{"id":12780,"date":"2026-02-04T11:41:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T11:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12780"},"modified":"2026-02-06T15:38:01","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T15:38:01","slug":"control-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12780","title":{"rendered":"Control"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Are we sitting comfortably? Then I\u2019ll begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last night at the Stadium of Stone, we saw quite possibly the finest exposition yet of Mr. Arteta\u2019s preferred approach to the Beautiful Game.  Following a tough away game at the veritable bear pit that is Elland Road, it was the turn of the denizens of the Bus Stop in Fulham to come to N5. This latest rendering of an expensively, randomly, cluelessly assembled bunch of mercenaries came, apparently, with hope of overturning the narrow 1 goal lead we gained from our visit a fortnight ago to their charmless footballing throwback of a ground, requiring us to mix with their equally charmless, Darwin-denyingly regressive supporters. I still feel just a little dirty after the experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhat short of time, I shall not, on this occasion, give a blow-by-blow account, but a quick, impressionistic, thumbnail sketch of the evening. The ground was packed and clearly a good number of season ticket holders had eschewed the opportunity to attend, enabling the hordes of fans otherwise reduced to listening to the almost universally appalling tv punditry offered in the UK to attend. They were present, loud and as animated as the regulars, at the risk of appearing condescending. I can give no greater compliment than to say that at times they were as up for it as those all-in, hardy souls who go away. There is no greater praise.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first half we ought to have had a penalty when Fofana jumped with Hincapi\u00e9 for a header at the near post from another well-delivered Madueke corner. He clearly led with his arm, which made contact with the ball. Still, PGMOL, so no penalty. From the resulting – incorrectly given corner, Madueke sent in another, which resulted in Hincapi\u00e9 attempting a Sakaesque curler into the top right of Sanchez\u2019s goal, which he did well to push out for a corner on the side where the charmless SW6 hordes were confined.   A first-class long pass from back to front by Gabriel almost put in Martinelli who sprinted inside Malo Gusto, turned him and was unlucky to see his shot blocked by the recovering full back. It struck me that Malo Gusto is very nearly a wonderful example of cross language nominative determinism, playing for Chelsea being the height of bad taste. The ill-tempered Argentinian circus dwarf Fernandez had an effort from outside the box which Kepa, clearly bored, decided to punch away entirely unnecessarily rather than catch.  It was a pretty cold, wet night so we shall forgive his indulgence. The half ended and an entirely untroubled Arsenal went in for Bovril and Wagon Wheels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chelsea came out with renewed gusto \u2013 unfortunately for them still at full back \u2013 and had a couple of corners which threw up less than half chances, probably the best of which saw the human cockroach shoot from 20 odd yards high wide and, appropriately for him, not very handsome. Chelsea made a couple of changes, bringing on Estevao along with the human Venus Fly Trap that is the perpetually open-mouthed Palmer, but to no avail.  On 70, Arsenal brought on Havertz and Trossard to replace Gy\u00f6keres and Madueke who had both been tireless in running and fulfilling the roles assigned by the manager, pinning back their men excellently.  We quite possibly ought to have had another penalty late on when, capitalising on a slip from Estevao, Eze won the ball well in midfield, drove forward and released Martinelli. The Brazilian attempted to push the ball outside Chalobah on the edge of the box. The defender contacted the ball but then, undoubtedly deliberately, followed through on Martinelli bringing him down. PGMOL, so no penalty.  The game was drawing to a close and the media-touted genius that is Rosenior half-heartedly threw his team forward, creating very little in the process. The opposition pumped a hopeless ball into the box which Kepa caught and did the compulsory flop to the floor to waste time, Cue Saliba and Gabriel exulting as if we had won the World Cup, the Derby and the National Lottery, much to the dismay of those of a blue persuasion who hadn\u2019t by this time departed for Godalming and points south.  But the fun wasn\u2019t over yet. Despite being well over time, the referee was trying to eke out a final twist to the game. Trossard won a loose ball in midfield and freed up Rice, charging forward in surely what would be our last attack (copyright B. Moore, Friday  26th<\/sup> May 1989). He instinctively hit a curling ball into the void in the middle of the pitch where the Chelsea defence had once been, with a grateful Havertz controlling the ball and running at Sanchez, alone and palely loitering.  I\u2019m not sure Keats necessarily had him in mind. Havertz could have played the ball inside to Martinelli, but thought it would be more fun to sit the Chelsea keeper on his backside, and stroke the ball into an empty net. \u201cAah, the delicious taste of Schadenfreude\u201d was, I\u2019m sure, the thought which ran through the mind of the escapee from Stalag Fulham Road as the net bulged beautifully. Cue that beautiful old hymn \u201cYou\u2019ve seen the Arsenal, now feel free to venture home\u201d came forth from the huddled North Bank masses. Alas, there were few if any Chelsea fans in the ground to hear it. Pearls before swine! The referee humourously allowed Chelsea to kick off and immediately blew the whistle. Cacophony. Well, symphony actually. The noise was beautiful. The bar at block 10 was rammed. The first drinks of the year went down rather well. and 21CG and I eventually wended our way home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently – and according to the BBC, so curb your credulity – Bus Stop FC had 14 efforts at scoring. Me neither!  Apparently 2 of these were on target. Me neither! Tonight we saw the finest exposition yet of Arteta controlling a game. The opposition, expensively yet seemingly randomly assembled, had to score. Yet their much-praised latest Boehly Human-Shield of a manager seemed to be very much undecided as to whether he needed \u2018to stick or twist on 14\u2019 and as result, Arteta ground his team into the dirt with a fine display of cold, detached, outcome-driven football of which George would have been proud. Much praised in the bought-and-paid-for footballing mainstream media, Rosenior was shown up for the novice he is by a display of professionalism to which, no doubt, he aspires but is as yet nowhere near reaching. Forget the media hype about them. Forget the increasingly desperate media attempts to undermine Arteta\u2019s charges. This Arsenal is the real deal. In what is now the second least important game of our season \u2013 the least important now, no matter what the click-bait, apparently professional, journalists say, is the final next month \u2013 the manager put out a team intent on controlling the opposition, smothering them and reducing them to a level of footballing impotence which only a stadium-load of Viagra could raise. Rosenior failed to pick up their prescription. Despite playing with 2 centre forwards, they were reduced to a flaccid performance by a well-drilled team, set up with intent and drive.  I shall take the metaphor no further. You know where it\u2019s going.  This performance was one of purpose, where Arteta manipulated the opposition and reduced them to going round in ever-decreasing circles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Control.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are we sitting comfortably? Then I\u2019ll begin. Last night at the Stadium of Stone, we saw quite possibly the finest exposition yet of Mr. Arteta\u2019s preferred approach to the Beautiful Game.  Following a tough away game at the veritable bear pit that is Elland Road, it was the turn of the denizens of the Bus […]<\/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\/12780"}],"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=12780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12784,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12780\/revisions\/12784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}