{"id":11262,"date":"2025-05-18T22:37:21","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T21:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11262"},"modified":"2025-05-24T09:39:52","modified_gmt":"2025-05-24T08:39:52","slug":"failures-arsenal-complete-a-hat-trick-of-second-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11262","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Failures\u2019 Arsenal Complete a Hat-trick of Second Places"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Sunday lunchtime saw a pre-match gathering of Holics for the first time in a very long period. A convivial gathering was made slightly tenser by the nagging concern that the season could still go to custard. Defeat followed by a catastrophe at Southampton (who held C130y, the Cup Final losers last week) coupled with a win for the Totts in Bilbao next week was more than flesh and blood could stand. It was a very unlikely scenario but in a season like this sanity can be distorted. Loss of the Champions League place (and income) would wreck carefully laid plans at Arsenal .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our mood was eased by the news that our Nemesis, Isak, was missing. All those incantations in our back room with eye of newt and entrails of  frog weren\u2019t wasted. Arsenal\u2019s team was fairly predictable once it was clear that Rice had recovered from injury. Kai Havertz made a very welcome return to the bench. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Play began in bright sunshine and the first ten minutes were something of a nightmare for Arsenal. David Raya was both hero and villain. His kicking rayardar (see what I did there?)  was massively off and set up a series of frantic scrambles which saw Raya make wonderful saves from Guimaraes twice, Barnes, Livramento and later Burn (a superb stop from a corner). At the other end, Pope made a fine stop from Trossard and a good save from a Partey header from a corner. But Newcastle were the better, more coherent team in the first half and Arsenal\u2019s first half performance was very undercooked, far too lateral and without pace. I made the mistake of watching a few games yesterday in which the Invincibles cut teams to pieces with incisive pace and rapid passing rhythms. Here Arsenal were pedestrian, a side that takes enormous passing risk in its own area but prefers to knock corners back to the goalkeeper rather than whip in a speculative ball in the opposition half. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half-time: Arsenal 0 Newcastle 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our mood was not improved on the resumption by the news that Saliba was to be removed from the play and replaced by Calafiori. Had we but known that the new central defence partnership of Calafiori and Kiwior was to be so effective we would not have worried. For the second successive week Arteta provoked a much better second half performance and Arsenal controlled much of the game in the second period. Their play was sharper, more intelligent and more dynamic . Ten minutes into the half \u00d8degaard pulled the ball back for Rice to hit a superb swinging right foot shot that curled away from Pope and nestled in the far side of the goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

54 minutes: Arsenal 1 (Rice) Newcastle 0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal were more threatening but looked confused on the break and didn\u2019t add to their goal. Saka had a fierce shot blocked, Ben White flashed a shot just wide and Havertz almost crowned his return to the pitch with a close range strike. The  game became increasingly tetchy not helped by an increasingly pompous referee in Simon Hooper. I liked his willingness to let the play flow in the first half but he seemed to miss significant fouls as the game went on and it ended with a brawl as this unlikeable Newcastle side took out their frustration at losing by surrounding David Raya after he caught a cross. The final whistle signified our ascent to the Champions League (worth a minimum of \u00a370 million) and a likely second place finish for the third successive season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full time: Arsenal 1 Newcastle 0 <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no doubt that the absence of Isak was very significant today and it was frankly a relief that he wasn\u2019t able to galvanise the Newcastle attack. Nevertheless both Kiwior and Calafiori played very well indeed and interestingly Calafiori appears to have that quality that lifts teams through the force of his personality and the class and quality that he displayed. I had not seen him play centre back for Arsenal before and I was very impressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya received Man of the Match plaudits and indeed made a flurry of superb saves in the first half (Newcastle had ten shots in the first half, five on target) but they lost their impetus in the second half as Arsenal stepped up their game. Having said that his kicking was erratic throughout the game and Arsenal seemed to go long increasingly during the match. But he has the great ability to make spellbinding saves which is a great quality to have in a keeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal looked a very tired side in the first half and it is significant that they could lift their game after they had looked so subdued. It is a tribute to their character and the motivational power that Arteta has that they improved so much against difficult opposition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have to confess that I am concerned about \u00d8degaard regaining his mojo. He is a pale shadow of the player that has played so superbly in previous seasons. I thought Saka also  looked very flat and wonder if he has recovered from his injury or whether Livramento is a very fine full back indeed. Martinelli still has limitations from which I don\u2019t think he can escape and I thought Trossard not only worked most effectively upfront but he also created some nice moments of inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declan Rice is clearly exhausted but he is an outstanding competitor and a very fine player. He is emerging as a more frequent goalscorer and I expect him to continue to get more goals in future seasons. MLS is an incredible character and has such a high ceiling and he rarely fails to leave an imprint on a match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excitingly we can attract the very best players to N5 knowing that we can offer the biggest stage for them to play on and we can plan much more expansively in financial terms. It is a mark of how far Arsenal have come under Mikel Arteta that there was a feeling of anti-climax after a season where we finished second in the league and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. We are a club moving very much in the right direction. The suggestion that he must win something or be sacked next season is an example of the mentality that is encouraged by misguided tabloid and social media. Mikel Arteta is someone that we can believe in for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sunday lunchtime saw a pre-match gathering of Holics for the first time in a very long period. A convivial gathering was made slightly tenser by the nagging concern that the season could still go to custard. Defeat followed by a catastrophe at Southampton (who held C130y, the Cup Final losers last week) coupled with a […]<\/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\/11262"}],"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=11262"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11262\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11267,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11262\/revisions\/11267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}