Goonerholics Forever

Arsenal managed to keep their relatively slim title dream alive with a one sided 3-1 victory over a pitiful Chelsea side on a mild Tuesday evening at the Emirates. After a poor run of three draws and a defeat, Mikel Arteta’s side knew that it was three points or bust in terms of the title and three points is what they got. The West Londoners came into the game in even worse form, languishing in 12^th place off the back of five defeats in all competitions since Frank Lampard returned to the club on an interim basis. Following last week’s brutal demolition at the hands of title rivals, Manchester City, Arteta tinkered with his side for the visit of Chelsea. A first premier league start was handed to Polish international, Jakub Kiwior in place of the much-maligned Rob Holding. Jorginho started against his former side and our other January signing, Leandro Trossard, came in for Gabriel Martinelli. 

Arsenal began brightly and nearly took the lead after five minutes. A long ball from Jorginho was flicked on by Jesús, wreaking havoc in the Chelsea box. Azpilicueta’s weak headed back pass was latched onto by Granit Xhaka who prodded the ball straight at Kepa. But on 18 minutes we were ahead. Zinchenko found Jesús who turned and found Xhaka on the left-hand side. The Swiss pinged a lovely switch to Martin Ødegaard who was steaming into the box, and our Norwegian skipper thundered it in off the bar. 1-0. A deserved lead.

We continued to pin back the Blues. However, Ramsdale had to be alert when Ben Chilwell found himself in on goal following a cross field pass from Ngolo Kante, but Ramsdale palmed away well from his international colleague. Within moments we had significant breathing space, and the second goal came from the exact same source as the first. Once again, we found Xhaka on the flanks following more neat build up play on the left and he played an almost identical pass into Ødegaard who once again converted the opportunity. He bounced the ball into the ground and Kepa was floundering as the ball settled into his bottom left corner. That’s now fourteen Premier League goals for our Capitano, who has gone up several levels this campaign. As have so many of his teammates, but Ødegaard’s improvement has been particularly impressive. He now has double the number of goals that he managed last campaign and there are still four more games to add to his tally. His finishing has been world class at times. 

And it was about to get even better for the home side. Benjamin White played in a diagonal cross with his wrong foot, Gabriel Jesus was able to chest it down and find Xhaka, who scrambled a shot which bounced back to the Brazilian who gleefully smashed home through the legs of Kepa for 3-0. Yet more awful defending from Chelsea but Arsenal didn’t care. They were absolutely cruising, and more goals looked imminent. 

Arsenal began the second half in the same vein as the first and had several chances to add to their lead. Gabriel thought he had added a fourth following a corner, but his header was scrambled off the line by his international compatriot, Thiago Silva. Xhaka was next to go close as his effort was turned around the post by Kepa following a fast break. Kepa saved well again from Saka following a low drive. Somehow it was still only 3. The Chelsea goalkeeper was single-handedly keeping the scoreline respectable. And somehow it was Chelsea who found the next goal. Kovacic’s through ball found its way to Noni Madueke. Meanwhile Zinchenko had gone to sleep at the back post as the England youth international poked in a consolation for the visitors. Another home game goes by without a clean sheet. 

Worryingly, Gabriel was forced off with what appeared to be a groin strain. Hardly what we need ahead of a crucial trip to St James’ Park on Sunday, although Gabriel went straight to the bench as opposed to down the tunnel so hopefully that points to a precautionary measure rather than anything more serious. The Brazilian has been Mr Dependable this season, and I don’t think many of us would fancy our chances up in the Northeast without him. 

Other than that, the game concluded without much incident. The lack of goals in the second half was disappointing but ultimately this was a night where the result took priority above all else. We now sit on 78 points, 2 points above Citeh who have 2 games in hand. But they will have to win them first. We now have just 4 games left and we will have to win them all. We are relying on others to do us favours but at the very least we need to consolidate second place which we can effectively achieve with a win at Newcastle. Will we be crowned champions in 25 days’ time? Right now it looks unlikely but stranger things have happened…..

That wasn’t much fun, was it?  Arsenal continued their teetering end-of-season form with their fourth consecutive game without a win, as they were thoroughly beaten 4-1 at the Emptihad by the-expensively-assembled-€itzens-of-(allegedly)-Off-Balance-Sheet-FC, as our Texas correspondent rightfully calls them.  But regardless of the outcome, a wider perspective is necessary, and shows how far Arsenal have progressed this season, and how much promise this team holds with young stars in nearly every position including Martinelli, Saka and (hopefully) Saliba who would walk in to starting berths for just about every other team in the league.  So it was not a good day at the office to be sure, but a wonderful year at the office without any question.

The €itzens came into this game after defeating Sheffield United in an FA Cup semi-final on Saturday, while Arsenal were humbled by bottom side Southampton in their 3-3 league draw on Friday.  After Citeh’s home win against Leicester in their last league game, manager Guardiola said his team would have to play “a final” against Arsenal.  To be fair, play a final is exactly what Citeh did as Arsenal struggled to stay in the match from beginning to end.  Midfield master DeBruyne scored two sumptuous goals while cyborg striker Haaland continued his scoring exploits with his coup-de-grace strike in injury time extending his tally to 48 goals in 40 matches.  Haaland also contributed an assist on the first of DeBruyne’s goals after muscling a ball away from Holding in midfield and creating enough space to spot the Belgian streaking downfield.

Not only were the Gunners outclassed on the evening, this was Arsenal’s third loss to Citeh this season.  In the reverse fixture, the Gunners fell behind 0-1 on De Bruyne’s 24th minute goal before a Saka penalty equalized matters before halftime but late Citeh goals by Grealish and Haaland clinched the points for the Blue Mancs in a match played two weeks after Citeh defeated the Gunners by 1-0 in the 4th Round of the FA Cup.

I got to the pub at about ten minutes to kickoff, or 5 minutes before the proprietors switched their screens away from Chelsea-Brentford (final: 0-2 amusingly leaving the Chavs 10 points off the relegation places) and I procured my first pint.  Sitting next to a guy in an Ødegaard shirt, all I could do was to hope for the best.  I thought it was a good omen when the crowd seemed to break out in a round of “Tottenham get battered everywhere they go” but a few minutes later realized that the room was dominated by Citeh fans so I probably mistook the Tottenham part of that chant for something else.  Fewer friendly faces to share the misery of what was to come.

Arsenal XI

Ramsdale

White — Holding — Gabriel — Zinchenko

Ødegaard — Partey — Xhaka

Saka — Jesus — Martinelli

Haaland easily could have scored two goals in the first half, and came much closer than Thomas when the two of them had chances from distance one after the other.  Both players sent their shots the wrong side of the post and could have done better as you might expect Haaland, possibly the most expensive player in the world, should do, but unfortunately Thomas did not come close to replicating his lovely goal against Spurs from an identical position on Arsenal’s only chance of the half.  DeBruyne’s goal, an unstoppable blast from distance, was the kind of stuff you might expect from another of the most expensive players in the world, and it came from a great pass by Haaland who had impeccably controlled the keeper’s goal kick.  Stones’ header for their second goal came from a corner just before halftime and drove a stake through every Gooner’s heart when VAR showed an Arsenal foot playing Stones onside.

Xhaka had, I believe, Arsenal’s first shot on goal early in the second half, and for a long time it looked like it might be the Gunners only one of the entire game.  Haaland should have scored Citeh’s third on the 50 minute mark when he was alarmingly left alone to run at Ramsdale from the keeper’s long ball, but Ramsdale made his third or fourth big save of the game before DeBruyne, nutmegging Holding, did score Citeh’s third a couple of minutes later after Ødegaard’s bad backward ball in midfield.

On 60 minutes Arteta sent on Trossard and Jorginho for Xhaka and Martinelli, and on 71 minutes the lesser spotted Smith Rowe came on for our Norwegian captain, before Nelson and Nketiah replaced Saka and Jesus with 10 minutes remaining, but those changes had little impact on the flow of the latter stages.  When Nelson came on for Saka he looked like a breath of fresh air, as he often has this season when called upon, and he made a great midfield run feeding fellow substitute Nketiah on the left but the latter’s effort went past the far post.  Nelson then won a corner and Trossard bungled it but the lads stroked it around a couple of times before the Belgian fed Holding who knocked it home making it 3-1.  Cue the Citeh fans in the bar singing “It should have been ten” and to be honest it felt like they weren’t far wrong.

Haaland unfurled his abundant hair in the 94th minute, seconds before scoring Citeh’s fourth on the stroke of Michael Oliver’s final whistle.  The truth is, Citeh pummeled Arsenal from start to finish, but on a variation of what the Citeh fans sang in the bar, if you spend that much money it probably “ought to be ten” on a weekly basis so there’s no shame in it for the valiant young Gunners.  I left the bar thinking about what the last four weeks might have been like if Saliba had not been injured, but right now the end of this season feels remarkably similar to the end of the last one, unfortunately.  Thank Dennis the first 30-odd games went so well.

Well, that was quite a game. Not quite what we wanted for an outcome, certainly not quite what we needed. Considering what was at stake it was quite a comedown, but considering how close we came to both losing and winning my blood pressure still hasn’t quite recovered.

Arsenal hosted Southampton’s Saints in a Friday evening fixture at the Grove, with the 8 pm kickoff meaning a lunchtime watch for your humble scribe from California. All Arsenal fans know what we had to do, to quote Peter Drury (himself aping Mikel Arteta), a win was “non-negotiable”. Top vs. bottom, an Arsenal in need of the three points to make two straight draws, both from leading 2-0, into something palatable ahead of that red-circled date with the-expensively-assembled-€itzens-of-(allegedly)-Off-Balance-Sheet-FC (™Lonestar Gooner) next week. The Saints arrived in North London looking up at the entire league, knowing a defeat here would keep them rooted to the foot of the table with yet fewer games to get themselves off of that dank canvas and back into the ring.

So I was hardly settled into my luncheon in front of the television when we were down a goal. After about 20 seconds Gabriel passed the ball back to Ramsdale, who had options left, and right, with Zinchenko offering himself between Walcott and Alcaraz at the top of the box. And our Aaron, who has done so well this season, made the wrong choice: he passed to Zinchenko. Alcaraz anticipated the move, intercepted the ball, and laced it in to the far corner, Ramsdale barely getting a touch that put it onto the post, but in.

Arsenal 0-1 Southampton (Alcaraz, 1′)

And the crowd, rowdy and boisterous (dare I say exuberant) at the start of the game, sat in stunned silence. No doubt they were asking themselves if they’d seen what just happened, and if they believed what they’d seen. I certainly was.

We began to play our game after that, though often careless passes put us under the cosh of their excellent press. A strong run by Gabi led to him running out of room at the byline; Mø put the ball into the side of the net on recycle from a corner. At that point, in the 6th minute, the Saints’ goalkeeper Bazunu began wasting time; I will note now it took until the 61st minute for referee Simon Hooper to warn Bazunu about this, and he largely continued to waste time at every opportunity until the end of the game without the sanction of a yellow card. Great job, Simon.

We spent the next eight minutes or so being successful again and again down the left, with Gabi’s cutbacks amounting to nothing, but building pressure. Suddenly, *poof*, it was gone. After a goal kick we won the ball in midfield, but Saints pressure forced Mø to fire a pass towards Vieira which was intercepted in the center circle. Our defenders had dropped deep, so there was both time and space for a pass to Alcaraz in the middle of our defensive third, with Theo outside right of Gabriel. Theo put on the afterburners to meet a sumptuous throughball from Alcaraz inside of Gabriel, Theo sidefooting the ball past Ramsdale into the far corner.

Arsenal 0-2 Southampton (Walcott, 14′)

All that could be heard was the Saints’ anthem about them marching in. I heard someone scratching their head about what they were witnessing. I don’t even think Cynic’s favorite drummer could muster a beat.

This lasted for two minutes. The fans gathered their breath, and their wits, and began singing and cheering Arsenal along in a rising tide of energy. Then Holding put a great ball to Saka down the right, and he crossed to Zinchenko at the left of the box. His fizzed cross was a bit hot to be met by Gabi, who’d kept running, and Saka, who had not. Foreshadowing?

Our next foray forward took a number of passes around the defense, who could not find a ball into the midfield until Partey played himself a nice backheel and passed to Zinchenko in the circle, who moved it forward to Mø between their lines. Saka carried Mø’s ball to the byline, beating Perraud, and cut the ball back to the middle of the box for an advancing Gabi to volley home.

Arsenal 1-2 Southampton (Gabigol, 20′)

Suddenly, the crowd was going nuts.

Even so, the next real action was from Southampton. Lavia (who had a great game, perhaps we should be looking at him once Southampton are in the Championship) wriggled away from Mø with some nice dribbling skills, passing the ball out left for Perraud to cross to the far post. Elyounoussi headed the ball directly at Ramsdale’s feet; Aaron blocked the shot, which rebounded to Alcaraz who worked hard to hit a high volley hard at our goal from about four meters. Aaron instinctively thrust his hand up and tipped the ball over the crossbar, certainly saving us from the Saints’ goal number three.

The rest of the first stanza played out largely in the Saints’ defensive half, with the Saints earning three yellows (Alcaraz, Perraud, and Walker-Peters) and having to substitute Bednarek after he was upended by Gabi and fell hard on his back, neck, and head. The Pole was decidedly unhappy about being subbed, trying in vain to get back on the pitch before Caleta-Car replaced him. Arsenal had a largely toothless 66% possession for the entirety of the half, though we very nearly scored during the 7 minutes of stoppage time when Saka’s corner was headed at the near post by White, only to be cleared off the line by Alcaraz. In the last action of the half Saka put in yet another beauty of a cross to Gabi, who volleyed it to Jesus. His header was blocked, and after a scramble White’s shot was blocked as well.

Halftime: Arsenal 1-2 Southampton

Sellés took off Alcaraz at the half. I don’t know why he did that, especially not why he replaced him with a defender in Lyanco. But he did, and I think, in the end, that was a good thing for Arsenal. Alcaraz had a goal, an assist, and saved a goal off the line…

The first 15 minutes of the second half was all Arsenal. We advanced again and again, our crosses from either wing leading only to half-shots, blocks, or clearances. For example, Saka again curled in a cross to die for, only for the defender to get the slightest of touches, taking it away from Vieira just enough it glanced out of play for a goalkick. In the 52nd minute there was a bit of a penalty shout; Elyounoussi had hold of Mø’s arm, preventing him from going after a ball in the box. Neither the ref nor VAR thought it was much of a challenge.

On 57′ Trossard came in for Vieira, and we continued to press for our second goal. As we tried to clear from a rare Saints attack Partey was caught out at the edge of our box, leading to a Southampton corner. Ward-Prowse knocked a sharp inswinger that Bella-Kotchap nodded on from the front post to Carleta-Car, who had a simple tap-in header amongst the Arsenal ball-watchers at the back post. Cue pandemonium in the visitors’ section.

Arsenal 1-3 Southampton (Carleta-Car, 66′)

And that seemed to be it for us on the night. Maybe for our title challenge. It was enough for many to start thinking about, then heading for, the exits over the remaining 25 minutes. That said, it took about four minutes for those who remained to get behind our boys again, when Gabi floated in yet another perfect cross, only for Jesus to volley over. It was a difficult shot, but one would have hoped he could have tested the keeper.

In the following minutes Eddie came in for Zinchenko, Theo (in probably his last visit to the Grove, thank you for all of it, Theo, well, except for that goal tonight!) and Armstrong came off for Sulemana and Onuachu. The latter is 6’7″ tall, and strong. At one point he carried the ball down most of the length of our half of the pitch before Gabriel could tackle it out into touch. We tried again and again to get our second goal, and like in the first half had shots blocked, nicked off our toes, and saved. I have to say something here about Gabi and Saka. I’ve not seen them play better all season, they were so switched on, so willing to put themselves on the line, and played balls of such high quality into their teammates. It was a close run thing between the two for my MOTM, but I’ve got to shade to Saka. You’ll read why in a minute (more foreshadowing).

Nelson came in for Gabigol in the 85th, just before Lavia (remember him!) came off for Diallo. The clock ticked towards 90 minutes and a famous Saints victory. First, however, Ramsdale hit a goalkick out to White, who dinked a lovely ball over the top for Saka, cutting in from the right. Saka’s cutback was cleared by Caleta-Car back to White, who played a 1-2-1 with Mø at the top right corner of the box. Mø took the return pass, got it out from his feet, and curled an absolute peach of a ball into the far corner. You could see what that goal meant to our Captain, his energy and emotion ran high and he was absolutely leading by example.

Arsenal 2-3 Southampton (Ødegaard, 88′)

After the restart Mø got the ball in the middle of their half and drove hard towards goal, passing the ball to Eddie; it came off him to Jesus, whose shot was blocked. We remained in control of the play, and a Gabriel throw-in ended up with Trossard on the left wing. He played a perfect nutmeg of a pass through Ward-Prowse to Jesus in the box, who knocked it still to an onrushing Nelson. Reiss’s shot was saved by Bazunu but only out to Saka just off the penalty spot. He made no mistake, his shot a nutmeg of Bella-Kotchap past the sprawling keeper into the back of the net. Cue pandemonium in the stadium.

Arsenal 3-3 Southampton (Saka, 90′)

2 minutes and 19 seconds separated our last two goals. Due to the timewasting and various “injuries” to Saints players in the second half a minimum 8 minutes of stoppage time was given. There was only one team that was going to score, and it wasn’t the team from the South coast. THOF was ROCKING.

In stoppage time Trossard made a glorious run to about 20 yards from goal and hit a shot off the crossbar that, had it been six inches lower, would have won us the game. These are the inches Mikel has been talking about lately. As the clock wound down we worked the ball up the right between Saka, Jesus, Mø, and White; Saka brought it inside, holding off his defender with wonderful strength, and passed it to Trossard. Our Belgian chipped it into the box for Saka to nod to Jesus, who went down under little pressure. The ball pinged around the top of the box until it fell to Bournemouth hero Nelson: could lightning strike twice? Unfortunately not, Ward-Prowse knocked his snap shot just wide of Bazunu’s post; again, just inches. Partey blazed an unlikely shot over, and in the last play of the game Trossard floated yet another beautiful cross to White, who gathered it in the box and sent it to Jesus whose shot was blocked but who also looked fouled…but no penalty was the decision. And that was it.

Full time: Arsenal 3-3 Southampton

We came tantalizingly close to pulling yet another rabbit out of this season’s hat. One could argue that we should be good enough not to have to rely on miracle endings against the team bottom of the league, but this year has really given life to the old cliché about “any given day.” Southampton were certainly worth their lead against the run of play; in the first half especially their pressing was excellent and they made our passing look woefully like Tottenham’s. We were better in the second half, but their third goal was yet another defensive lapse in a season that is seeing too many of them for my liking. Would that William is back for the game next week in Manchester!

And so it goes. We are still 4 points clear at the top of the league, even with the-expensively-assembled-€itzens-of-(allegedly)-Off-Balance-Sheet-FC (™Lonestar Gooner) having two games in hand. As Southampton showed, they could have beaten us. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that we could beat City, or at least come away with a fourth straight draw. The latter won’t benefit us in the sense that winning the title wouldn’t be in our own hands anymore, but I’ll take that psychological boost against a loss any day.

Oh, and Happy St. Totteringham’s Day!