{"id":10222,"date":"2024-10-21T15:03:10","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T14:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10222"},"modified":"2024-10-23T09:36:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T08:36:31","slug":"a-spot-of-euro-footy-for-what-ails-ye","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10222","title":{"rendered":"A Spot of Euro Footy for What Ails Ye?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Just to assure everyone that not all is lost after our string of recent domestic disappointments featuring the unwelcome interventions of PGMOL officials, I will begin this Shakhtar Donetsk preview by pointing out that no PGMOL officials will be involved in this contest.  That\u2019s right, UEFA will assure it by appointing UEFA-sanctioned officials who have no particular known or identifiable agenda against Arsenal.  Thank you very much indeed for this welcome relief!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UCL\u2019s revamped \u201cleague phase\u201d resumes this Tuesday evening when Arsenal will host the defending champions of Ukraine, Shakhtar Donetsk. The Arsenal-Shakhtar rivalry has a bit more history to it than you might remember, not to denigrate the memory of any fine \u2018holic who\u2019s reading this of course, but my research brought up a few tidbits I had long forgotten.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have played the Ukrainians four times in this competition, including twice in 2010\/11 group play when each club won at home.  Shakhtar won 2-1 in November with the winner scored by ex-Arsenal favorite Eduardo, after Arsenal won by 5-1 at home one month prior on goals by Song, Nasri, F\u00e0bregas, Wilshere and Chamakh to overcome the obligatory Eduardo score for the visitors.  Arsenal previously faced Shakhtar on two other occasions in the 2000\/01 competition, when Arsenal overcame two early Shakhtar goals in September at Highbury to win by 3-2, with one goal scored by Wiltord and two late ones by Keown (of all people), before Shakhtar defeated a Lee Dixon captained Arsenal side away by 3-0 in December.  The picture above features Arsenal’s Rosicky and Shakhtar’s Mkhitaryan, who made his Ukrainian league debut in September 2010 when he was substituted for the very same Eduardo, one month before the last occasion when the Ukrainian side faced Arsenal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oleksandr Zinchenko was captain of the Shakhtar youth team before he moved to Russia with his parents in 2014 due to the war in Donbas.  Until 2014 Shakhtar\u2019s home was the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, but due to the Russian invasion the club was forced to move their domestic home games to Lviv from 2014\u201316, to Kharkiv from 2017\u201320, and to Kyiv from mid-2020 before moving back to Lviv for the last two seasons as the war continued to rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shakhtar<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I haven\u2019t researched Shakhtar\u2019s current players but suffice it to say that their squad is still highly competitive at this level despite all the hardships the club has been through during the last decade. In their two UCL contests this season Shakhtar drew 0-0 at Bologna before defeating Atalanta in their \u201chome\u201d match (played at the home stadium of Schalke 04 in Gelsenkirchen, Germany) by 3-0, so Shakhtar and Arsenal are level on four points apiece in the table, but Arsenal trail their opponents on goal difference. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this season\u2019s Ukraine league table Shakhtar sit fourth after their away win last Friday at Kolos, six points behind leaders Dynamo Kyiv after nine matches played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As to the mentality of the Shakhtar team coming into this match I recommend this BBC article by Alex Bysouth that was published today: War, exile, hope – how Shakhtar continue to overcome adversity<\/a>, and in particular this description of the trek that the club will have made to London for this game: \u201cChampions League football at least gives Shakhtar a chance to play away from the threat of war, but travelling abroad brings its own challenges.  When they face Arsenal at Emirates Stadium on Tuesday it will be on the back of a long-haul journey.  On Friday, Shakhtar travelled from their base in Kyiv to Lviv by coach, stopped over for a day to train and then on Sunday went across the border to the city of Rzeszow in Poland, from where they flew to London.\u201d  As Shakhtar\u2019s chief executive Sergei Palkin commented, “When you arrive you are already less competitive than your opponent because of physical conditions, mental conditions.  To spend two days in a bus, in a plane, is very difficult.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal XI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gunners come into Tuesday\u2019s match having drawn 0-0 away at Atalanta on 19 September, and defeated PSG 2-0 at home on 1 October in their first two Champions League matches this season. With their European pedigrees our new recruits Merino and Calafiori could be decently equipped for this kind of match so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see Arteta putting them right into the fray, but Ukraine\u2019s own Zinchenko could also be an interesting choice at left back for the Gunners.  Unfortunately, news reports indicate that Bukayo Saka remains a serious injury doubt so I wouldn\u2019t expect to see him risked for this one.  Instead of Raheem Sterling, Gabriel Jesus could come in on the right wing, leaving us with a team that looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White  Saliba  Gabriel  Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice  Partey  Merino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jesus  Havertz  Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saliba’s dismissal at Bournemouth was Arsenal’s third Premier League red card of the domestic campaign, after Trossard and Rice were previously sent off for delaying match restarts.  But Saliba\u2019s ban does not apply for this European match, so he should retain his starting spot. Let\u2019s hope some Euro footy is just the tonic that Saliba and the Gunners need to refocus their mentality going forward.  Barring any unexpected interventions from UEFA officials, I would expect Arsenal to bounce back from their defeat at Bournemouth, and to emerge with a comfortable win in this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the match, \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just to assure everyone that not all is lost after our string of recent domestic disappointments featuring the unwelcome interventions of PGMOL officials, I will begin this Shakhtar Donetsk preview by pointing out that no PGMOL officials will be involved in this contest.  That\u2019s right, UEFA will assure it by appointing UEFA-sanctioned officials who have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222"}],"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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10222"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10225,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10222\/revisions\/10225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}