{"id":14042,"date":"2026-08-09T17:25:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-09T16:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14042"},"modified":"2026-08-11T14:41:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T13:41:40","slug":"no-trophy-but-no-disgrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=14042","title":{"rendered":"No Trophy but No Disgrace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Mikel Arteta made two changes from the team that started against Betis for the Emirates Cup starting line-up against BVB, bringing Gabriel in for Hincapi\u00e9 and \u00d8degaard for Nwaneri. New signing Guimar\u00e3es neither made the team nor the bench but did take the field wearing a home shirt to wave to the crowd from whom he received an enthusiastic welcome while Christos Tzolis made his Emirates debut. Encouragingly, given Kepa\u2019s recent difficulties, David Raya was involved in the warm-up though not part of the match-day squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dortmund kicked off in blistering sunshine before the rendition of \u2018North London Forever\u2019 was completed and Arsenal responded briskly with swift interplay. Gy\u00f6keres won an early corner and the keeper had to tip a deflection over the bar. In return, a raking BVB cross from the right was returned from the far side but was turned behind by a backtracking Tzolis – not his final piece of fine defending. That proved a warning because after only 6 minutes, a lovely through ball by Nmecha from the edge of our box was turned into the net by Inacio who had run off Mosquera, into the 6-yard box, far too easily. [0-1] <\/strong>Thereafter, BVB did look by far the sharper team and for ten minutes our good early start seemed a distant dream. Then a neat piece of interplay between Havertz and Tzolis set \u00d8degaard free running directly towards goal but he was tripped on the edge of the box. Gy\u00f6keres hammered the free kick high, wide and ugly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gy\u00f6keres was busily bustling around the Dortmund centre backs and running onto forward balls. A square pass to him from Havertz, darting behind the defence onto a lovely through ball from \u00d8degaard, was cut out by the BVB keeper. Havertz then ran onto a lofted ball down the left from \u00d8degaard and crossed, but Gy\u00f6keres\u2019 header flew wide. As we entered the second quarter, [:0)] Dowman darted into the box past a defender and cut the ball back for Gy\u00f6keres who turned and shot but hit the bar. Arsenal had fought back into control of the game when, somewhat against the run of play, they fell further behind. Karetsas was allowed to run from his own half and hit an unsaveable left foot shot past Kepa into the far top corner. [0-2] <\/strong> Gabriel was slow to close down the Greek but this was perhaps also evidence that MLS as a single pivot doesn\u2019t cover the width of the field quite as effectively as Rice does. Nwaneri replaced \u00d8degaard after 30 minutes, who had been looking lively on the ball and had been pulling most of the offensive strings, but the youngster found it hard to get involved in the remainder of the first half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 37 minutes, Dowman appeared to be tripped at the edge of the box near the bye line, but Gabriel\u2019s powerful header from Tzolis\u2019 excellent free kick flew over when he really should have hit the target. Tzolis then cut out a threatening ball at the edge of our box and broke forward, the ball ultimately reaching Gy\u00f6keres in the BVB box. The Swede fell after a buffeting from a big defender but was not rewarded with a penalty. However, he did get a free kick on the right flank a few minutes later from which Tzolis hit a beautiful cross, met by Havertz but the German’s header went straight to the keeper. Before half time, Gabriel was rather harshly booked for a foul after a heavy touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half Time: Arsenal 0 – 2 BVB<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another disappointing half-time scoreline but, given that game-time is currently more important than the result, it was slightly assuaged by good performances from Tzolis, \u00d8degaard, Dowman, Gy\u00f6keres, Havertz and MLS. We definitely looked undercooked for a spell after the first goal but we looked to be recovering our creative edge when we conceded the second goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meslier replaced Kepa at half-time. We started the second half with more energy and worked harder off the ball – did Mikel have a half-time word?.A lovely early move saw a sweet reverse pass from Dowman to White but his shot was deflected into the side netting. Some lovely work by Tzolis in our own half ended with him juggling the ball in the BVB area before cutting it back to Nwaneri on the penalty spot who fired it into the net on 53 minutes. [1-2] <\/strong>Finally, chants of \u201cArsenal, Arsenal\u201d rang out from the previously somnolent crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However only 3 minutes later, failure to clear a corner resulted in a stramash (props to Arthur Montford) in front of Meslier\u2019s goal and a close range shot from Gadou landed in the net. [1-3]<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the hour, Salmon and Hincapi\u00e9 replaced Gabriel and Calafiori.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dowman released Havertz in the box but his shot was blocked for a corner then Nwaneri\u2019s fine shot from 18 yards forced the keeper into a good diving save low to his right. A Dowman shot from a similar range then gave the keeper another, somewhat easier, save. Gy\u00f6keres was then released by a nicely threaded pass by Dowman, but the Swede\u2019s lack of pace allowed the BVB defence to recover and force him away from goal. At the three-quarter mark [:0)], Tzolis was tripped as he traversed the box and Gy\u00f6keres cooly stroked the ball low into the right corner of the goal from the spot. [2-3]<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Salmon made crucial sliding challenges to prevent two BVB breakaways before the second hydration break on 75 minutes after which we had seven substitutions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martinelli for Tzolis, Jes\u00f9s for Gy\u00f6keres, Vieira for Dowman, Ibrahim for MLS, O\u2019Neill for Havertz, Julienne for White and Ogunnaike for Mosquera with Hincapi\u00e9 moving to left centre-back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This opportunity for youngsters and fringe players to make a case for more game-time was pretty much spurned. Vieira made a good pass into the box which Jes\u00f9s badly mis-controlled and then the Portuguese player had a mazy dribble towards the box but finished with a poor final pass. Arsenal\u2019s youngsters did have territorial dominance and BVB didn’t threaten our goal while O\u2019Neill stood out for his work rate but the game wound down uneventfully until the last minute of added time. Martinelli ran along the byeline after a neat pass by Jes\u00f9s. His shot was deflected into the goal by the Dortmund keeper, sadly only for the lineswoman to flag for offside. It looked a very borderline call from the far side of the pitch but there was no VAR to fall back on. And that was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Time: Arsenal 2 – 3 BVB<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strangely, even though Dortmund had won the game, a penalty shoot out was provided to end the entertainment. Meslier saved one of the five penalties he faced. Jes\u00f9s, Vieira, Hincapi\u00e9, Martinelli and Nwaneri all scored their penalties to win the shoot-out 5-4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was clearly not the result we wanted, but the Arsenal played better than they had done in Dublin and several key players provided strong performances before they were subbed. Tzolis gave an excellent performance on his Emirates debut, Dowman showed touches of genius and both Gy\u00f6keres and \u00d8degaard look ready for action. In addition to those who had shone in the first half, Nwaneri was more involved in the second half and he took his goal well while Salmon again looked very composed at centre back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of the day, this match was primarily about getting minutes into legs and developing match sharpness. It’s an ugly trophy anyway! We shall seek silverware elsewhere this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mikel Arteta made two changes from the team that started against Betis for the Emirates Cup starting line-up against BVB, bringing Gabriel in for Hincapi\u00e9 and \u00d8degaard for Nwaneri. New signing Guimar\u00e3es neither made the team nor the bench but did take the field wearing a home shirt to wave to the crowd from whom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"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\/14042"}],"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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14042"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14055,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14042\/revisions\/14055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}