{"id":10489,"date":"2024-12-14T22:21:48","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T22:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10489"},"modified":"2024-12-17T14:13:52","modified_gmt":"2024-12-17T14:13:52","slug":"we-huffed-and-we-puffed-but-we-blew-nothing-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10489","title":{"rendered":"We Huffed and We Puffed, But We Blew Nothing Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Pre-match optimism was boosted by the news that Gabriel was fit enough to start and that MLS had been rewarded for his superb performance against Monaco with another start. Thus, arguably barring Calafiori who remains crocked, Mikel Arteta was able to select his strongest starting XI with the midfield that he implied yesterday he has wanted to start all season:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Timber Saliba Gabriel Lewis-Skelly<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard Rice Merino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

In the first minutes of the game Everton had their first and practically their last attempt on goal which was aborted by a superb block by Gabriel as Doucoure was about to shoot. The rest of the half followed a familiar pattern. Ten Arsenal players were persistently camped in the Everton half with Saliba playing ‘sweeper’ in the centre circle and he elegantly hoovered up all Everton’s occasional punts towards Calvert-Lewin. Meanwhile MLS played across the midfield, confidently receiving and redistributing the ball under pressure, playing a couple of lovely balls in behind for Martinelli, even popping up in the ‘inside right’ position occasionally and memorably producing the worst foul throw I’ve seen in a very long time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our attacking efforts largely consisted of balls wide to Saka and \u00d8degaard on the right or to Martinelli and Merino on the left. Most efforts came to nought through failing to beat the double team facing them, misdirecting the cross into the hands of Pickford or onto the heads or feet of Everton’s massed ranks or being forced to recycle the ball. The familiar arc d’ennui<\/em> was the predominant feature of the half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However there were some brief moments of hope with \u00d8degaard to the fore. First, he fired a cross from Merino over the bar, later skipping across the front of the defence, he found a gap and fired a shot past Pickford’s left post, then, after Saka had danced past two defenders on the right and cut the ball back beautifully to the penalty spot, he shot at goal only for Pickford to pull off a fine save. As the half drew to a close a nice ball from Havertz found Martinelli darting behind the defensive line but his shot from a tight angle was blocked by Pickford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half Time: Arsenal 0 Everton 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal started the second half as if they really meant business. A cross from \u00d8degaard was nodded down by Merino (probably via his or a defender’s shoulder) to Saka at the edge of the six-yard box whose firm low shot was unfortunately deflected wide by Pickford. From the resulting corner, Saliba, unmarked, met the cross with a powerful header that sadly went straight to Pickford.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We continued to camp in Everton’s half, their attempts to get out remained derisory and I don’t think Raya had a save to make all game. His most strenuous effort was to prevent a deflected long distance shot going out for a corner so that he could launch another attack as the clock ran down while Everton made a late attempt to get something more from the game with a surge forward in its dying embers. No doubt, this late surge was Dyche’s fiendish strategy against a team that had played a challenging game three days earlier whilst his muppets were relaxing on their couches for a week. Everton came for a point, showed no greater ambition until the end, spent much of the game time wasting from the very beginning and demonstrated that execrable combination of muscular over strenuous challenges and acute vestibular instability whenever they were themselves challenged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our contribution to the second half was more of what we had seen in the first. There was some nice interplay at the edge of the box that almost set Havertz free in front of goal but the ball seemed to stick under his feet and was cleared. There were multiple mishit crosses that flew over heads and a few blocked shots but the Everton defence stood firm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 60 minutes, Jorginho replaced Rice and Nwaneri surprisingly replaced \u00d8degaard. In his post match presser Arteta said that Rice had felt something and the latter was to change the rhythm of the game. Apart from an exciting crossfield run by Nwaneri, neither substitute improved our end product. Shortly thereafter Jes\u00f9s replaced Merino with Havertz drifting into his position, Partey replaced Lewis-Skelly, moving to right back with Timber switching to the left and Trossard replaced Martinelli. None of these changes added significantly to proceedings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a few more ‘stramashes’ (copyright of the legendary Arthur Montford, sometime Rector of Glasgow University, no less) in the Everton box but it increasingly looked as if we could have played another three hours and still not got the ball into the Everton net. We tried very hard but Everton stood firm and we must, between gritted teeth, give credit to their defensive coach for their organisation and their 11 men behind the ball for delivering their point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The massive positive from this game was that we did not, as often in the past, get suckered by a break away goal. Saliba in particular, as Gabriel was often in the ‘inside left’ position contributing to the attack, was masterful at hoovering up Everton’s long balls, regularly beating a runner with a feint and turning to initiate another attack. The other positives were another good performance by MLS (bar that throw!) and our determination to keep attacking right to the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The negatives were clearly our failure to score, a generally ponderous build-up with pedestrian rather than swift movement of the ball and the tendency of both wingers, but especially Martinelli, to slow down on receipt of the ball so as to engage in a set piece dribble with a facing defender (or two) allowing the whole Everton defence to get organised. Whether the latter was the cause of the former, I am not qualified to judge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do we need to buy in January? I would say so. While our bench looked strong, there was no-one there capable of changing the pattern of the game and I would agree with Mike McDonald’s midweek piece<\/a>, that if we want to win this league this season, we need to act in January and bring in either an established striker and\/or a fleet-footed winger who can also play through the middle. Easier said, of course, than done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, a gold star for effort but no cigar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onwards, gentlemen!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pre-match optimism was boosted by the news that Gabriel was fit enough to start and that MLS had been rewarded for his superb performance against Monaco with another start. Thus, arguably barring Calafiori who remains crocked, Mikel Arteta was able to select his strongest starting XI with the midfield that he implied yesterday he has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10489"}],"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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10489"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10507,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10489\/revisions\/10507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}