{"id":10870,"date":"2025-02-26T22:42:15","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T22:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10870"},"modified":"2025-03-03T15:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T15:52:13","slug":"down-in-the-forest-nothing-stirred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10870","title":{"rendered":"Down in the Forest \u2026..Nothing Stirred"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Arsenal earned a point in a fairly forgettable 0-0 draw at a passionate City Ground to underline all the positives and negatives that we already know about our side. I could have written this report twenty four hours earlier so predictable was the style and narrative of this game. Arsenal, now no longer able to score from set-pieces, denuded of all their most exciting and dangerous forwards and frustrated by a Forest side that must be one of the most tedious seen in the upper reaches of the Premier League for a very long time, toiled manfully but to no avail Arsenal were massively superior in terms of quality and possession but had no cutting edge. It would be difficult enough to score given the missing attacking talents but \u00d8degaard who has hitherto been the creative hub of the team, is so flat and seemingly lacking in spark although he is still fearfully committed to the cause. But Arsenal rarely looked like scoring. Who knew? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal picked a fairly predictable side with one change from Saturday with Jorginho replacing Partey. Calafiori was nominally left-back but played as a cross between an auxiliary striker or left 8. Merino was also pushed forward. Whatever the case, Calafiori was yellow carded very early on for a relatively innocuous foul on Hudson-Odoi although the referee Madley did also book Milenkovic early on as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyone who has watched Forest this season knows they play in a deep block even at home and get out through their wingers Hudson Odoi and Elanga with Chris Wood a conventional target man. Arsenal pushed up very high (Raya was often on the halfway line and Arsenal had most of the possession) but a quick break was always a worry and after 21 minutes Hudson Odoi tried to dupe the referee that Calafiori had tripped him. The Italian had pulled out of the challenge and the referee had seen this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Calafiori came nearest to scoring in the first half with a terrific turn and right foot curler against the post. The Italian has his weaknesses, pace being one of them but he also has flair and the ability to do the unexpected. But his booking led to his being taken off at half time and replaced by Kieran Tierney.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half – time – Forest 0 Arsenal 0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal dominated the first half without forcing the Forest goalkeeper to a save. They intensified the pressure at the start of the second half, forcing several corners. Merino tested Sels with a fierce header and Tierney went close at the near post. Forest retaliated by sending on two midfield substitutes, Yates and Danilo, pushing up ten yards and looking to get better service to Chris Wood. Wood forced one save from Raya and then a brilliantly timed tackle from Saliba denied him on a more convincing Forest break. Arsenal rang the changes bringing on Zinchenko for Jorginho and ultimately Sterling for Nwaneri. At the end, Partey and White entered the fray for Timber and \u00d8degaard and Partey dragged a shot disappointingly wide. Zinchenko had momentarily broken through a few minutes before but squared the ball to \u00d8degaard who had a shot blocked on the line only to see the flag raised for offside. It was the sort of situation that reflected the luck we have had this season and acted almost as a metaphor for this frustrating and luckless campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Time – Forest 0 Arsenal 0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

TNT were desperate to double down on Arteta asking the same obvious questions and expecting different answers. It has been established that our recruitment was deficient in the summer and those of us who felt even a warm attacking body in January might move the dial a bit realise that hopefully the lessons have been learnt and this season is now about confirming Champions League football for next season, giving ourselves a real tilt at that competition this season and then resetting in the summer with exciting attacking recruits and shifting on some of those who have seen better days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s easy to be negative after our hopes, which were so high, have been frustrated, but there is so much that is good about Arteta\u2019s Arsenal. We comfortably outplayed a team who scored seven in their last home game and (amazingly!) lie in third place. Raya, Saliba, Timber and Gabriel have been superb for most of the season, Rice is a special warrior and we have Saka, Havertz and Martinelli to return. And lest we forget, MLS and Nwaneri will be even better next season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, until we get better forward resources this sort of attacking performance won\u2019t be an outlier but things will improve. Mikel Arteta is hurt but he is also ambitious and intelligent and determined to learn. We are in a much better place than we were before he joined . Don\u2019t give up hope – trust the process ! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal earned a point in a fairly forgettable 0-0 draw at a passionate City Ground to underline all the positives and negatives that we already know about our side. I could have written this report twenty four hours earlier so predictable was the style and narrative of this game. Arsenal, now no longer able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"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\/10870"}],"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\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10870"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10870\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10887,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10870\/revisions\/10887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}