{"id":2595,"date":"2021-03-19T18:29:09","date_gmt":"2021-03-19T18:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=2595"},"modified":"2021-03-21T04:00:58","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T04:00:58","slug":"stumbling-into-the-quarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=2595","title":{"rendered":"Stumbling into the Quarters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like a drunken sailor out all night before the morning when his ship is to sail, Arsenal somehow still managed to stumble through the alleyways in the port and dragged themselves over the gangplank to land successfully onboard in the quarter finals of the Europa League just when the captain had made up his mind to depart without them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the post-match interview, our no-nonsense goalkeeper summarized the performance perfectly: \u201cWe won\u2019t win anything playing like that\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It didn\u2019t have to be like that. We started the second leg against Olympiacos at home, with a healthy 3-1 advantage thanks to three excellent goals by \u00d8degaard, Gabriel and Elneny away at Piraeus. Last Sunday we had comprehensively outplayed and beaten the Spuds 2-1 \u2013 however, in the light of yesterday\u2019s thumping at the hand of the Croatian champions maybe we should really not pay much significance to that result? (Insert your choice of emoji here.) All we needed to do was play with composure and commitment, without either panic or complacency, and let our overall technical superiority count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But none of that happened. Except for the first 20-25 minutes, we played with a combination of technical mistakes, half-hearted challenges, lack of organization, goalmouth profligacy, and, eventually, shivers of panic \u2013 a potent cocktail of characteristics that if captured in a chilled martini glass can be perfectly named an \u201cArsenal\u201d. A few drinks of such a tremor-inducing cocktail was probably what our sailor had imbibed as he stumbled back on to his ship. So, you may ask, now as confused as David Luiz had looked yesterday: is Arsenal the drink<\/em> or the drinker<\/em> in this attempt at a painfully convoluted metaphor? Both, my dear friends, both. Arsenal drank a lot of Arsenals last night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mikel\u2019s team selection indicated a willingness to rotate without sacrificing quality, and betrayed no obvious signs of conservatism maybe except for Dani Ceballos in the number 10 role which has lately been graced by the iron fist in a velvet glove sophistication of first Emile Smith-Rowe and then Martin \u00d8degaard.  Captain Aubameyang returned to the team after successfully scoring one over the North London traffic jam. Nicolas P\u00e9p\u00e9 took the place of Bukayo Saka who was recovering after a never-ending series of manhandling by opposition defenders throughout the season finally took its toll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leno<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bellerin \u2013 Luiz \u2013 Gabriel \u2013 Tierney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elneny \u2013 Xhaka<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P\u00e9p\u00e9 \u2013 Ceballos \u2013 ESR<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aubameyang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We started brightly enough with Dani, ESR and P\u00e9p\u00e9 pressing well from the front. Around 5th<\/sup> minute ESR\u2019s shot bounced back against Sokratis onto Emile and then the subsequent collision left both clutching their heads. Thankfully neither was injured.  Most of our early attacking was typically left side biased but Olympiacos had well prepared for the Tierney-ESR combo and they weren\u2019t having as much of a joy as in the weekend. Tierney earned a free-kick that Dani wasted with a poor delivery into the box. Luiz sent one long floating pass down the right that P\u00e9p\u00e9 after controlling superbly couldn\u2019t beat his defender and earned a corner. Around the 19th<\/sup> minute we almost scored \u2013 from a breezy counter attack Ceballos found P\u00e9p\u00e9 with both Sokratis and the Sa, the Olympiaco goalkeeper, converging on the ball. P\u00e9p\u00e9\u2019s goal-bound attempt deflected off the feet of Papa to squeeze agonizingly past the empty net. He probably should have tried to pass it to Aubameyang who had an empty net in front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just a minute later we almost conceded in a familiar fashion. A straight kick from Sa cleared above our high but static defensive line and El-Arabi (who has now made a bit of habit of scoring against us) saw his low rasping drive saved brilliantly by Leno\u2019s outstretched legs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 25th<\/sup> minute we should really have scored. Dani Ceballos \u2013 who had a very mixed game combining some good forward passing with many a dangerous lapse of concentration in possession \u2013 found Auba in a central position with a perfectly timed and weighted pass. Out captain\u2019s movement was sharp, his body shape was precise, and he only had the goalkeeper to beat with enough time to choose the direction and height of the shot. He shot straight and high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That was probably the best we played in the match. After that Olympiacos started to dominate more and more, we started losing all the 50-50 challenges in the midfield and our passing \u2013 under pressure but even without being pressed \u2013 became increasingly erratic. However, just before the first half ended ESR and Dani combined briskly down the left and ESR\u2019s curling effort lacked the power to beat the goalkeeper who gathered the shot comfortably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half started in a similar vein. Luiz missed a headed clearance from which Olympiacos shot wide. Tierney showed his defensive qualities in clearing a cross. We started dropping back deeper and deeper and Xhaka and Elneny lost any semblance of control in the midfield. While in an advanced attacking position Dani lost possession of the ball \u2013 not for the first time \u2013 from which Olympiacos came swarming in towards our defense down our right. Neither Bellerin nor P\u00e9p\u00e9 could catch up with the speed of their counter-counter-attack nor did Elneny provide any covering for our right flank. Luiz got his positioning all wrong while facing El-Arabi and his shot deflected off David into Arsenal goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal 0 \u2013 Olympiacos 1  (El-Arabi 51\u2019)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sensing the danger of the tie slipping away Mike rang in the changes. Elneny and Ceballos, both hugely unimpressive, were replaced by Partey and \u00d8degaard. These atypical early dual substitution was a clear indication how worried Mikel must have felt at that time, just like the rest of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard improved our control over the game and combined well with P\u00e9p\u00e9 to create a half-chance for \u00d8degaard around 76th<\/sup> minute from which Martin shot high. Before that, around 60th<\/sup> minute Tierney surged forward and provided a perfect cut-back across their penalty box that P\u00e9p\u00e9 met with an excellent goalbound effort which unfortunately stuck ESR on the way in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Olympiacos still needed two goals, and sensing the increasing doubts and lack of concentration in our game they poured forward with self-belief. From one such Olympiacos attack we sprung a perfect counter-attack when Xhaka fed \u00d8degaard who passed it on to the path of Aubameyang who kept himself onside and after beating the defenders easily on his pace found himself one-on-one against Sa, the Olympiacos goalkeeper. Auba somehow managed not to finish the move, as his left footed dink after beating Sa spun harmlessly away from the goal. This was on the 81st<\/sup> minute and there were still ten plus minutes left for Olympiacos to make us pay for that mistake. Just like they did last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thankfully, history didn\u2019t repeat itself. A sub-par Bellerin was replaced by Chambers, and Martinelli came on for an exhausted Emile; it was nice to finally see Gabi back playing. Ars\u00e8ne Wenger once famously said about Tom\u00e1\u0161 Rosick\u00fd that \u201cif you love football you must love Rosick\u00fd\u201d. Not comparing Martinelli the footballer to super TR7 in any way, but I feel the same about him: the kind of intensity and positivity with which Martinelli behaves on the field should bring pure joy to anyone who loves football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His pressing earned him an early elbow on the face. The offender rightly saw a yellow, and then another one for expressing his displeasure, to reduce Olympiacos to ten men. It is the kind of red card generally Arsenal players are awarded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martinelli continued to press well, then made a great run down the left and set Auba up with a perfect cross. Auba\u2019s sensational flicked finish was saved equally sensationally by Sa. We survived the last few minutes without any scare as the entire team defended well enough as a collective towards the end, \u00d8degaard keeping a cool head in possession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The match ended with us winning 3-2 on aggregate, and the record of never winning both the home and away legs against Olympiacos kept intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We will have to play much better \u2013 and score from our chances \u2013 if we are to harbor any serious hope of winning the Europa league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like a drunken sailor out all night before the morning when his ship is to sail, Arsenal somehow still managed to stumble through the alleyways in the port and dragged themselves over the gangplank to land successfully onboard in the quarter finals of the Europa League just when the captain had made up his mind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"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\/2595"}],"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\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2598,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2595\/revisions\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}