{"id":3821,"date":"2021-08-23T09:52:54","date_gmt":"2021-08-23T08:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3821"},"modified":"2021-08-24T20:52:04","modified_gmt":"2021-08-24T19:52:04","slug":"young-arsenal-team-receive-harsh-lesson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=3821","title":{"rendered":"Young Arsenal Team Receive Harsh Lesson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.co.uk\/detail\/1302121353\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1302121353?et=_2aTuUEZS2JGMmPLt-NSFg&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;sig=3qhzpKgPpySdVkQIk2x-61gNnOjjUKK0CT_4SpPLkn0=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Regular drinkers in this establishment may recall how when he got to that point in the Season Ticket waiting list, my nephew found that  he and his brother-in-law couldn&#8217;t quite manage the price of the two season tickets they&#8217;d hoped for, and my sister-in-law chipped in the odd 20% that was needed. Ever since the three have split the fixtures in rough proportion to their investment and I have been able to attemd a small number of games per season courtesy of my Nevvy&#8217;s Mum. So it was that an email arrived  asking whether I would like to go to the first home match of the season, against some mob from out West. In less time than it takes to recall events I had typed &#8220;Yes&#8221; and pressed send. All that remained was to persuade Dr Faustus, who was originally slated to write this review, that as I would be unlikely to get many chances I might be given the opportunity instead, and this article was born. (To be absolutely fair, no persuasion was needed, and without checking, I find it hard to believe that I even asked particularly nicely. Thanks again Doc, I really do mean that.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The more persipcacious of you may think that it&#8217;s well past time that I turned to the football, and so with a heavy heart I do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The NM and I got to our seats in block 113 rather earlier than planned, in good time to see the squads practising on the pitch. Perhaps I should have been more concerned when the back line (of whom I recognised half) could be seen practising running away from the penalty area in a line &#8211; I think Tierney was even practising raising his hand as they did so. Still, kick-off time rolled around and the Arsenal started fairly brightly; at one point my companion turned to me claiming that she&#8217;d never seen Arsenal move the ball upfield so quickly &#8211; I think that&#8217;s unfair to the teams of the past few seasons but I take the point that the team showed genuine attacking intent. Sadly, it was not to last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After about a quarter of an hour an Arsenal attack broke down, the ball was played forward at less than breakneck speed, a Chelsea player won a challenge in the middle of the field about 20 yards out, played the ball to his right to a team-mate who was able to run into the area and pass the ball past Leno into the back of the net.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 0 &#8211; Chelsea 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was surprised to find that the scorer was Lukaku, who I had thought was the bloke who&#8217;d won the ball in the middle. Maybe the guy to his right squared it back for him to score, maybe I was just wrong. (I found identifying the players more than usually difficult today as, for the first time for ages, I didn&#8217;t buy a programme &#8211; a decision not intended as a protest against the outrageous prices charged, but simply because I had no cash to hand when we passed the first vendor and I didn&#8217;t spot another before we got to our seats.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team seemed crushed by this setback and heads seemed to drop. However, the match continued with Arsenal once more having rather more of the ball than Chelsea. While there was little running at speed at and through the opposition there was no shortage of attacking intent. Sadly, about twenty minutes later, following another breakdown of an Arsenal attack, Chelsea went down their left wing, won a cross, won another challenge towards their right, and scored a second goal from somewhere around the left corner of the Arsenal penalty area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 0 &#8211; Chelsea 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This time, I&#8217;m sure that the guy who won one of the challenges in the immediate buld-up to the goal was Lukaku a certainty bolstered by the fact that the scorer was named as someone else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team played the rest of the first half apparently in even worse heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Second half<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the interval things carried on much as before, and while Arsenal didn&#8217;t look very likely to score, neither really did Chelsea. The difference, however, was that the Chelsea defence didn&#8217;t look likely to concede, while the long ago days of Arsenal defensive solidity don&#8217;t look as though they will return any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I doubt I shall remember much about this game in a few months time &#8211; even eight hours later there is little that comes to mind &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>A missed header by Holding from inside the penalty area that a fellow spectator, whose expertise I have no reason to doubt, asserted would have been easier to score from;<\/li><li>A lung-busting solo break from Tierney that led to the ball bouncing around the right side of the Chelsea penalty area which seemed to give rise to unjustified excitement amongst the crowd near us. I seem to recall Good Things almost coming from the resulting corner &#8211; perhaps Holding&#8217;s miss?<\/li><li>A diving save from Leno that in a perfect world obviously wouldn&#8217;t have been required.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game looked like men against boys, which to be fair, shouldn&#8217;t surprise anyone. The Arsenal team looked as though they hadn&#8217;t been playing together for very long, which again shouldn&#8217;t come as a surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The post-match atmosphere was odd. There seemed no anger amongst the crowd, and little surprise. This may have been because the Angery Brigade (sic) were disproportionately represented in those who left early &#8211; far, far more than I remember. It may have been a realisation that this team aren&#8217;t really likely to be title contenders this season, so there&#8217;s no point getting unduly exercised by a bad result. I felt that the team put in an honest shift and that they simply lost to superior opposition; maybe I got that one right and the crowd agreed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My fellow drinkers will, I&#8217;m sure, not be surprised to read that I have no quick solutions to offer as to how we can emerge from our current trough. I propose, with absolutely no expectation of widespread support, that the ONLY option is patience. We have assembled an impressive group of talented youngsters. They need time to get used to one another as well as to augment their considerable talent with a judicious admixture of experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep the faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Disclaimer: I&#8217;ve written this review immediately on my return home, without seeing the last set of drinks, MoTD or any social or conventional media. My memory may be completely wide of the mark; if it is, I apologise and I promise that if another opportunity arises I shall try to do better.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Regular drinkers in this establishment may recall how when he got to that point in the Season Ticket waiting list, my nephew found that he and his brother-in-law couldn&#8217;t quite manage the price of the two season tickets they&#8217;d hoped for, and my sister-in-law chipped in the odd 20% that was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"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\/3821"}],"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\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3821"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3842,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3821\/revisions\/3842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}