{"id":4230,"date":"2021-11-08T11:53:30","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T11:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4230"},"modified":"2021-11-19T15:05:00","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T15:05:00","slug":"the-stingers-stung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4230","title":{"rendered":"The Stingers Stung"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Danny Rose, winner of the All-England cake eating championships, clatters Lacazette <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal came into this game off the back of two straight league wins and were enjoying a nine-match unbeaten run in all competitions stretching back to the end of August. Newly promoted Watford had predictably found themselves in a relegation dogfight and had already sacked their manager, replacing him with former Chelsea and Leicester manager, Claudio Ranieri who interestingly had never beaten Arsenal in the premier league. The Gunners knew that they could climb to fifth, three points above \u201ctitle contenders\u201d Manchester United with victory over the Hornets. However, if previous meetings were anything to go by, this would be far from straightforward for Mikel Arteta\u2019s side. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a very positive atmosphere around the ground at kick off, due to our upturn in both performances and results and that seemed to transmit to the pitch as Arsenal once again started fast and on the front foot. We thought we had the lead after nine minutes after Ainsley Maitland Niles, filling in for the injured Thomas Partey, played an incisive through ball to Lacazette, splitting the Watford backline. The Frenchman swivelled and shot but his effort was well saved by Ben Foster, who seemingly always plays a blinder against us, but it went only as far as Aubameyang whose poor touch fortuitously found its way to Saka to calmly slot the ball home. But wait! The replays showed that while Saka was behind the final Watford defender, he was beyond the ‘keeper when Aubameyang mis-played the ball to him, therefore VAR correctly disallowed the goal. 0-0. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Gunners didn\u2019t let that stop their flow. Arsenal continued to dominate possession and Lokonga had one or two long range efforts. Then after thirty-five minutes Arsenal earned a penalty and a golden chance to take the lead when Lacazette was scythed down by Tottenham reject Danny Rose following an aerial ‘duel’. Aubameyang stepped up to take it. He struck the ball well enough but unfortunately Foster guessed correctly and dived to his right to make an impressive save and there was to be no rebound for the skipper as there was in the win over Villa. The Watford fans celebrated as if they had scored. Watford then had a rare sniff of goal when Lokonga was robbed of possession and the Watford attacker\u2019s shot was deflected wide by Benjamin White. At the other end we nearly scored when Gabriel rose highest for a corner and the Brazilian saw his header well saved again by the legs of the impressive Foster. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half time. A disallowed goal, a missed penalty but no goals at the break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second half began in a similar vein with Arsenal dictating the play with lots of possession. The home crowd remained supportive, positive and confident; they sensed a goal was inevitable. Lokonga saw another effort gathered by Foster and then the inevitable goal arrived. As Benjamin White surged out of defence yet again, he was tackled just outside the area, but the ball fell to Emile Smith Rowe who stroked it home beautifully. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1-0 to The Arsenal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carnage ensued all around the Emirates. The home fans were delighted, Danny Rose was raging about something, possibly because he finally realised, he\u2019s not as good as he thinks he is, but the Gunners took a deserved lead. How would Watford react? Not very well was the answer as the home side continued to dominate. Lacazette was replaced by Martin \u00d8degaard and the Norwegian almost made an instant impact. Saka fed him on the right-hand side of the box, he jinked it past a defender, onto his weaker right foot, and his shot went past the keeper and was clearly going in, before Aubameyang, understandably keen to make up for his penalty miss, rather unnecessarily prodded the ball over the line. He was clearly in an offside position and the goal was, once again, correctly ruled out. \u00d8degaard put his head in his hands as did all the Arsenal fans. Still only 1-0. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still only 1-0 indeed. As the game approached its final stages Watford realised they needed to attack if they were going to get anything out the game. There was one hairy moment when a long ball was pumped up towards the lively Josh King, who rounded Ramsdale, who was a mere spectator up to this point. Thankfully the angle was too tight as the Norwegian hit the side netting as he tried to squeeze in an equaliser. Then in the 88th<\/sup> minute the game was effectively won when the once again impressive Nuno Tavares embarked on another mazy dribble and was brought down by Juraj Kucka. The Slovakian defender had already been booked and the referee had no choice but to show him a second yellow card as the Hornets ended the game with ten men. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was still time for Lokonga to have another stinging effort but at full time it was the Hornets who had a stinging sensation in their stomachs as they were consigned to a seventh defeat of the season leaving them hovering precariously above the relegation zone on ten points. The Gunners have double that tally on twenty points with this sixth win in eight league games taking them up to fifth, only two points behind Liverpool in fourth whom we visit next after the international break on the other side of England\u2019s blockbuster clash with the 210th<\/sup>best team in the world, San Marino. What an enticing encounter that promises to be. I digress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Arsenal it was another win and another clean sheet and three very important points as we remain well and truly in the hunt for a place in the top four and the holy grail of qualification for the Champions League. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal came into this game off the back of two straight league wins and were enjoying a nine-match unbeaten run in all competitions stretching back to the end of August. Newly promoted Watford had predictably found themselves in a relegation dogfight and had already sacked their manager, replacing him with former Chelsea and Leicester manager, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/4230"}],"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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4230"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4234,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4230\/revisions\/4234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}