{"id":12156,"date":"2025-10-29T22:48:33","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T22:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12156"},"modified":"2025-10-31T16:10:45","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T16:10:45","slug":"changes-finishers-and-hideous-jumpers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12156","title":{"rendered":"Changes, Finishers and Hideous Jumpers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Hurzeler models The Jumper That Style Forgot<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Arteta surprised most of us by making wholesale changes from Sundays team, 10 in fact. Dowman became our youngest ever starter, with Harriman-Annous, also starting, an older, wiser head, at 17. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kepa<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White Mosquera Hincapi\u00e9 MLS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nwaneri N\u00f8rgaard Merino<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dowman Harriman-Annous Eze<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal started brightly. With the first effort from Merino on 3 minutes.  Quickly though, the relative lack of understanding between our much-changed team allowed Brighton to gain the upper hand. On 7 minutes, Rutter received the ball in space wide on the right, but a poor first touch saw him push it too far towards Kepa who saved comfortably.  Shortly after, they managed a fast break from an Arsenal corner and Tzimas struck his shot wide. The Arsenal midfield was looking pretty ragged at this point, with N\u00f8rgaard struggling. Arsenal calmed the game for the next 10 minutes.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One concern I had in the first half was that as a result of the Brighton press, Kepa kept hitting his long passes out to Dowman who, with the best will in the world is not going to beat a full-grown man in the air.  MLS was having trouble with the physicality of Rutter.  Dowman got into the game as the first half progressed and started doing his trademark jinks past defenders. Beautiful to watch, but not coming to anything as we were pretty disjointed and I thought curiously enervated. Arsenal still looked susceptible to quick breaks straight through the midfield as the half continued. On 39 minutes, Brighton had a corner, Kepa leapt but got nowhere near it, and Brighton should have scored. As half time approached, Dowman and White combined on the right, the former making a superb run in from the right-hand side, reverse passing to White who hit a poor cross.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first half was much the same as Palace – pretty low energy and ponderous and on another day we might have conceded 2 or even 3 goals. That said, Dowman was a real shining light. Nobody else was, although with just the 10 changes from Sunday\u2019s line up, including 2 youngsters, it was perhaps unsurprising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half Time: Arsenal 0 Brighton 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half arrived with no changes from Arsenal in terms of personnel, but certainly in terms of approach and energy. Dowman slaughtered the left back for the umpteenth time, ran into the box and was taken down, arguably, but no pen given. It was superb skill and preceded by another wonderful flick on the touchline, taking out his marker.  Watch the highlights. He is going to be some player. At the other end, the unimpressive N\u00f8rgaard gave the ball away and only Mosquera\u2019s excellent defending stopped a shot on target. It had become an open game now, with both sides attacking and going for the win. Nwaneri was coming more into the game and on 57 minutes he broke the deadlock with a superb strike from the left-hand side of the box, following a whip-smart move down the left involving Eze, Merino and MLS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 1 Brighton 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 68 minutes, dilly dallying in the midfield saw us being robbed up the pitch in our half, but they couldn\u2019t capitalise. At this point, Brighton made a raft of substitutions and Arteta answered, with Dowman, White and Hincapi\u00e9 off, Saka, Timber and Gabriel on. After only a few minutes, the wisdom of these subs became apparent, as following an amazing run from Timber, fully 50 yards, followed by a perfect pass behind the Brighton defence, Harriman Annous ran onto it and shot but the keeper saved and the rebound came back to Saka to slam home. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 2 Brighton 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal played the game out with the only highlight being a thirty yarder from Trossard which beat the keeper and bounced back off the post. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was nice to get one over on Hurzeler after repulsive post-match comments after the league game at The Emirates last season.  I thought the crowd chant describing Brighton as just a not-so-good Crystal Palace was very funny. And for future reference, Fabian, just because your mum bought you a jumper for Christmas, you don\u2019t have to wear it on TV. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arteta surprised most of us by making wholesale changes from Sundays team, 10 in fact. Dowman became our youngest ever starter, with Harriman-Annous, also starting, an older, wiser head, at 17.  Kepa White Mosquera Hincapi\u00e9 MLS Nwaneri N\u00f8rgaard Merino Dowman Harriman-Annous Eze Arsenal started brightly. With the first effort from Merino on 3 minutes.  Quickly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156"}],"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=12156"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12174,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12156\/revisions\/12174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}