{"id":1895,"date":"2020-12-04T08:38:12","date_gmt":"2020-12-04T08:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1895"},"modified":"2020-12-05T14:43:20","modified_gmt":"2020-12-05T14:43:20","slug":"on-song-arsenal-waltz-over-the-vienna-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=1895","title":{"rendered":"On-song Arsenal waltz over the Vienna Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Stuart MacFarlane\/Arsenal FC via Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Writing one of these things after a game isn\u2019t easy. What to include, what not to include, how not to be boring. My apologies if I don\u2019t figure out the latter. It turns out that what our dear Goonerholic did for so many years was hard graft; mixed with his talent he shone like the polestar in the constellations of our Arsenal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But to the task. Arsenal played Rapid Vienna yesterday evening at the Emirates in front of 2,000 excited, mostly masked supporters, who filled the lower bowl at very appropriate social distances. It marked the first time since England\u2019s Covid restrictions were imposed that a crowd sat at a top-tier football game. And they were treated to some beautiful football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal lined up in a 4-4-2, or, it could be argued, in a 4-4-1-1. In either formation Lacazette was paired with Eddie up front, either across the width or along the pitch. We played a fairly conventional midfield four, with Maitland-Niles and Elneny holding the center for Pepe and Nelson on the flanks. Our back five had Kolasinac and Cedric playing the corners, though they had license to push up, on either side of Mar\u00ed and Mustafi. Runarsson patrolled between the sticks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a progressive lineup, though for the first ten minutes or so of the game you\u2019d be forgiven to wonder if they stayed late at the pubs last night. Lots of bitty back and forth, with Arsenal (I can\u2019t even say \u201cthe team in red\u201d because we wore our blue third colours for this game) holding most of the ball trying to work triangles on either side of the pitch just inside Vienna\u2019s half. Lacazette and Eddie shuttled across the pitch in support, but we just couldn\u2019t get much going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly, from a Vienna throw-in near midfield on the left, we were up 1-0. The ball bounced off Kitagawa for Maitland-Niles to head forward. The ball pinged around a bit and ended up at Lacazette\u2019s feet 40 yards from goal. He looked up, touched the ball once, then unleashed a stinging, swerving, unstoppable drive past Strebinger. If the ball had ripped a hole in the net I\u2019d not have been surprised. What a way to get back into the goals, Laca!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 1-0 Rapid (Lacazette, 10)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This led to a period where Arsenal held the ball really well, and made pretty patterns that yielded a few opportunities to increase the lead. A nice sequence of passes after a Vienna goal kick led to a corner, taken short; Pepe left his man for dead and fired a sweet cross that Mustafi headed wide. He should have done better. Smart work by Eddie at the touchline earned us another corner that was wasted, as was a freekick after a foul on Laca\u2026though that led to a corner taken by Pepe. He swung the ball in from the left, and Mar\u00ed made a darting run leaving the Viennese defense to look like statues on loan from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. His glancing header nestled into the far corner off the post for a well-deserved second goal. Welcome back, Pablo!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 2-0 Rapid (Mar\u00ed, 17)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, Arsenal spent the ten minutes after the goal playing some of the best football we\u2019ve seen in weeks. One move down the right started with a ball from Mustafi to Nelson, who played it to Cedric and took off like a rabbit down the side. Cedric passed it to Maitland-Niles, who dummied the ball into Nelson\u2019s path. Only a heavy first touch prevented Reiss from being in one-on-one with the keeper. Another move after a Cedric throw-in led to an exchange of passes with Nelson around the edge of Vienna\u2019s box. Only the post prevented Laca from scoring his second from the D on a beautifully weighted ball from Nelson inside the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, as the clock ticked towards the half hour mark we made more and more mistakes, giving Vienna some forward momentum and blunting what had been some very sharp Arsenal play. An errant deflection in the midfield led to a wild Vienna shot from well outside the box, and they used their increased energy to press us harder. Double-teamed down the right Nelson fed a small square ball to Maitland-Niles, who ran at the defense nearly to the penalty spot, where he tried a little dink that went wide left; he, too, should have done better from such a promising spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even as Vienna (especially the live-wire Kitagawa) was bringing themselves more into the game Arsenal played some lovely stuff. But it looked like the first ten minutes; in the 42nd minute an unfortunate foul by Elneny (that brought an undeserved yellow) on Kitagawa gave Vienna a lifeline from 40 yards out. The freekick came to nought, and ended up after a few passes in Runarsson’s hands for a goal kick. He banged it up left to midfield, where some one-touch passes by Arsenal led to a Laca throughball down the left channel for Pepe. His first time cross was perfectly placed for Nelson to cushion to Eddie, running into the box. Strebinger saved Eddie\u2019s shot, but the rebound came back and Eddie headed it in for Arsenal\u2019s third. A bit of luck, but, as they say, luck favors the prepared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 3-0 Rapid (Nketiah, 44)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half started with a slightly different team for Vienna (two players substituted), and Arsenal didn\u2019t handle it easily. Vienna came out and pressed well, penning us mostly in our own half before orchestrating a move down the left. Kitagawa\u2019s pass found Demir, who stung Runarsson’s palms with a close shot; the ball rebounded to Arase whose two attempts were blocked by Kola\u2019s wide body. The second of those blocks fell to Kitagawa who put a sharp volley past Runarsson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 3-1 Rapid (Kitagawa, 46)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the second half progressed neither team could really stake an advantage. Runarsson had to be called to action to gather a couple of Viennese attempts, while first Laca then Maitland-Niles missed opportunities in the box. We are fortunate such profligacy went unpunished. In the 63rd minute Willian came on for Nelson, Dani for Mo\u2019Neny, and Smith-Rowe entered the fray for Lacazette\u2026 taking off our two best players was, to me, a bit of a gamble. However, ESR dug right in, running our midfield with an aplomb belying his age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eddie missed a glorious chance from a Pepe cross, where with just a touch he would have fed the gaping goal mouth. But we were not to be denied our fourth goal. After Kitagawa was substituted in the 65th minute, Pepe intercepted a Vienna free kick about thirty yards out from goal and broke down the middle. He fed Maitland-Niles in the box; Ainsley put in a simple cross to the running ESR, who tapped into the empty net from six yards out. Welcome back, Emile!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 4-1 Rapid (Smith-Rowe, 66)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chambers replaced Mustafi (who, it is fair to say, had a decent game) in the 69th minute, Calum making his first appearance with the first team since he ruptured his ACL last December. His grin told the story, and he acquitted himself well. Arsenal continued to play intricate football, with a Willian dummy to Eddie nearly coming back to Eddie through ESR for a shot on goal, but Strebinger gathered. In all the back and forth Vienna took a corner and headed the ball over Runarsson’s goal, and Dani took a freekick from just outside the box that Strebinger tipped over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 83rd minute Balogun replaced Eddie; Folarin was immediately involved, holding the ball up in the box and nearly bringing Maitland-Niles in on goal. I am as excited about him as I am about ESR, and I do love me some ESR. Arsenal saw out the game on a series of corners and moving the ball nicely around their goal, though except for a snapshot by Willian off of a freekick and a Balogun volley over their bar we didn\u2019t really threaten to add a fifth star to the scoreline. The three minutes of added time passed and we ran out 4-1 winners, guaranteed to lead our group into the knockout rounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me Reiss Nelson was MOTM, for others Alexandre Lacazette; let\u2019s say they share the bottle today, both having played excellent games. There wasn\u2019t a lot to complain about, though the middle 20 minutes or so of the game held too many midfield mistakes, any one (or all) of which could have been punished by a Premier League team. But our overall quickness of foot and thought were impressive, our one-touch passing and our intricacy on either flank matched those through the middle of the final third, and we were well worth our 4 goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Clive, among others, suggested in the drinks, we should be playing kids, kids, and more kids in the final group game against Dundalk next week (though he pointed out there might be competing fixtures that would limit our pool from which to choose). I say start as many as we can, as well as our injury returnees (so Chambers and Mar\u00ed in defense, ESR in midfield) and perhaps their example will lead to us seeing this type of enjoyable technical football return to the Arsenal squad in more than just our Europa League games!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing one of these things after a game isn\u2019t easy. What to include, what not to include, how not to be boring. My apologies if I don\u2019t figure out the latter. It turns out that what our dear Goonerholic did for so many years was hard graft; mixed with his talent he shone like the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"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\/1895"}],"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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1895"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1913,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1895\/revisions\/1913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}