{"id":219,"date":"2020-01-28T12:28:06","date_gmt":"2020-01-28T12:28:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adobrzanski.ddns.net\/goonerholics\/?p=219"},"modified":"2020-07-26T15:29:57","modified_gmt":"2020-07-26T14:29:57","slug":"finally-an-away-win-as-saka-splats-cherries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=219","title":{"rendered":"Finally an away win as Saka splats Cherries"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Bournemouth<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An away ticket to Bournemouth is one of the most eagerly sought amongst the Arsenal away going fans. Why? Because there are so few of them. The tiny Vitality stadium only has a capacity of 11,300. So for a standard Premier League game we get 5%, or just under 600. There are 1000 fans on the away scheme. So they rarely go to anyone not in the away scheme (which has been closed to new entrants for about a decade) and there are very few if any tickets left. The Boxing day game sold out at 65 credits (the max anyone could have at this time of the year is about 67 and that means you\u2019ve been to every away game for three years). In the FA Cup we get 15%, or 1700 tix. This game still sold out at 50 credits, way above my current 24. However I was lucky enough to be offered a spare by a North Bank buddy and so as I made the journey south I was quite excited to be making my first visit to AFC Bournemouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

170 mile drive through pouring rain and so to my parking spot. I get my parking spaces on other folk\u2019s drives via the JustPark App (others are available) and this was a honey. Mostly when people say it\u2019s 10 minutes walk to the ground, you can guarantee that it\u2019s 15. Well the owner of this spot also exaggerated, but the other way!  You could see the floodlights from her house. She said 5 minutes to the ground but it was more like 90 seconds. Into the area around the ground and a very civilised looking eating area. Not for the likes of me though \u2013 Home fans only! I was directed round the back of the stands to a very sorry looking tea stand, where Bovril and a pie were consumed. It\u2019s not always the best curry house in Leicester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Into the stand. With our increased allocation we got the whole of the Ted McDougal stand. Good views (I was in row 5 behind the goal) and a crinkly tin roof which always aids the singing (think Craven Cottage). The team comes up on the BBC site and Arteta has picked a strong, but young team. Nobody making a debut but lots of up and comings. Eddie Nketiah started for the first time since coming back from Leeds. Strong bench including Laca and Ozil. Auba and Luiz suspended. Arteta loves this competition. He won it twice with us and knows what it means. He picked a team to win this game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was in early enough to watch the warm up. This was interesting. I\u2019ve seen it at home in recent games as well. Instead of circular games of one touch football, not taken at all seriously by the players, we had several players, usually Eddie, Martinelli and Willock, exchanging passes from the half way line, then putting in a ball \u201cbehind the fullback\u201d to Saka and continuing their run into the box. Saka picked the ball up and fired in crosses. Eddie managed to miss at least four from six yards (perhaps, like Gary Lineker, he doesn\u2019t like to waste goals in warm ups). But this training ground practice was to pay dividends shortly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to kick off, but first a word about the away support. Magnificent. We started singing before the teams came out and sang continuously for the whole game. It made for a great atmosphere and this is why I love away game. We started at 100mph. Bournemouth sat off us and we filled the space with pace, skill and verve. After 5 minutes we were ahead with a lovely goal. Willock rolled Gosling just in their half and drove forward, Thomas Rosicky like, into their box. He slipped it to Martinelli, who rolled the ball beautifully into the path of Saka who absolutely blasted it in at the near post. Van Persie or Poldoski in their prime could not have hit it better with their sweet left feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 mins. Bournemouth 0-1 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was only one team in it as we continued to play fluent passing football, with Saka and Martinelli down our left flank combining really well and Willock driving into space in midfield. After another 20 minutes we scored another great goal. This time Joe Willock flung it out wide to Saka on the left wing who made some ground before playing that ball from the warm up towards the penalty spot. Martinelli took the defence away with his fine run, leaving space which Eddie ghosted into for an emphatic left footed tap in. For some obscure reason there was a long VAR delay but eventually the goal was given.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26 mins. Bournemouth 0-2 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was definitely Bukayo Saka\u2019s break through game. Already a goal and an assist. He is 18 years old, English from the leafy suburb of Ealing, London W5, and a winger by trade playing at left back. On the club website he is not even listed as a first team player, but is on the Academy list. What a prospect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bournemouth came back into the game in the last 15 minutes of the half. Martinez had to make a good save from Gosling. We started to give the ball away. Xhaka (who otherwise had a good game) played a trademark cross field pass in our half straight to an opposition player. Wilson was booked for foul on Eddie. The game got scrappier, with Guendouzi doing most of the scrapping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This continued in the second half, which was riddled by players going down for injuries and the physios saw lots of action. Martinez collided with Mustafi who fell heavily clutching his ankle and had to be stretchered off. He got a sympathy song and had, in all fairness, had a good first half. Rob Holding came on the a loud chorus of <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rob Holding
y\u2019know
he\u2019s better than Cannavaro!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Great to see Rob back. Brilliant in the Cup Final against Chelsea, barely played since due to injury. But if Mustafi\u2019s injury is serious we have a centreback crisis that needs resolving somehow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bournemouth were much better in the second half and we made little progress going forward. They looked dangerous from set pieces and Martinez flapped at bit at crosses, creating opportunity for them. Dani Ceballos (drinks Estrella, eats paella) came on for Pepe who had been bright, lively (he even crossed a ball with his right foot) but with no end product again. Hector went down winded from a great aerial interception. Saka went down, Gosling and Sokratis clashed heads and went down. All these injuries made for a very disjointed game. Xhaka got booked for time wasting. 8 minutes injury time went up on the board. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally our defence was breached. An innocuous looking ball into the box eluded everybody and fell to sub Surridge who slipped it into our goal in the 4th<\/sup> minute of injury time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

94 mins. Bournemouth 1-2 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end 11 minutes of injury time were played but we held\non. Job done and onto Fratton Park, Portsmouth in the next round. I thought our\nstand out players were many: Saka; Willock; Martinelli; Eddie; Guendouzi;\nBellerin; Sokratis and Xhaka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back into the car. Home about 1am thanks to empty motorways.\nA thoroughly enjoyable away day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An away ticket to Bournemouth is one of the most eagerly sought amongst the Arsenal away going fans. Why? Because there are so few of them. The tiny Vitality stadium only has a capacity of 11,300. So for a standard Premier League game we get 5%, or just under 600. There are 1000 fans on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"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\/219"}],"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\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=219"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1142,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219\/revisions\/1142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}