{"id":10073,"date":"2024-09-20T10:57:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T09:57:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10073"},"modified":"2024-09-21T16:53:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T15:53:03","slug":"atalantas-athletes-held-at-bay-by-arsenals-marathon-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10073","title":{"rendered":"Atalanta\u2019s Athletes Held at Bay by Arsenal\u2019s Marathon Men"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And so to Bergamo, home of Atalanta, where 1300 lucky Arsenal fans took their place at the newly revamped stadium. A quick glance at my Everyman\u2019s Classical Dictionary tells me that Atalanta, for whom the club was named, as per Ned\u2019s peerless match preview, was exposed at birth and suckled by a she-bear. Further it states, \u201cwhen her father wished her to marry, she required that every suitor should contend with her in a foot race; she would wed the first man who outstripped her, but unsuccessful competitors would be put to death.\u201d  The Atalanta players certainly did her name proud last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The atmosphere, albeit filtered through TNT Sports inane set of pundits and commentators \u2013 Ferdinand? Savage? Really? – was fantastic especially given that the ground only holds around 25,000. Pre-match there seemed to be a lot of very positive and borderline dismissive talk in the Goonersphere about the relative ease with which we would despatch the opponents. I didn\u2019t really understand why that should be, given that these were the Europa Cup holders, easily beating a Leverkusen side which hadn\u2019t lost a game all season in the final. And so it proved to be. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atalanta under manager Gasperini play a Bielsa-like game, man marking all over the pitch. While we started well, being clearly the better side in the first 15-20 minutes, slowly the attritional relentlessness of the pressing of Atalanta began to wear down the sharp point of our attacking. After 3 mins a smart Arsenal attack resulted in a shot from Saka deflected wide of the goal. 9 minutes later, Saka made the keeper work hard to save a free kick, struck low and hard down towards the keeper\u2019s far post. Somehow the otherwise excellent officials failed to award a corner with the last touch clearly coming off the keeper. 5 minutes later we had arguably our best chance of the half when Martinelli was put in by a smart touch from Jesus, only to balloon his shot over the bar. In fairness, Martinelli did need to adjust his feet very quickly and was as a result somewhat off-balance when he struck it, but a year or so ago that would have been in the net. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the last 20 mins of the half, the home side started to get on top and in the 30th<\/sup> minute had their only real chance of the half when a smart lay off from Retegui allowed de Ketelaere an opportunity to shoot from 16 yards. Fortunately, he ballooned the ball well high and wide..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notable points from the first half were that Martinelli was all action but just can\u2019t buy a goal. He put in a hell of a defensive shift, ensuring that Timber was never left exposed at left back and contributed some very good build up play. The rest will come. Partey looked sluggish and his control and passing were poor. Perhaps playing a tough full 90 minutes on Sunday followed by almost 60 last night were too much. I can see him being needed alongside Rice and Jorginho on Sunday so I hope he can recover quickly. For them, Ederson seemed to be trying to channel his inner Son, so much time did he spend falling over and trying get Arsenal players booked. Credit to the referee for ignoring his antics. Are you watching, PGMOL? Unlikely as they already know it all! Retegui struck me as the kind of striker who runs around a lot but doesn\u2019t really do it. 21CG and I watched him do exactly the same for Italy vs France during the last Interlull.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half Time  Atalanta 0 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sooner had the second half started than Partey gave away a penalty. He fouled the vertiginously challenged Ederson outside the box and was then rather unfortunate to make unintentional contact in the box. Maybe if Jorginho hadn\u2019t put in the top distance covered on Sunday and wasn\u2019t likely be a starter on Sunday, he would have been hooked at half-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After an interminable PGMOL style \u201cit\u2019s all about us\u201d VAR review, Retegui stepped up to take it. Raya had used the time well and managed to speak to the coaching staff, presumably to get some insight into Retegui\u2019s penalty preferences. Whatever, it worked. A cat-like dive down low to his right saved the penalty. However, the resulting rebound from a well struck penalty bounced up to Retegui again. He didn\u2019t get the greatest direction on the header but all credit to Raya for reacting with the agility of a hummingbird to get up and dive low past the middle of the goal to scoop the ball away on the line. A brilliant double save, but Retegui should have scored. Told you about him\u2026.. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game was played out with little more action, apart from a couple of typically showy but wayward efforts from Atalanta substitute Cuadrado. Once again, after Sunday, the defence was imperious and stifled the all-action style of the home side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Score Atalanta 0 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looked to me at times as if we may have been trying to conserve some energy for Sunday away at C115y, following 2 tough away trips in a week. City were kept quiet at home this week by an admittedly very good Inter side, and we will need all our energy and concentration to do the same. I thought Timber looked good, as did Calafiori when he came on for the last 18 minutes. An awful lot to like, given the injury situation. Winning teams grind out results in tough places and the last week showed that we have the requisite grit and determination in spades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to Bergamo, home of Atalanta, where 1300 lucky Arsenal fans took their place at the newly revamped stadium. A quick glance at my Everyman\u2019s Classical Dictionary tells me that Atalanta, for whom the club was named, as per Ned\u2019s peerless match preview, was exposed at birth and suckled by a she-bear. Further it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10073"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10092,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10073\/revisions\/10092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}