ødegaard– Martinelli

Nketiah

There really is not much to write about this match and I will spare you the horror of reliving the experience by giving a detailed account. Tavares & Lokonga – both of whom had surpassed expectations until now despite the occasional signs of their immaturity – had their worst games. Nuno was so erratic that Mikel was forced to make an uncharacteristic early substitution to bring Kieran in for him in the first half. Patino was too lightweight and expectedly too overwhelmed by the occasion to help create semblance of any control in a physical midfield battle, and halfway through the first half it was evident that this was going to be a very difficult battle to overcome.

I will give credit to Forest as well, they were not overawed by the reputations of Saka, Martinelli and Ødegaard – who all have been sublime in their recent appearances – and did their best to frustrate our two super wingers. Saka had one of his least influential matches in recent memory, and given Eddie’s erratic hold-up play and lack of sharp movements Gabi found it very hard to create the kind of space and interchanges that allow him to fully leverage his speed and abilities on the ball. He doesn’t yet have the subtlety necessary to alter his approach to make it more decisive in situations like this. The loss of control in midfield meant Martin dropping deeper and deeper, Eddie failing to understand the need of the game and not providing any link-up chain between Ødegaard and the two wingers, and we had no real goal-bound attempts. There were a couple of deflected shots – from Eddie and Lokonga – and a few mildly threatening situations from the corners (which too, as is typical in a day when nothing goes well, were less than sub-par especially in comparison to our sharp corner routines this season).

Leno made a couple of decent saves, but Holding and Cedric had two of the worst defensive performances I have seen for us in recent years. Holding was not particularly calamitous but he was unbelievably sloppy and slow on the ball, blunting any chance of quick attacks, White was only marginally better on the ball even though he tried to go on few times on his typical runs through the middle. Cedric on the other hand was simply inadequate at every facet of the game, and the drop in level compared to Tomiyasu was alarming. Between Chambers and Cedric, my observation is that the former at least gives some defensive solidity and a decent quality on the ball while being played out from the back. Cedric perfectly encapsulated the day’s performance when his free kick from a promising position harmlessly drifted away.

Even on a bad day Saka produced a couple of moments that should have been good enough. Eddie made a complete mess of a simple header with only the goalkeeper to beat, and later Lacazette – coming into replace Patino with Ødegaard moving into a deeper role – failed to connect to a well-place cross from Saka.

As the game reached 80^th minute with the score is still tied at 0-0, we were yet to register a shot on goal, and another atrocious thirty minutes of Arsenal performance loomed on the horizon. There was still hope that somehow one of our front five would find an inspiring moment to win the match at the end (the likes of last grasp win on a bad day are inevitable parts of a cup-winning run). And then we were behind to a very well taken goal.

Sambi tried to pass a ball past one of Forest midfielders, it bounced off his arm, while Sambi was protesting for a handball decision the rest of our team were very slow to react to the danger and a neatly-placed cross from their right was met efficiently by the veteran striker Lewin Grabban.

Nottingham Forest 1 (Grabban 83’) – Arsenal 0

As we (not so) desperately looked for a late equalizer it was somewhat startling to see Sead Kolasinac come on. This was probably not a day Mikel would want to remember, either.

The matchday started with enthusiasm and pride in Arsenal’s laudable “No More Red” campaign.  It was unfortunate that the symbolic white shirts materialized to be an actual act of meek surrender.

We are sitting fourth on the PL with 18 more matches to go, if we win the League Cup semifinal two-leg tie against Liverpool we would also have a final to play. So we have 20 or 21 remaining games to play this season and given that we will now be playing just once a week for the most part, the squad – which, as this performance demonstrated if anyone needed reminding, does need a bit more strengthening in the January window because the gap in quality drops significantly after the first 14-15 players – and the coaching team have the great opportunity to push for a top four position with undistracted focus. Getting back to Champions League should now be not only an aspirational, but a realistic goal. 

Back in August I wrote the review of the total dismantling we suffered up at The Emptihad and so I was keen to use this review as a means of measuring the progress made since. I think after that performance we can well and truly believe that we have reached an inflexion point in terms of the direction of travel for the club. 

First Half

Immediately the game started, it was apparent that the team had been prepared such that they were full of confidence and had no fear of the expensively assembled group of mercenaries employed by an oil state to sports wash their image. We were pressing intelligently around the halfway line and managing to take the ball off Citeh. It was pressing with a purpose while not being tempted into pressing into the Citeh half and thus managing to compress the space available to pass into. A lesson learned from the August match, it seems to me.

The first real action occurred in the 10^th minute when a fantastic 70-yard pass – pass, not hoof – from Ramsdale was taken down beautifully right on the touchline by the tireless Martinelii, who then ran at his defender before offloading to Laca on the edge of box who passed perfectly to Ødegaard. MØ took it past Ake as though he wasn’t there and was taken down by the onrushing Ederson. The referee didn’t give it, as it was not necessarily an obvious foul. However, this is the purpose of VAR. At least this is what we were led to believe. The very first angle shown in TV, which I can only assume was also shown to the habitues of the shadows back at Stockley Park, clearly showed that Ederson makes contact with Ødegaard’s foot which then itself knocks the ball out. Hence, no contact on the ball and a pen. But wait, for if the people using the technology can find a way to obfuscate they surely will, so they seemed to focus on other less obvious images and angles than the first one. This was eerily similar to what they did a couple of years ago when we won a penalty at home in the game against Leeds where the first angle shown on TV, showing a clear penalty, was not shown in the VAR review to the referee. In the end a corner was given. 

On 14 minutes Citeh really ought to have scored when some good possession on the edge of the box resulted in odious, serial-cheating hobgoblin Sterling sending in an excellent cross picking out an equally excellent run in behind by Dias who just failed to get a significant enough touch on the ball to divert it past Ramsdale. 

The game was really hotting up now and in the 16^th minute, following some beautiful work by the dominant Partey, the livewire Martinelli got away from his man and forced Ederson into a good save resulting in a corner.

We then had a period of around 10 minutes where we were excellent from front to back. Pressing, energy, winning second phase balls and generally putting City under a huge amount of pressure.  This culminated in the goal in the 31^st minute. Ben White strode out to steal the ball from de Bruyne, there followed some lovely midfield interplay between Partey, Xhaka and Ødegaard who released Tierney on the left. A devastatingly simple pass from Tierney towards the penalty spot allowed Saka to come in from the blindside of the statuesque Citeh defender and slot into the bottom right with his left foot. A genuine thing of beauty.

Arsenal 1 Citeh 0

In the 39^th minute the relentless harrying and pressing from Arsenal resulted in a break allowing Martinelli to take an Henryesque shot from the left side of the box towards the top right corner which went narrowly over. Martinelli continued in the same vein when, in the 42^nd minute, he intercepted a misplaced pass on the edge of the Arsenal defensive third and took off like a greyhound chasing a rabbit, slaughtering Cancelo with a piece of footballing prestidigitation before coming inside and bamboozling Dias and Cancelo, again, before getting a shot off which beat the keeper but unfortunately also beat the right-hand post.  Wow! Just wow!

Second Half

We started the second half exactly as we had ended the first. Unfortunately, in the 53^rd minute, Xhaka Xhakaed. He was turned inside out in the box by Silva and stuck his leg out needlessly. I can’t believe that the penalty was given for the tug of the shirt as much as the fact that Xhaka stuck his leg out. At the same time, the inconsistency of the application of VAR is here for all to see. Citeh get a referee review with the relevant angle shown to the ref. We didn’t, on the basis of VAR being selective in the angles they choose to replay. This is not good enough and lacks consistency and, more importantly, transparency. Without these two, the integrity of the entire PGMOL and VAR operation has to be called into question.

Arsenal 1 Citeh 1

Five minutes after the foul we very nearly, and quite deservedly, restored the lead when pressure on the Citeh defence as they back pedalled to deal with a bouncing ball resulted in Cancelo heading it over his own keeper. Ake recovered to clear the ball on the line but only succeeded in knocking it out to Martinelli who only managed to hit it from 12 yards out onto the angle of post and crossbar.   He was hindered in his progress by the oaf Atwell who for some reason, despite only being 12 yards out himself decided to continue running towards the ball, requiring Martinelli to run round him.  This is purely and simply lack of awareness on Atwell’s part, but it is the kind of thing you would see in a Sunday morning pub league game. This was immediately followed by Gabriel receiving a second yellow, quite rightly, for blocking Jesus, a man who has the permanent visage of a 4-year-old who can’t get his own way and is about to cry. 

We held out manfully from this point to the end of the game without really being under too much pressure. The referee started to behave increasingly erratically, seemingly booking Arsenal players for the most minor infractions as if to reinforce the fact that the homunculus in black was firmly in charge. There was a feeling of inevitability about the denouement in the 93rd minute where a ball ricocheted around the box and fell kindly to Rodri to slot home.

Final Score Arsenal 1 Citeh 2

Conclusions

1. We have all been waiting for the game in which we step up and match one of the top three. In terms of a result, we didn’t quite manage this yesterday, however I have to think that the nature of the performance was more important and provided the sign that we are firmly headed in the right direction. There was so much to like about everything we did yesterday; from the organisation and heart on display to the element of sh*thousery we showed when necessary.
2. One of the points we clung onto back in August was that we had players out from the Euros and with Covid and so we hoped that once we had “Arteta’s team” things would be different. It is perhaps instructive that of the starting 11 yesterday, only four players started back in August – Tierney (the only one of the back five to make it), Xhaka, Saka and Ødegaard.   I think we saw yesterday that the extra quality purchased in the summer, backed up by quality coaching and the obvious building of a team ethic on the part of Arteta and his management team is in the process of transforming the club and taking us back towards where we want to be.
3. Xhaka is always going to Xhaka. I can understand that he has redeeming features, not least his team ethic. However, any good points will always be outweighed by the fact that you know in big games he will do something unnecessary resulting in a booking, a sending off, a penalty, a goal conceded or all of the above. We desperately need to find a replacement, if not in this window then certainly in the summer as he has proved time and again that he is incapable of changing.
4. Stats – Somehow 13 fouls given against Arsenal were converted into 5 yellow cards.  Is that really correct? Somehow, City were only penalised 5 times in the entire game.  
5. Referees and VAR. With every Premier League game that I watch, I become more firmly entrenched in my view that the entire concept of the PGMOL and its control and misuse of VAR is designed wholly with the intention of creating incident and talking points as opposed to the way in which mug punters, such as ourselves and the supporters of all clubs in the Premier League, want it to be used – for the purposes of ensuring the correct decisions are arrived at for the right reasons.  Now we have inconsistency both within and across games and it is just not good enough. The right thing to do is to support the decision makers through scrutiny in the same way as umpires in cricket and referees in rugby union are – by having them all miked up and allowing them to explain their decisions. To borrow from Ann Widdecombe, there is something of the night about the entire edifice that is PGMOL, unsurprising when you consider that Mike Riley sits atop the organisation. There is no transparency, no ability to question the men who are the ultimate guardians of the game. The Roman satirist Juvenal wrote “Quis custodiet Ipsos custodes” – Who shall watch over the watchers themselves?.  If they cannot be trusted to perform this role for the benefit of the paying public then it is time to sweep them away and put in place a new organisation.

After the misery of the last couple of years both in terms of Arsenal and societally, this was just the kind of performance to give us hope for the future. A happy, healthy and prosperous 2022 to one and all.