{"id":10583,"date":"2025-01-02T00:55:25","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T00:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10583"},"modified":"2025-01-03T17:00:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-03T17:00:30","slug":"frankly-we-were-the-bees-knees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10583","title":{"rendered":"Frankly &#8211; We Were The Bees Knees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/2192049016\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/2192049016?et=YWH2h3niQLlj7H47o7yw5w&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=1oKU7VZCVY3dLQLvqDKFw4WcOnjQeCxABVmr3WR2btQ=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Following the \u201cnews\u201d that apart from White and Saka being unavailable, and Tomiyasu, Zinchenko and Sterling were refusing to relinquish their beds in the treatment room, Kai Havertz had reported sick &#8211; possibly no surprise remembering how he sniffled and snuffled in his post match interview after the Ipswich game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">The starting eleven selected was:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">Raya<br>Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori<br>\u00d8degaard, Partey, Merino<br>Nwaneri, Jes\u00fas, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The experience of Calafiori was preferred at left back to try to contain the very impressive Mbeumo, and Ethan Nwaneri earned his first start on the right wing in the absence of Bukayo Saka. Declan Rice was on the bench &#8211; presumably being rested after his tough summer and start to this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The weather forecast for the game, and the coming days &#8211; or weeks depending on what you read &#8211; was horrible with news of imminent Atlantic and Arctic storms about to converge on the UK. To try to capture the true atmosphere of the game from the sofa, I had someone open the front door and hurl a bowl of cold water at me every 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal started with a better tempo to their passing than in recent games and had the majority of the ball in the initial exchanges but David Raya had to make a very smart stop to cut out a cross from Brentford\u2019s first fast attack down our right hand side. Timber, \u00d8degaard and Nwaneri were combining and rotating positions well on the right before \u00d8degaard fired his first long shot into Row 21 behind the Brentford goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With their second attack Brentford scored on 12 minutes. Damsgaard passed to Mbeumo on our left, Calafiori allowed him far too much time and space as he moved into the area and beat Raya at his near post. In fairness to Raya he was probably trying to cover his far post as well, often the target of Mbeumo\u2019s curlers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Timber was booked for a lunge that missed the ball on 17 minutes, a mistake that will see him miss the next game. On the other side of the pitch something was not right. Martinelli was having to attack almost on his own and was also called on to make several defensive clearances as Calafiori and Merino tried to build an understanding in yet another unfamiliar pairing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After another swift Brentford break Raya fumbled a shot but made immediate amends by clawing the ball off the goal line as it threatened to spin into the net. Arsenal broke away in turn and pummelled the Brentford defence. Partey shot from distance, Gabriel Jes\u00fas was first to react to the keeper\u2019s parry and dived to head the ball home for his sixth goal in four games. VAR tried inevitably and in vain to find a handball &#8211; the useless spoilsports &#8211; but the goal stood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being caught in the face by Damsgaard, Jes\u00fas was booed by the Brentford fans at every touch for allowing his top lip to bleed. They really have managed to create a very Stoke &#8211; Burnley type atmosphere in that small Gtech stadium which is widely recognised to have contributed to their very impressive home record. Fair play to them for that but it does generate a lot of pressure on the referee who, in fairness, had a pretty even handed first half. To put their lauded home record into context, they have played sides almost exclusively from the bottom half of the table except Nottingham Forest, to whom they lost 0 &#8211; 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Half time: Brentford 1 &#8211; 1 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Brentford began the second half by swiping Gabriel in the face and subsequently not being carded for a prolonged delaying of the restart. Oh well, some things never change. On 49 minutes Nwaneri took the second of two successive corners and delivered a very Saka like ball into the danger area. A shot and rebound from Jes\u00fas was slammed into the net by Mikel Merino to complete the turnaround and put the Gunners 2-1 up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Three minutes later another great ball into the goalmouth by Nwaneri was pushed out to Martinelli who steadied himself, kept his head over the ball and fired into the far corner for 3-1. Good on him for another hard working, determined display. Mr Peter Banks carded Calafiori for a nothing tackle on 57 minutes before Martinelli, now on fire, slid the ball to Jes\u00fas who shot narrowly wide of the near post. At this point Brentford, who already had Norgaard and Damsgaard, could have added a Fireguard and most of the Home Guard but they still wouldn\u2019t have contained the Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On 74 minutes Brentford made a triple substitution, followed by Arsenal on 77 minutes who brought on Lewis-Skelly, Trossard and Rice in place of Calafiori, Nwaneri and Merino. Jorginho joined the fray for \u00d8degaard on 86 to shore up a game that was already won. The travelling faithful had also won the verbal battle on the terraces &#8211; ok, the seats! &#8211; and then on 91 minutes something quite extraordinary happened. Oleksandr Zinchenko ran onto the pitch to play football as the Man of the Match, Gabriel Jes\u00fas, went off. One of the Brentford players had clearly tried to collect Jes\u00fas\u2019 shirt as a souvenir before the Brazilian was prepared to take it off. Ripped apart at the neck, a job for the club seamstress back at N5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The final whistle sounded after 4 minutes of added time with Arsenal in complete control and Zinchenko still walking unaided. Arsenal manager Nicolas Jover and his assistant Mikel Arteta walked smiling across the pitch to applaud the fans who could see that Jes\u00fas really had risen again, and they could see that it was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Arsenal were masterful today. They look better and play better when they move the ball more quickly like this. Their quick, skilful interplay leaves defenders floundering and our players today looked confident, imposing and reinvigorated. Arteta was rightly delighted with Nwaneri\u2019s first start and said that we have seen \u201conly a tiny snippet of what he can do\u201d. A fantastic prospect who, along with Miles Lewis-Skelly, is a credit to the club\u2019s youth development programme. Of the title chase, Arteta said that we can only do what we can do and then see what happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Today we did it superbly. Happy New Year, Holics everywhere!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Following the \u201cnews\u201d that apart from White and Saka being unavailable, and Tomiyasu, Zinchenko and Sterling were refusing to relinquish their beds in the treatment room, Kai Havertz had reported sick &#8211; possibly no surprise remembering how he sniffled and snuffled in his post match interview after the Ipswich game. The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/10583"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10583"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10592,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10583\/revisions\/10592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}