{"id":10990,"date":"2025-04-02T01:13:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T00:13:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10990"},"modified":"2025-04-04T09:45:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-04T08:45:59","slug":"saks-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=10990","title":{"rendered":"Sak\u2019s Back!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Following Mikel Arteta\u2019s press conference on Tuesday, TV and radio reports and smiley Instagram posts, the big question leading up to the game was would a fit again Bukayo Saka start or would he come off the bench for guesses ranging anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the event, the starting lineup was –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya; Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly; \u00d8degaard, Partey, Rice; Nwaneri, Merino, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also a lot of discussion on TV and radio before the game about whether Arteta\u2019s job was under pressure because Arsenal are not going to win the league this season. Really? After the move to the Emirates, Arsene Wenger used to be criticised for treating \u201cfourth place like a trophy\u201d, even though any other team that managed to break into that top four – yes, even in fourth place – was lauded like world beaters. Arteta has arguably done better than late era Wenger in that he has now come second for two consecutive seasons, with a third in prospect. He has missed out on the title by the narrowest of margins to a state funded team that has accumulated between 115 and 130 charges of financial fraud and non compliance with league regulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And some people think that is failure worthy of the sack. Please go and infect some other poor club with your pathetic entitlement. For a bit of context, and on the point of return from his first serious injury, I thought I\u2019d take a look back at the team Bukayo Saka played in for Arteta\u2019s first Arsenal game – vs Bournemouth on 26th December 2019. Saka, incidentally, is the sole survivor of that entire match squad –<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leno; Maitland-Niles, David Luiz, Papastathopoulos, Saka; Torreira, Xhaka, Nelson, Ozil; Lacazette, Aubameyang

Whilst achieving all those second place finishes, that shows the scale of the dismantling and rebuilding work that has had to be done. There was one further glance backwards before the game began – to a picture on the giant screens of David Rocastle, who sadly passed away, 24 years ago, in this week of 2021. Never forgotten.

First half<\/strong>
The game kicked off with Fulham lining up in a stubborn looking 5-4-1, with Emile Smith-Rowe returned to the starting lineup after being left out of their 3-1 defeat to Crystal Palace on Saturday. Both sides kept the ball quite well in the early stages without really threatening, apart from when Martinelli cut a ball back to Partey who scuffed his shot wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On unlucky-for-some 13 minutes, Gabriel pulled up while running and hobbled badly on one leg until being replaced by Kiwior. Another hamstring injury appeared the most likely cause – just what we needed with Real Madrid due in town in seven days time. Another scare followed just before the half hour when Jurrien Timber was down, but thankfully not out, after appearing to fall on an awkwardly shaped knee. He got up to carry on though and seemed to be fine.

Martinelli continued to skin Castsgne on the Fulham left and crossed for Nwaneri who showed great control to fire a shot at goal which Leno could only parry away for his defence to clear.

Arsenal were playing sideways and backwards to try to tempt Fulham out of their low block until, finally, on 37 minutes Partey played one of those lovely vertical passes to Timber who nudged it on for Nwaneri to cross to super striker Mikel Merino who poked a deflected shot past Leno at the far post.

Arsenal 1 – 0 Fulham<\/strong>
Fulham\u2019s immediate reaction to the goal was to bring down every Arsenal player anywhere near the ball but Mr Brooks, the referee, didn\u2019t seem to mind. Arsenal continued to play safety first for the remainder of the half. It wasn\u2019t tremendously exciting but the lack of movement a natural striker would give makes it hard to create those openings up front. That is not to criticise Merino who has done his best in an unaccustomed position and has now notched 6 times this season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trying to break a low block is also hard when we play so much through the middle. Martinelli had a great game going both inside and round the outside but Nwaneri and \u00d8degaard both look first to funnel the play into the crowded central areas where space is almost impossible to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second half<\/strong>
After \u00d8degaard shot over from a Martinelli cross Fulham, showing more enterprise, broke down our right and had a shot well saved by Raya before Partey stepped in smartly to clear the rebound just ahead of Smith-Rowe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both teams had stepped up the pace and the game began to open up. Timber took a return pass from \u00d8degaard and winded and flattened Leno with a fierce shot from the edge of the six yard box. It then took a pull, push, trip and finally a body check to stop MLS before Saliba headed over the resulting free kick swung in by \u00d8degaard. We then had a quick series of corners where Martinelli had a header saved and made Castagne\u2019s day by nutmegging him to win another corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then, on 65 minutes, it happened. Bukayo Saka ran onto the Emirates pitch once more, in place of Ethan Nwaneri. Arsenal were also involved in Fulham\u2019s substitution as Alex Iwobi replaced Smith-Rowe. After 7 whole minutes on the grass, Bukayo Saka scored. Martinelli took a return pass from Merino and flicked the ball on to Saka to nod past Leno before running to the bench to hug his fitness trainer, Sam Wilson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 2 – 0 Fulham<\/strong>
There was a further worry as Timber was forced off with another problem with quarter of an hour to go. Pressing for a third goal we left acres of space on our left side which Sessegnon attacked and squared for Muniz to slot a late consolation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 2 – 1 Fulham<\/strong>
A tense finish could have been a lot worse if Muniz hadn\u2019t earlier made a terrible mess of a header from 1 yard out after great work by Iwobi. Mr Brooks blew for time after 6 added minutes. Job done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thoughts<\/strong>
A fairly sterile first half preceded a much better second. If Martinelli was trying to impress the new, watching Sporting Director, Andrea Berta, he made an extremely good job of it and was unlucky to be denied a goal in added time when a very nice finish was disallowed as he had strayed just offside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three points safely in the bag, albeit after an unnecessarily edgy finale. The worries must be in defence with Gabriel and Timber forced off and no Ben White in the squad with a Champions League 1\/4 Final tie next Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big plus of the night though – obviously a smiling Bukayo Saka back playing and scoring. It makes you wonder what the true size of the Arsenal fan base is when you consider that that smiling thumbs up photo on Instagram last week drew 500,000 Likes!



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Following Mikel Arteta\u2019s press conference on Tuesday, TV and radio reports and smiley Instagram posts, the big question leading up to the game was would a fit again Bukayo Saka start or would he come off the bench for guesses ranging anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes. In the event, the starting lineup was – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/10990"}],"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=10990"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10998,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10990\/revisions\/10998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}