{"id":14012,"date":"2026-08-06T11:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T10:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14012"},"modified":"2026-08-08T08:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T07:46:36","slug":"disappointing-night-in-dublin-but-no-disaster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14012","title":{"rendered":"Disappointing Night in Dublin, But No Disaster"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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So, after the farce of the Girona game where Arsenal\u2019s IT department managed to prove that ,in an increasingly tech-savvy world, there is still a place for the enthusiastic amateur, we move on to Betis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The starting team was identical to that which took the field in Spain.  Betis had Bellerin, resplendent with full-on \u201c1970s porn star\u201d hair and tache look.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lansdowne Road looked full, with a great presence from the Irish Gooners. I imagine the bars of Dublin 2 received a hammering pre-match.  The stadium controllers had clearly taken their lead from Wembley with regard to sound levels of the pre match \u201centertainment\u201d. It was deafening on the telly, nicely ensuring that very little actual match atmosphere could develop, so far as I can tell.  In fairness, NLF received a rousing rendition from the crowd at kick off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The game itself was not terribly interesting. We ought to have scored in the first minute after a fantastic move, sweeping across the pitch resulted in Havertz feeding Gyokeres 2 yards out, but the Swede fluffed his lines. That\u2019s fine. Save it for the real games, Viktor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after, Kepa made a tame long-distance shot look like the entrance exam for the Chinese Civil Service, pushing out needlessly to Mosquera who himself looked somewhat panicked as he hammered the ball out for a corner under precisely no threat at all. From the ensuing corner, Kepa, a giant of a man, was seemingly baulked in the smallest way and collapsed like a cardboard box left out in the rain, leaving a Betis player unmarked at the back post with oodles of time to hammer home. I suspect, and indeed hope, he won\u2019t be in goal vs Coventry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 17 minutes, it was the turn of the Betis keeper to make a cock up, passing out far too close to Tzolis, who had to stretch to cut out the pass and in doing so couldn\u2019t kill the ball and take full advantage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gyokeres did well to get a free kick on the right side of the box, holding off a Betican defender and being thrown to the floor judo-style.  Nwaneri did nothing from the resulting free kick. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 26 minutes, Betis went further ahead with a cracking 22 yarder. Kepa could do nothing about this one. 2-0. Great shot, but no pressure on the striker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 32 minutes, we crafted a good break resulting in a corner from Tzolis, after his shot was well blocked by a returning defender rapidly blocking his shot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From that corner, taken by Tzolis, the Betis keeper, presumably taking industrial action in support of his fellow goalkeeping union member, reprised our Keeper\u2019s faux pas for the first goal and simply allowed Hincapi\u00e9 to nod in on the goal line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recovery wasn\u2019t to last, though, and just before half time Betis scored again. Poor defending yet again, with Havertz simply gifting the ball to the Spaniards just outside our box allowing Fornals, formerly of the Stratford Relegationists, to drive home from the edge of the box, again unchallenged. Perhaps we were just trying to lull the rest of the Premier League into a false sense of security, after the excellence of our defending last season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half time was called and thankfully fans in the ground could get a well deserved Guinness to take the edge off what had been a pretty incoherent first half display. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the second half there were lots of subs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On: Copley, Salmon, Jes\u00f9s, Gabriel, Martinelli, Nelson, Vieira.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Off: White, Dowman, Mosquera, Tzolis, Gy\u00f6keres, Hincapi\u00e9, Havertz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of them made any difference whatsoever and, to be frank, nothing of any note happened in the second half, apart from a very unfortunate injury to Louie Copley who went down clearly in pain under the slightest challenge. I thought the way he went down merited the referee stopping the game, as it clearly did not look like a piece of play acting, but he played on for another minute anyway. Copley had to be carried off the pitch by two of The Pit Crew, not putting any weight on his leg and clearly in pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What else happened? Salmon was rightly booked for a foul having been badly skinned on 65 minutes, on the right wing (intelligent foul, showing maturity – ed). Ibrahim came on and gave a good cameo of the defensive midfield role. I like him. Gabriel and Martinelli came on at half time, somewhat curiously I thought, given they only returned to training late last week. I suspect this was a move by Arteta to help prevent a cricket score and in that regard it worked. They both went off after 30 minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take aways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to look at this through the lens of a pre-season friendly with the season kick off 2 weeks away. We were missing: Raya, Saliba, Timber, \u00d8degaard, Zubimendi, Rice, Eze, Madueke, Saka, Merino. And possibly new signings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the first half, everything good went through Lewis-Skelly, and there were a few good things. He was far and away our best player. He is clearly not a fringe player and looks seriously ready to play as a starter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That said, this was really a chance for fringe players to stake a claim. Nwaneri, Nelson, Vieira in particular. In truth, none did. Nwaneri doesn\u2019t look like the player he was 2 years ago. At times, Kepa makes Manuel Almunia look like Lev Yashin. The reserve keeper slot at the moment is up for grabs. From what I have seen of Tommy Settford in u-21 games, I\u2019d be tempted to have him as stand in keeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

So, after the farce of the Girona game where Arsenal\u2019s IT department managed to prove that ,in an increasingly tech-savvy world, there is still a place for the enthusiastic amateur, we move on to Betis.  The starting team was identical to that which took the field in Spain.  Betis had Bellerin, resplendent with full-on \u201c1970s […]<\/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\/14012"}],"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=14012"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14017,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14012\/revisions\/14017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}