{"id":11096,"date":"2025-04-13T10:09:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T09:09:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11096"},"modified":"2025-04-15T10:34:12","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T09:34:12","slug":"bees-spoil-the-partey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11096","title":{"rendered":"Bees Spoil The Partey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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How would the Arsenal line up ? That was the question occupying everyone before kick off against Brentford in the warm, early evening, spring sunshine on Saturday. With players returning from injury, players in or on the edge of the red zone, and some players who surely just couldn\u2019t be risked ahead of the Champions League 1\/4 Final second leg in Madrid in four days time, Mikel Arteta had some testing choices to make.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His lineup in the event was – Raya; Partey, Saliba, Kiwior, Tierney; Jorginho, Rice, Zinchenko; Nwaneri, Trossard, Martinelli;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis-Skelly, Merino, Timber, Odegaard, Saka and Sterling, among others, were on the bench. Ben White was not, which implies more problems following his knee surgery. Presumably we would see Thomas Partey inverting from the right as MLS was not playing and inverting does not fall naturally within Kieran Tierney\u2019s compass on the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is always a nervousness amongst the fans when Jakub Kiwior has to stand in for Gabriel – not surprisingly when you lose a player of such quality – but a glance at his stats is quite reassuring. In his last 19 games (including today) Arsenal have won 15, drawn 4, lost 0, conceded 19 and 9 clean sheets. He did really well against Real Madrid in the week and was not to be blamed for Brentford\u2019s goal today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Declan Rice practiced his fabulous, bendy free kicks in the sun, most of the Brentford players looked like they had gone en-masse to the apprentice barber during the week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game<\/strong>
\u201cAfter the Lord Mayor\u2019s show\u201d, Bath wrote in his preview. What exactly does happen after the Lord Mayor\u2019s show, I thought. A quick google, just for fun, revealed \u201cAfter the Lord Mayor\u2019s show comes the dust cart \/ donkey cart \/ shit cart\u201d – Google\u2019s words, not mine ! You decide!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started taking notes for this report doing exactly what I always promise myself I won\u2019t – logging times and events of everything that happened. In the cool light of a disappointing but not wholly unexpected result, I have scrapped that idea. There really wasn\u2019t that much to rivet readers to a blow by blow account. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, Arsenal tried to play their neat, intricate football and clearly had the intention to win the game. A much changed side didn\u2019t help with cohesion, and nor did a big, physical Brentford side who were allowed to get away with too much by Mr Whopper, the referee. Despite that we did manage to create several nice openings, just not the crucial, clear cut one we needed. Kieran Tierney did head home after 25 minutes from a superb in swinging cross from Ethan Nwaneri. Unfortunately, the 30 newly installed cameras for \u201csemi automatic\u201d VAR picked up the fact that Tierney was clearly offside – the clue being the Scot\u2019s muted celebration. Gabriel Martinelli had a shot blocked by a desperate intervention by Ajer, Trossard had a shot saved after a great turn on the edge of the area, but a half in which we had forced 10 corners drew to a close with nothing on the scoreboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For their part, Brentford tried to break past Thomas Partey on our right hand side but had no way past William Saliba, who seems to play week after week with such an unhurried mastery. According to some on screen statistics, Brentford are ranked 1st among away teams in the Premier League in 2025. I\u2019m in no position to deny that but in this first half they created nothing from their over hit balls lumped up the middle, most often by their goalkeeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

There were no changes at half time but there was a change of tempo. Martinelli swung in a great cross that Nwaneri just failed to connect with under pressure at the far post. Raya found Zinchenko with an excellent long clearance but as he ran into the box the Ukrainian got what Alan Smith described as a \u201c decent tactical nudge\u201d from the Brentford defender. Most of us would describe it as a push in the back which knocked Zinchenko off balance, and the chance was gone. Mr Whopper was unbothered and play continued. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the hour mark Brentford won a corner. The ball was caught by Raya who rolled it out quickly to Declan Rice who rounded a challenge and galloped through the centre of the pitch. With perfect awareness and weight of pass he slid the ball in front of Thomas Partey, who had strained every sinew to keep up with the charge. Partey didn\u2019t even have to break stride as he hit it hard first time past Flecken. A brilliant goal. That will teach them to attack, I thought to myself. Unfortunately, it did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Arsenal sent on Lewis-Skelly, \u00d8degaard and Saka for Zinchenko, Tierney and Nwaneri which re-energised both team and crowd. As the Arsenal drove forward looking for a second goal, Brentford broke into space which had opened up on our left hand side. Kayode overlapped and chipped a cross to the far post that was headed back for Wissa to spin and shoot past Raya. The Brentford striker decided to run into the corner in front of the North Bank and appeared to mock MLS\u2019 Haaland impersonation, which all seemed a bit silly and unnecessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 We saw out the last 10 minutes with ten men after Jorginho was unable to carry on, having gone down in pain and seemingly pointing to his chest. So ended another game which Arsenal had dominated but couldn\u2019t kill off. Another two points dropped to a team which offered almost nothing apart from their equalising goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full time: Arsenal 1 – 1 Brentford<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so, any last hopes of the league title must surely now be gone. Liverpool need only three more wins. The third of them could well come against Tottenham Hotspur and past experience tells us what will happen there. An unbelievable injury list, a series of utterly ridiculous refereeing decisions and maybe a failure to recruit sufficiently into the forward department of the team have cost us a successful challenge for the title this season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t like Thomas Frank and I don\u2019t like Brentford FC. I\u2019m not denying that Frank has done a good job for Brentford in that he has established them as a Premier League team. I know he doesn\u2019t have the resources of the top clubs but this is supposed to be the best league in the world. His team play in his image and today spent the first half lumping long balls over the top as their only means of attack. In defence, out of possession they retreated into their own area and shifted between a 7-2-1 and an 8-2-0 formation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 They are a big, physical team – nothing wrong with that – but they foul constantly, admittedly staying mostly the right side of dangerous. Not always though. Norgaard should have been sent off today for a scissor tackle from behind on Gabriel Martinelli that could have broken his leg or caused a very serious knee injury. Thomas Frank was waving at the referee trying to get Arsenal players carded while all this was going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Smith, again disappointingly, describing Norgaard\u2019s tackle said, \u201cI don\u2019t think he meant to bring him down from behind – he was more alongside him.\u201d Yes he did and no he wasn\u2019t!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamie Redknapp said he didn\u2019t think it was a red card \u201cbecause they\u2019re never given – but it\u2019s a really dangerous one.\u201d More top punditry from the Redknapp family. He did actually do some serious backtracking after Steve Sidwell disagreed with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On MoTD Lineker, Shearer and Richards all said, \u201cRed card!\u201d Thomas Frank, asked about the result, said, \u201cArsenal are difficult to play against – they did quite well against Real Madrid, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You bet we did quite well against Real Madrid. We have it all to do again on Wednesday. The team can rest and recover now. What a shame this 90 minutes of energy sapping anti-football had to fall between the ties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How would the Arsenal line up ? That was the question occupying everyone before kick off against Brentford in the warm, early evening, spring sunshine on Saturday. With players returning from injury, players in or on the edge of the red zone, and some players who surely just couldn\u2019t be risked ahead of the Champions […]<\/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\/11096"}],"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=11096"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11110,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11096\/revisions\/11110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}