{"id":12989,"date":"2026-03-08T11:41:44","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T11:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12989"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:29:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:29:30","slug":"this-is-what-the-game-is-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=12989","title":{"rendered":"This is What the Game is About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From a side wall in One Call Stadium, formerly Field Mill, Mansfield Town’s home since 1919 and recognised as one of the oldest professional football grounds in the world.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Much as Wayne Rooney is to early hominid man, this game was a throwback to times past.  There the simile ends though, as we witnessed a glorious reminder of the beauty of the FA Cup. The Arsenal, top the league, top of the Champions League, Carabao Cup finalists; going to the north midlands, the very heart of England, to visit a town and a team which have suffered over the years; the locals dreaming of an upset and putting their town and football club back on the map; Gooners, near and far, praying this wouldn\u2019t be York City or Wrexham all over again; the pitch, understandably, way below the standard we\u2019re used to on account of the constant rain the UK has suffered for nigh on 2 months.  At the same time, it was still considerably better than some of the mud baths we were used to seeing until the early 90\u2019s, a credit to the club and ground staff. Baseball Ground, anyone? The 12.15 kick off was something of a shock to the system, although I imagine the farther flung fans, east and west, appreciated a half reasonable K.O. time for once. And it gave travelling fans time to get home in time to watch England play in Rome in the 6 Nations.  Perhaps the lucky ones were held up on the M1!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part by choice, part forced through a mixture of suspension and attrition, Mikel selected an interesting team for the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Salmon Mosquera Calafiori <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madueke    Dowman N\u00f8rgaard Trossard Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jes\u00f9s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

is the way I would describe it, although out of possession N\u00f8rgaard would slot in as centre back. I await the keener eyed in our community upbraiding my tactical naivety. From the start Mansfield, under Nigel Clough – scion of the great Brian \u2013 showed that they were up for the match both physically and in terms of wanting to play football.  No low block for them! I would suggest that the referee allowed a little too much physicality early on and ought to have made the first booking of a Mansfield player rather earlier than the 60th<\/sup> minute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 5 minutes, the Mansfield keeper, who otherwise was excellent, made a relatively unforced error, while trying to play out from the back, by attempting to pass centrally to one of his players. Dowman, quick of mind and fleet of foot, saw his opportunity and intercepted. He pushed forward showing immaculate control \u2013 another theme of his day \u2013 and got off a shot which the keeper saved with his feet. Just a little lift on the shot and it was a goal.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unperturbed by this, Mansfield continued to play and fashioned an opportunity on the left-hand side when Oates rather too easily shook off Mosquera and crossed into the middle where eventually Kepa made a decent stop. Mansfield were not here to be sacrificial victims was the message. There were some chances following for each side but, in truth, none were too close. The star man continued to be Dowman whose control and ability to shift his weight and the ball were at times, especially on that pitch, preternatural. 16! He\u2019s only 16! It isn\u2019t fair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 35 minutes, Trossard went down and clearly told the bench he couldn\u2019t continue. Once again the Injury Gods intervene and not in our favour. Interestingly, Arteta replaced him with Hincapi\u00e9 rather than a more natural replacement such as Eze. This looked very much like going to an orthodox back four, allowing Calafiori the license to roam when we were in possession. As usual, Arteta knew better than your correspondent and 5 minutes later, and, after a curate\u2019s egg of a first half, Madueke put us ahead after his initial shot from distance came out to Martinelli to the left of the goal who passed back to Madueke on the 18 yard line, who hit a delicious left foot shot swinging away into the Mansfield net.   It was a well constructed, very well taken goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield Town 0 \u2013 Arsenal 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oranges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield made a sub at half time taking off Tyler Roberts – formerly of Leeds – for Evans. I thought this a tad harsh on Roberts who had played very well.  Maybe he had a strain.  At any rate this change gave renewed energy to Mansfield and within 5 minutes of the restart they were back level. Salmon, 16, played a poor pass on the halfway line square to Mosquera. Having seen him play a number of times for the U-21s, this is not a feature of his game and I suggest was in large part down to the quality of the surface. Mosquera was somewhat surprised and chose not to close on the ball, allowing Evans to pick it up, cut inside the now poorly positioned Mosquera and then shoot under Kepa. A well taken goal but one of our own making. The Mansfield faithful raised the roof as they saw the dream of a great cup shock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield Town 1 \u2013 Arsenal 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal regained composure and Dowman, despite, I thought, visibly and quite understandably tiring, continued to impress on the ball.  Around the hour mark and in order to close out the game, Arteta yet again made the correct substitutions, taking off both Salmon and the clearly not yet match fit Havertz and replacing them with Timber and Eze. Dowman nearly set up Jes\u00f9s but in truth got the final pass just a little wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, once again 5 minutes after making substitutions, we went back into the lead when a patient build up on the right led to either a clever touch or a fortuitous one from N\u00f8rgaard enabling him to pass to Eze. He still had some work to do but fashioned some space centrally on the edge of the box, and lashed an unstoppable shot into the top right of the goal. He hit it so hard I\u2019m sure it was past the keeper before he left the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield Town 1 \u2013 Arsenal 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aforementioned Injury Gods then chose to micturate on our strawberries once again, as Calafiori went down with what looked like a hamstring strain.  Hmm! Anyone else sensing a pattern?  He was replaced by 19-year-old Jayden Dixon, a new recruit from Stoke. More subs followed with Saka replacing the visibly tired Dowman.  I hope he is in the squad for Leverkusen.  That was that, really. We saw the game out as you would expect.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a great performance but, then with 9 changes and the quality of the pitch, that was perhaps to be expected.  Havertz is still playing his way back so can be forgiven a quiet game. Less so Jes\u00f9s, who was invisible, and Martinelli who was, quite honestly, terrible. I love watching Martinelli but today I\u2019m afraid he looked well off the pace. It seems as though we will need him on Wednesday night so hopefully that\u2019s a chance to show a more typical performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mansfield ought to be given great credit for making it such a good game and not following the approach often favoured by lower league opposition. Perhaps we oughtn\u2019t to be surprised given the manager was a Clough, as opposed to those of lesser provenance. You know who you are!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On to the quarter finals along with FC Chelski 2003, Liverpool and C130Y.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much as Wayne Rooney is to early hominid man, this game was a throwback to times past.  There the simile ends though, as we witnessed a glorious reminder of the beauty of the FA Cup. The Arsenal, top the league, top of the Champions League, Carabao Cup finalists; going to the north midlands, the very […]<\/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\/12989"}],"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=12989"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13011,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12989\/revisions\/13011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}