As the team news came through we found out that Gabriel\nMartinelli had shown enough to Mikel Arteta to keep his place in the team.\nPerhaps surprisingly, Lacazette also kept his place and we started with him up\ntop and Gabi on the right flank, Auba on the left and Ozil at 10. Mustafi\nstarted and Torreira was left on the bench.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the second minute Mustafi played a good ball out of\ndefence to Ozil, who turned infield and spread the play wide to Auba. His cross\nwas met by Lacazette whose header went wide. If he were in better form it was a\nchance he would expect to bury. We had started the brighter side and in the\nfourteenth minute Luiz played a lovely ball over the top to Aubameyang who had\ntimed his diagonal run from wide left towards goal expertly. He control was\ngood but his shot was shanked wide. We should have been two goals ahead. Would\nwe rue these missed chances?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Almost immediately after this Burnley began to grow into the game. They pressed better as we struggled to play out from the back and we misplaced too many passes in midfield, with Ozil, Laca, Xhaka and especially Guendouzi guilty of careless moments. Burnley\u2019s play was the same as always- all long balls and crosses from wide. Their first chance was a long range shot from Rodriguez just shy of twenty minutes in. Unlike us, they had now registered a shot on target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saka was struggling with a knee injury and his reduced\nmobility robbed us of an attacking outlet that had, in truth, looked less\neffective with Aubameyang ahead of him than it has recently done with\nMartinelli. He struggled on to half time but if we were not already playing our\nthird choice left back we would surely have subbed him off. Mustafi won a good\nheader which the Burnley fans thought was a foul. They began singing \u2018Same Old\nArsenal\u2019. I would have thought they appreciated a brave header but apparently\nthat\u2019s only from one side. Mind you, as their team hoofed long balls and\ncrosses from any and all conceivable angles they repeatedly broke out into\nchants of \u2018anti-football\u2019 in reference to a David Luiz comment. If it was meant\nironically then it missed its mark. As they jeered and booed our injured\nplayers I doubt I was the only one thinking they are not my favourite set of\nfans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Auba was played through by a Xhaka ball that was a carbon copy of the one from Luiz. His control was not so good and he was too close to the keeper when he shot, although it apparently counted as our first shot on target. Ozil had started well but began to find less space and fade out of the game. We lost all control in midfield and were chasing around with energy but without much knowhow. Gabi was finding it hard to get into the game and Lacazette even more so. Defensively we looked less and less confident dealing with the aerial bombardment and there were a few hairy moments in our box when Burnley applied a lot of pressure and could easily have seen something find our goal or fall kindly for one of their players. Rodriguez in particular got a tiny flick on a knockdown that Leno gratefully clasped to his chest. Had he got a little more on it the keeper would have been stranded. Halftime came as a relief to us, the match had swung firmly towards the home team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the second half Saka was replaced by Torreira and Xhaka\nslotted in at left-back. Left-back has become such an important position for us\nsince Arteta took over that Saka\u2019s\ninjury cost us dearly, Xhaka\u2019s qualities will never run to bombing up and down\nthe flank, making overlaps and crossing from the byline. We could not shift our\nplay the to the other side, Hector not able to overlap, leaving us with big\nproblems getting the ball from the base of midfield into wide areas and on into\nthe box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burnley started the second period more brightly than us\nwithout creating any clear cut chances. In the 57th<\/sup> minute Torreira\nfound himself joining Xhaka and Ozil on a yellow card and this reflected the\nfact that they were still the team applying all the pressure. Soon afterwards\nHendrick beat Xhaka in the air but the attentions of our makeshift fullback\nwere enough to prevent him burying a good chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We began to find our way back into the game and looked more\nassured. Martinelli and Aubameyang swapped sides which immediately looked more\ncomfortable for Gabi without reducing the threat Auba posed. We had a spell\nwhere we were back on top, although we were not creating chances. I was hoping\nwe would take off Lacazette, who worked hard but had a tough game, bring on\nPepe on the right and put Auba up top. The way Burnley defend in banks means\nthey leave big spaces for a pacy player who has beaten his man, so I thought\nPepe would be perfect for this game, but my wish was not granted and both our\nwide men struggled to go past the Burnley fullbacks who had good games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hector cut inside and hit a left foot shot over the bar. For just a moment we were dreaming of a repeat of his recent strike at Chelsea. Then Lacazette fashioned a wonderful cross which Auba should have scored from. For a moment I thought he had but it went the wrong side of the post. Then came the chance of the match. They played in a high and loopy cross which Leno might have come for but he left it and so did the rest of our team. Auba showed his defensive weakness on the right, letting their number 11 win the knockdown unchallenged only for Hendrick to volley it into the bar. It rebounded down onto the goal line but the technology clearly showed that our initial despair was unwarranted, the whole ball had not crossed the line. We had well and truly got away with one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Could this be a lucky moment that we could capitalise on, as\nhas happened so often at Burnley in recent years? Unfortunately not. Laca was\nbelatedly brought off for Eddie Nketiah to get four minutes of play. It was\nstrange that he was not brought on sooner. There were no more clear chances and\nthe match ended with both teams fighting hard but lacking cutting edge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Burnley were tough and physical but they were not dirty\ntoday. Mikel Arteta had said before the game that he had no problem with their\nusual tactics and, unlike Stoke teams I remember, they executed them robustly\nbut within the laws of the game. We stood up fairly well to what we knew was\ncoming. I have the feeling that under our former coach we would have lost\ntoday. However, we were not clinical with our chances and after the Saka injury\nleft us imbalanced I thought the boss could have moved more swiftly and\ndecisively to change the patterns of our play. He is still the right man and he\nis learning his team and his job. His players all worked hard for him and all\nof them had decent games without anyone being particularly good or bad and a\ndraw was a fair result. As he gets a lot of (deserved) stick on his bad days I\nwill say that Mustafi had an unexpectedly good game, just to leave us on a high\nnote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ll make it two high notes\u2026 we don\u2019t have to go back there\nfor another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m with John Cooper Clarke about that place. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As the team news came through we found out that Gabriel Martinelli had shown enough to Mikel Arteta to keep his place in the team. Perhaps surprisingly, Lacazette also kept his place and we started with him up top and Gabi on the right flank, Auba on the left and Ozil at 10. Mustafi started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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\/256"}],"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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1143,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/1143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}