Goonerholics Forever

And so, while we have recently perhaps struggled to maintain concentration and second place in the Premier League, Tuesday evening sees us switch to what has become our number one priority for this most difficult of seasons, the Champions League. 

Given our injury problems this season we have done quite brilliantly to win a place in the semifinals where we will get an eyeful of Paris St Germain (see what I did there 😉).

The Opposition – the early years
Considering their, albeit more recent, domination of French football, it might come as something of a surprise to find that Paris Saint-Germain Football Club was founded as recently as August 1970 after the merger of Paris Football Club and Stade Saint-Germain. PSG made an immediate impact, winning promotion to Division 1 via the Division 2 title in their first season.

That initial success was short lived however, and the club split again in 1972. Paris FC remained in the top division while PSG were administratively relegated to Division 3. Success returned quickly though, and, following back to back promotions, PSG returned to the premier division in 1974 and moved into the Parc des Princes stadium.

Their first trophies arrived in the 1980s. Led by players such as Safet Susic, Luis Fernandez and Dominique Rocheteau, the Parisians claimed two consecutive French Cups in 1982 and 1983, followed by their first league championship in 1986, after which they went into decline. A takeover by French television giants Canal+ in 1991 breathed new life into the club and with new players like David Ginola, George Weah and Raí, the club won nine trophies and reached five consecutive European semifinals during that decade. Most notably, PSG won a second league title in 1994 and, at their peak, the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup in 1996 with ex-player and club legend Luis Fernandez now as coach.

From the start of the 2000s the club struggled to reproduce those heights despite the presence of players like Ronaldinho and the goals of the Portuguese, Pedro Miguel Carreiro Resendes – Pauleta to you and me. Five more trophies did arrive in the form of three French Cups, one French League Cup and one UEFA Intertoto Cup, but the club became better known for lurching from one high-profile crisis to another. As a result, Canal+ sold the club to Colony Capital in 2006. However, the situation only worsened and they spent the 2006-07 and 2007-08 campaigns fighting off relegation.

The Opposition – financially doped years
The fortunes of Paris Saint-Germain changed dramatically when Qatar Sports Investments (QSI) purchased the club in 2011. Since then, like other oil-state funded clubs, PSG have spent heavily on the signings of world-class players such as Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Thiago Silva, Edinson Cavani, Ángel Di María and, most notably, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, the world’s two most expensive transfers in football history. As a result, and to no-one’s surprise, PSG have dominated French football, winning 27 trophies: 7 league titles, 6 French Cups, 6 French League Cups and 8 French Super Cups. They have also become a regular in the knockout stages of the Champions League, reaching the final for the first time ever in 2020.

While you can admire the success of the club’s early years, 27 trophies in 13 years since being state funded, sounds no more like competition than Man City’s 6 of the last 7 Premier League titles does in England.

While we continue to await the outcome of the court hearings into somewhere between 115 and 130 charges of cheating by Manchester City, I have no idea of the legality or otherwise of QSI’s dealings, but having written a long piece about Qatar and their motivations and behaviour whilst hosting the 2022 World Cup, there is no doubt that I wouldn’t want them owning our club. Thousands of migrant workers died during the construction of stadia for that event, having been forced to stay until completion in dreadful living conditions. Thousands more eventually returned home with chronic illnesses caused by long term dehydration during their enforced stays. If any extra motivation were needed to beat PSG, let’s hope it can come from the desire to show that the game can still be played and won fairly.

Mikel Arteta and PSG
It can’t be forgotten that Mikel Arteta began his own senior professional career with the original version of PSG. It all happened very suddenly for Arteta when the La Masia academy at Barcelona received a phone call from PSG asking to take the 18 year old on loan. Arteta said he was “terrified “ but knew it was an opportunity he had to take. He says the two years he spent there were the making of him, with his fellow player, “dad” and mentor Mauricio Pochettino. 

“Luis Fernandez was the one who believed in me. That is what you need, someone to give you the chance and to be surrounded by the right individuals. They protected me like a son. It was the perfect environment for me to see what I was capable of doing.”

Clearly it was an experience he valued and he has reciprocated that trust in his own young players now at the Arsenal.

The teams
PSG’s tactical shape is highly flexible, often starting with a 4-3-3 formation in possession but that is rarely how the team ends up. PSG and Luis Enrique are massive disciples of the 3-2-5, so the 4-3-3 will convert very quickly into wide players pushing on, a centre forward going forwards, two midfielders joining in and a full back inverting to make a 3-2-5 shape.

They will commit wide men forwards and right out on the lines and try constantly to maintain their width. They are not afraid to be direct – they will switch play a lot and try to target those wingers in behind. We will probably – hopefully – see Miles Lewis-Skelly inverting far less than usual, if at all, as a result.

For Arsenal, the gaps to attack will be high and wide when PSG become more narrow at the back. Not a bad option where we have the various attacking skills of Saka and Martinelli backed up by Timber and Lewis-Skelly. Aston Villa showed that PSG can be got at, and they did lose 1-3 at home to Nice at the weekend. According to reports, they completely dominated the opposition, had an Xg of almost 4.0 but failed to score – something they have done several times this season. 

PSG have no injury worries and, thanks to their dominance at the top of Ligue 1, have been able to regularly rotate players to ensure they all stayed fit. Whoopee-doo for them.

Arsenal, on the other hand, have a major problem to solve due in large part to the stupid suspension picked up by Thomas Partey in the very last knockings of the game in Madrid. Declan Rice’s reaction was clear for all to see. That has been further complicated by a worry over Mikel Merino who was not available for the match against Crystal Palace last week. There is, however, a possibility that he, Ben White and Calafiori could be fit according to Mikel Arteta in the London Evening Standard. 

If fit, Mikel Merino will drop back into midfield alongside Declan Rice, presumably with Trossard playing as a false 9 after a couple of successful auditions in recent matches. The possibilities and permutations are both many and yet strangely almost non-existent with Jorginho also ruled out with his rib injury.

Rather than debate them at length here – we will all know more by the time this is published anyway – I will put down the team I would like to see and hope for the best:

Raya

Timber, Saliba, Kiwior, MLS

Ødegaard, Rice, Merino

Saka, Trossard, Martinelli

In other news
Slovenian official Slavko Vincic will referee, assisted by Tomaz Klancnik and Andraz Kovacic. Matej Jug will be the fourth official. Alen Borosak will be the VAR, assisted by Dennis Higler of the Netherlands, making him the only member of the team not from Slovenia. A hint of independence, perhaps?

Vincic is the referee who took control of our meeting with PSG earlier in the season – and our semi final second leg tie with Villarreal in 2021 so we are unbeaten when he has been on the whistle!

It’s hard to imagine how the football Gods could possibly have conjured up a more difficult, frustrating season for us this time around. The team has been torn apart by one long term injury after another, starting with Ødegaard, followed by White and Saka, punctuated by Havertz, Calafiori and Jesùs and, just when you thought “At least the defence is ok”, out went Gabriel for the last couple of months. In fairness, Kiwior has stepped up brilliantly to the point where Gabriel has hardly been missed.

We’re still there though – somehow, despite it all, second in the league and 180 minutes from our first Champions League final for 19 years. If you’re lucky enough to be going, sing, shout and roar the lads on for one more titanic effort to put the onion wearing, garlic munching, Perrier slurping surrender monkeys in their place! Sorry, Ollie!

Please, football Gods, you owe us one !

Those who follow such things might notice that I rarely do previews.

My strong preference is to analyse and report matches but we were short of a  previewer and I stepped in to cover Wednesday’s match between Arsenal and Crystal Palace. When I grew up in South London, Palace was the nearest professional club to my home and just before I married I could walk to the ground (and frequently did) in about twenty minutes. Many of my friends are Palace fans and a pretty thankless task it has been following them over the years. They do not have a glorious history! 

But they do have a (disputed) claim to fame. Some of their fans believe they are the oldest professional football club in the world. Crystal Palace, just to confuse you, was first erected in Hyde Park in 1851 for the first international trade fair to be held in Britain. The design and concept of the original edifice was rejected and a crafty entrepreneur bought the concept and moved the project close to Sydenham Hill in South East London. 

A group of workers formed a football team in 1861 but it was soon disbanded and the club that we recognise today was finally formed in 1905 which makes it exactly as old as Chelsea. 

Palace had very little success in the first fifty or so years of their existence but their ground at Selhurst Park was conveniently situated for the railway and like any London ground, car parking is at a premium. I’ve probably watched fifty or sixty games there since I started going. They were in the old Fourth Division when I first went there in 1960. The star player was a fine striker called Johnny Byrne who moved on to gain honours and England caps with West Ham. He was replaced by Cliff Holton, an ex- Arsenal striker, and he led them into the Second Division. They had a high turnover of managers but under Dick Graham they made progress and, led by a very unlikely character in Bert Head, they made their fans dreams come true by getting promotion to the old First Division in 1969-70. They managed to stay up for several seasons and though there was an element of boom and bust the club really started to look up in the 1980s when Terry Venables  became coach and they briefly threatened to win honours . They have now been in the Premier League continuously for more than ten years and their performances have been extremely consistent or to put it another way, rather boring. 

Palace have never won a major trophy, never been in Europe and our main link with them is Ian Wright whom we signed from them in 1991. I am fond of the club and desperately hope they win the Cup this season but their supporters are huge pessimists, having seen them fail so often at the last hurdle!

Their form this season has swung from alarming – they started the season very poorly – to impressive. They recently recorded a slew of fine away victories and in the FA Cup quarter final at Fulham they were extremely impressive. But since then they have lost 5-2 at C130y and were heavily beaten last week by Newcastle .

Their manager Oliver Glasner came from Eintracht Frankfurt where he won the Europa League. He is often an advocate of three at the back with Guehi marshalling the defence containing the impressive Frenchman, Lacroix. Munoz, the prolific Colombian and Mitchell make two very good wing-backs. The midfield is strong with Adam Wharton and Lerma providing holding quality but their star is Eberechi Eze who is a player many of us would like to see in red and white. Mateta is a fine striker and his deputy is one of our own Eddie Nketiah. Sarr, the other striker is quick and dangerous. 

The thing about Wednesday’s match is that both clubs have other much bigger priorities. Aside from our Champions League  tie with PSG six days after the Palace match, Palace, safe from relegation, are very preoccupied by a potentially winnable Cup semi-final with Villa at Wembley. This is a game that both teams want to exit from with no injuries. Three points would almost certainly qualify us for the Champions League next season but expect significant rotation on both sides.

I suspect this may be a decent guess at the Arsenal side 

Raya 

Timber White Kiwior Tierney 

Partey Zinchenko 

Martinelli Nwaneri Trossard

Merino 

I believe Palace at their best would create formidable problems but they have other fish to fry. We beat them 5-1 at Selhurst a few days after we knocked them out of the Carabao Cup. I’m predicting a 2-1 victory.  Let’s do the treble over them and hope that both sides can prepare happily for the bigger challenges just around the corner. 

And so, from the beau monde of the Bernabéu to prosaic Portman Road to face Ipswich Town in one of Easter Sunday’s three 2pm Premier League kick-offs. 

Arsenal will become the first Premiership side to play on three consecutive Easter Sundays — now there’s trivia for you! — but this will be our first visit to Portman Road since 2011. That was an upset 1-0 loss in the first leg of the League Cup semi-final, a portent for the final against Birmingham, as it happened. Our most recent league visit was in December 2001, a 2-0 win.

Today, the Tractor Boys are staring into the vortex of relegation. They go down if we win and results elsewhere go against them. Yet, when we first visited Portman Road, Ipswich was not only chasing down a fading Burnley at the top of the old Division One but also seeking to become the first club to win the First and Second Division titles in successive seasons. 

What newly promoted team in these money-drenched times could even dream of doing that?

Regardless, as Good Friday, April 20, 1962, dawned, Alf Ramsey’s unfancied team were within three games of achieving that unprecedented feat. For a short review of Ipswich’s three magisterial managerial eras — Ramsey’s, Robson’s, and McKenna’s — and more history of the Suffolk club, I refer you to my preview of this season’s home game between the two clubs.

Two of those three remaining games were to be against us; the snows at the turn of the year had wreaked havoc on the fixture list. A visit from Villa awaited on the final day of Ipswich’s season.

A record crowd of 30,649 packed into Portman Road that Friday, some clinging to the floodlight pylons. Hundreds more were unable to get into the ground. Ipswich salvaged an invaluable point from a hard-fought 2-2 draw.

We had gone one up in the 55th minute through John McLeod, a Scottish outside right whose footnote in Arsenal history is to have scored our first goal in a UEFA competition. Three minutes later, George Eastham made it two with a spectacular overhead bicycle kick. But then we conceded a penalty in the 64th minute when Terry Neill tripped Ray Crawford. The Ipswich equaliser came five minutes from the end — Jimmy Leadbetter ‘crashing into the Arsenal defence like a rugby forward’, in the words of the Daily Express’s Mike Langley.

The return at Highbury on Easter Monday attracted a crowd of 44,694 — good for the Arsenal players, who got a bonus for every thousand spectators above 30,000. They got little change out of Ipswich, however. The visitors went two up in the first 20 minutes against the run of play and then resisted everything Arsenal could throw at them after that.

Ten minutes from time, Ray Crawford scored a third to kill off the game. ‘Arsenal had the stars that didn’t sparkle’, wrote Peter Lorenzo in the Daily Herald. ‘Ipswich had the nobodies who worked non-stop for their deserved success.’ 

Five days later, the nobodies would be the champions of England.

The opposition

Ipswich’s US owners have stuck with their 38-year-old manager Kieran McKenna, who was appointed in December 2021 and then achieved back-to-back promotions to get the club back to the Premier League for this season. McKenna has stuck with his philosophy of playing attacking, positional football, trusting in his side’s technical and structural superiority to dominate opponents. 

That worked in League One and the Championship, perhaps against the odds. In the Premier League, it needs better players than McKenna has. Twenty-one points from 32 games and a 14-point gap from safety with six games left provide the evidence.

Since we narrowly beat them 1-0 at the Ems in December, Alex Palmer has arrived from West Brom to replace Arijanet Muric in goal. The Kosovan international is out for the season with a shoulder injury. 

McKenna ditched his customary 4-2-3-1 for a 5-4-1 in N5, but he may stick with his preferred system at home on Sunday. His team has been putting in better performances of late, if not getting the wins it desperately needs.

That would mean Axel Tuanzebe and Lief Davis as the full-backs flanking Daro O’Shea and Cameron Burgess, international centre-backs both, for Ireland and Australia, respectively. Local lad Luke Woolfenden will be the third centre-back if McKenna goes with a five, with Jacob Greaves, a star with Hull in the Championship last season not cutting it in the Premier League with Ipswich this term.

Club captain Sam Morsy and Jens Cajuste will provide the defensive screen protecting the back line. The ill-starred season of Kalvin Phillips continues. This time, it is a heel injury that is keeping him out.

Injury has also depleted McKenna’s squad of wide midfielders. Sammie Szmodics is out after ankle surgery, as is Omari Hutchinson, formerly of this parish, before bolting to the Bus Stop. He has a thigh injury. Jaden Philogene is also unavailable (a season-ending MCL picked up last weekend). Wes Burns is a long-term absentee, having torn his ACL. Chiedozie Ogbene has torn his Achilles.

Burns and Ogbene’s absences have taken the pace and physicality out of the midfield needed to compete in the Premier League.

That long list of absentees should mean starts for Julio Enciso, who is on loan from Brighton and will play as the 10; Jack Clarke, a £15 million summer buy from Sunderland; Nathan Broadhead, the Welsh international; and Sam Johnson, a former England U-21 right back now in his mid-twenties, who has been pushed into midfield service out of necessity and is earning good notices there. 

Striker Liam Delap is carrying an injured rib that restricted him to a cameo in last weekend’s 2-2 draw at Chelsea. George Hirst will continue to substitute for Delap if necessary. 

Delap is Ipswich’s top goal scorer with 12. The next best is Szmodics with four and Hutchinson with three. Hirst has two. You will not be surprised to learn that Ipswich has scored the third-fewest goals in the league, 33.

They have conceded 67. Only Leicester and Southampton have been leakier. Yet, their Achilles heel is an inability to hold leads. They have dropped more points from winning positions, 27, than any other team in the league this season.

The Arsenal

Team selection is tricky. There are two league games before the CL semi-final against PSG. From his pre-match press conference, Arteta is keen to get back to winning ways in the league, and he will want to put off Liverpool’s coronation for as long as possible. That suggests he will rotate less than might be anticipated. Regardless, some legs will get a rest, and some less-used ones will get more match minutes. 

However, Arteta also needs to start rehearsing his options for playing without both Partey, who will be suspended for the first leg against PSG, and the Ghanaian’s natural replacement, Jorginho, whose rib injury will rule him out. Arteta needs to do that without tipping his hand to Luis Enrique. 

On those flimsy premises, I am plumping for a midfield start for Zinchenko with MLS and Ødegaard replacing him and Partey in the second half, and all of Saka, Merino and Martinelli starting on the bench. 

Thus:

Raya

White, Saliba, Kiwior, Tierney

Partey, Zinchenko, Rice

Nwaneri, Trossard, Sterling

It will probably make for a disjointed game, as against Brentford. There is a risk of a hangover from Wednesday, with the additional jeopardy of Ipswich scrapping for their Premier League survival. Nonetheless, that XI should still be able to squeeze out a controlled 2-0 win against a team that has not won at home in the league this year.

Finally, because the monks are full-service, a tip for travelling Gooners: Consider taking a detour to visit The Newbourne Fox in Newbourne, east of Ipswich, which is on the newly announced shortlist for Britain’s Pub of the Year.

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.

AND NOW A BONUS REPORT …..

2. The Champions League Semis Begin! – Lyon Too Quick for the Gunners Backline by TTG

There was an interruption to the European feel good factor at Arsenal today as a very canny and extremely quick Lyon side beat Arsenal with two well – taken breakaway goals. Their mid-block was just too much for the Arsenal side.

I’ve produced copy in  many situations but today confined to bed with a  raging cold and chest infection I haven’t often felt rougher when reporting on a game.

Today we took on the ladies of Olympique Lyonnais in the home semi-final of the Champions League. Lyon, through their men’s team had a much worse week than we did, capitulating in extraordinary fashion to lose three goals in extra- time against those makeweights from Old Trafford. Lyon have won this competition eight times and are coached by Joe Montemurro who spent three and a half years coaching us pre-Covid and led us to our last WSL title. The tie attracted a crowd of upwards of 40,000 on a bright Easter Saturday morning. Women’s football has been fully embraced by Arsenal and there is something very special about the simultaneous success of our sides in Europe. The Arsenal team was the one expected, with Russo returning to the attack.

After five minutes we saw what could be a problem in that Zinsberger who is very much a reserve keeper to Van Domselaar weakly parried a drive out to Van De Donk  but our former player failed to touch home. Frida Maanum was following a shoot on sight policy and it yielded a couple of early corners. Both sides were playing an open game but on 17 minutes Arsenal got caught upfield and Diame was able to run through and finish emphatically into the far corner. It was initially ruled out for offside but VAR reversed that decision. 

Arsenal 0 Lyon 1 

Shortly thereafter Arsenal cleared a goalbound header off the line but then created a dangerous opportunity at the other end after a left wing break. Diame unfortunately had the Arsenal defence on toast and almost created another goal with a powerful and incisive run. 

Arsenal produced their first big chance for Maanum on 28 minutes after the ball was headed back by Russo at the far post and then the lively Carpenter forced an important block by Catley. Shortly thereafter Dumornay was desperately unlucky with a wonderful chip that hit the bar.

Arsenal weren’t as cohesive as they would have liked to be and Lyon were causing huge problems in behind with their pace. They were clearly the better  side. Nevertheless Arsenal forced a flurry of corners which sadly came to nothing. Lyon were very well organised and had a clear understanding of how to shut Arsenal down. 

Arsenal did threaten just on half time as Russo was denied by the crossbar with a fine header and then McCabe was seemingly brought down as the ball bounced loose but the referee was unimpressed.

The half ended with Lyon much the happier side but there was room for optimism. Having watched the quarter final, Arsenal came very strong in the second half and there were belated signs that they were getting a foothold in this match.

Half-time Arsenal 0 Lyon 1 

Arsenal began the second half with more energy. Russo was foiled at close range and then had a shot blocked on the line. Beth Mead headed over when very well placed and Blackstenius played the most anaemic return to a poor clearance and it trickled into the penalty area. After Maanum missed an easy header at the far post she was flagged offside. Maanum was replaced by Blackstenius and Mead replaced by Chloe Kelly .

It was hard to escape the thought that Kim Little is a little long in the tooth to be the main playmaker despite yeoman service over the years. In one period of play she was dispossessed three times just outside her own area.

On 75 minutes Arsenal were awarded a penalty after a VAR review when Leah Williamson was punched by the flying fist of the Lyon keeper. Caldentey calmly placed the ball into the corner .

Arsenal 1 Lyon 1 

There was a definite spring in Arsenal’s step now and Lyon were shaken. But DeMornay ran through the centre of the Arsenal defence to restore Lyon’s lead four minutes later.

Arsenal 1 Lyon 2 

The pace of the Lyon side was a major problem and does not augur  well for the return leg.

I was surprised that Kim Little was awarded Player of the Match – I haven’t seen her stats but my football instincts tell me this was a sentimental rather than a dispassionate decision. 

I watch the ladies team quite regularly although mainly against other WSL sides. Here Lyon overmatched them with the three players up front always ready to break hard on them and create problems with their pace and directness. The history of Arsenal is studded with great recoveries but our team have their work cut out next week.