{"id":11927,"date":"2025-09-16T21:15:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T20:15:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11927"},"modified":"2025-09-20T20:22:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T19:22:17","slug":"arsenal-win-but-make-it-hard-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=11927","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal Win But Make It Hard Work"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Arsenal team, surprisingly to me, ahead of C130y at home, started with only one change – Rice in for Nwaneri with a very strong bench, including the returning Saliba.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The starting team:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merino Zubimendi, Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madueke, Gy\u00f6keres, Eze<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subs: Kepa, Setford, MLS, Saliba, Hincapi\u00e9, N\u00f8rgaard, Dowman, Nwaneri, Martinelli, Trossard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pre-match footage of Bilbao and the ground looked amazing and 21CG and I watched enviously from the sofa. Our Basque friends, and everyone else who has been there, have been telling us how wonderful Bilbao is – the food, the people, the culture. We would have loved to have been there but, despite the tickets going down to red members, we just couldn\u2019t make the numbers work. Direct and even indirect flights were just too expensive.  After our jaunts last season to Milan, Lisbon and Madrid, this would have been another great one. Ahh well, a freezing cold Milan in January it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal began with a period of possession, feeling out Bilbao and trying to pull them out of position to break the press. Bilbao were having none of it and when they gained possession looked the more forward-minded side. On 7 minutes a turnover enabled them to get forward and draw a free kick on the edge of our box, which fortunately went into the wall. Worse though, Rice was booked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving past the 10th minute, we were intent on playing our possession game but the pressing game of Bilbao was just too strong and we couldn\u2019t hold onto the ball.  It seemed to me that our best hope was to weather the storm and then ratchet up the pressure as the opposition tired. The question at this stage being whether we could hold out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 23 minutes, Arsenal started to come into it with a period of pressure resulting in a couple of efforts from Gy\u00f6keres. On 30 minutes, a free kick from the right, which possibly should have been augmented by a yellow for the preceding foul on Madueke, resulted in a bad clash of heads between Gabriel and Gy\u00f6keres. Blood was pouring from a gash on the back of Gy\u00f6keres head and a stoppage for a couple of minutes followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A period of bad-tempered play followed, largely provoked by the antics of the Bilbao no. 3, Vivian who threw himself onto the floor trying to get Rice booked for a second time and then went in for afters with Eze. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overall, the first half was one where we seemed content to try to contain Bilbao, which by and large we did. But at no time did we look wholly comfortable, much less in control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half time Bilbao 0 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

No changes for Arsenal at half time. A minute into the half Eze drew a foul on the edge of their box, and from the resulting cross Gy\u00f6keres connected very poorly, heading wide, having shoved the defender in the back to make the space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The teams traded efforts on goal between 55 and 57 minutes with Madueke, by far Arsenal\u2019s best player to this point, and Williams making the respective keepers work for the first time in the game. The distinctly average referee then failed to book one of their players for the umpteenth time for hauling Timber over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 64 minutes, Gy\u00f6keres was taken off for Trossard. It didn\u2019t really make a difference to the pattern at this point as we had settled into a very slow tempo, frankly reminiscent of large swathes of last season, the Horseshoe of Eternal Ennui being very much to the fore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 70 minutes, Eze, after an anonymous game, was taken off and recent boo boy – why is clearly beyond my pay grade – Martinelli scored after less than a minute.    I was in Madrid that night in April where we sang his name for an hour post match while locked in at the Bernabeu. The same chant rang out from the 2,500 Arsenal fans again. \u201cBella Ciao\u201d has fantastic ictus and is joyous to behold, thus it\u2019s a most appropriate song for Martinelli. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the goal, the game increasingly came to resemble an episode of M*A*S*H, with bodies everywhere requiring medical attention. Madueke was rightly booked for time wasting at a corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 86 minutes, the two subs connected again, with an excellent pacy run from Martinelli who cut the ball back from the bye line to Trossard whose shot from the edge of the 6 yard box deflected up and over the keeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 90 minutes, Madueke came off for N\u00f8rgaard with Calafiori making way for debutant Hincapi\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full time: Bilbao 0 Arsenal 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Cast your mind back 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 years. Have The Arsenal ever had such a strong bench?  And this is without White, \u00d8degaard, Saka, Havertz, Jes\u00fas.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Beyond that, it was an uninspiring match, with Bilbao much better than they were at the Emirates in pre-season. At the same time Raya was never really troubled and they looked a bit toothless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Eze was pretty quiet. Perhaps this goes to show just how lop-sided our play is, making it difficult for whoever starts on the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, onwards for The Arsenal.   Next up the in-no-way financially doped C130y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Arsenal team, surprisingly to me, ahead of C130y at home, started with only one change – Rice in for Nwaneri with a very strong bench, including the returning Saliba. The starting team: Raya,  Timber, Mosquera, Gabriel, Calafiori  Merino Zubimendi, Rice Madueke, Gy\u00f6keres, Eze Subs: Kepa, Setford, MLS, Saliba, Hincapi\u00e9, N\u00f8rgaard, Dowman, Nwaneri, Martinelli, Trossard. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"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\/11927"}],"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\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11927"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11932,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11927\/revisions\/11932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}