{"id":4318,"date":"2021-12-07T01:09:38","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T01:09:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4318"},"modified":"2021-12-11T03:07:17","modified_gmt":"2021-12-11T03:07:17","slug":"drip-drip-drip-drip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4318","title":{"rendered":"Drip, drip, drip, drip…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Arsenal fans everywhere today. All game long. And not cold water…<\/sub><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What a terrible game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal traveled to Goodison Park to play Everton for a Monday evening kickoff, in hopes of overcoming Thursday’s “shoot-self-in-foot” loss to Manchester United. Would we play with the alacrity and verve we showed during our recently-collapsed undefeated streak? Or with the ponderous lack of energy we saw far too often in the last couple of seasons? Would our Mikel make progressive choices to start, or at least in substitutions, or would his conservative, “let’s not lose” ethos win his day? And, finally, would our senior players play as though they believed in themselves, or would we see a display rife with indecision and caution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly, the answers were all too plain as Arsenal were beaten with a last-minute goal by a slightly better team on the day in Everton, 2-1. Not only did our manager choose a team with a glacially-slow midfield, but one that was largely bypassed for most of the game. The sharpness and wit we can show seemed to evaporate with the absence of Emile Smith Rowe (out due to a groin injury), and even \u00d8degaard’s energy wasn’t enough to compensate for the weight dragging us backward provided by Partey and Xhaka. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our starters were mostly good on paper, but in reality starting Xhaka and Partey made this game a bridge too far. The front three (Gabi, Laca, and Saka) should have worked well with M\u00f8, and often did, but the lack of positivity and overabundance of caution from our other two midfielders led us back to the Horseshoe Trail. And, as we all know, the Horseshoe Trail is a dangerous trail, on which one far too easily can be bushwhacked. To be fair to Partey, he did try, on a number of occasions, the throughball to release our runners. The hard part is that his execution was poor, and in at least a couple of occasions led to an Everton break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A minute-by-minute account of this game would be galling. Suffice to say there were some notable moments, mostly on their side:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the 21st minute Godfrey went through Saka, crunching his foot with his boot, getting no ball. Referee Mike “See you next Tuesday” Dean demurred from calling aught but a foul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the 28th minute Godfrey (not Grey) and Tomi collided coming up field, and Godfrey (not Grey) ended up landing his boot on Tomi’s face. He took a quick little look at where Tomi was, then turned his head away and put his foot down. VAR didn’t even look at it, and Tuesday Mike again left it unpunished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the 43d minute Richarlison fell over and was given a freekick (kidding, he was thrown bodily by three Arsenal players; sorry, kidding again, he fell over), and then scored a header from the freekick. Sadly for the announcers on the American broadcast, he was just slightly offside, and the goal was rightly disallowed on VAR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the second of two minutes of first-half stoppage time Arsenal worked the ball to KT3 down the left. He sent in a peach of a cross to an oncoming M\u00f8, who sidefooted it just inside Pickford’s post. Lovely goal, lovely buildup, lovely lead going into halftime papering over the cracks of what was, by and large, a dire half of football (from both squads, in all honesty).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Finally, in the 49th minute Godfrey got his yellow, for taking out Saka very late. He could have broken his foot, and it was clear Rafa had shown his team the Stoke Submanual of Thuggery before the game. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the 57th minute Arsenal defended an Everton break well, and while bringing the ball upfield Xhaka put it into touch. Everton came right back, and Doucare went straight through our central defenders; White just kept backing up, rather than playing the man with the ball. Richarlison broke into the box, Doucare hit him with a pass, and Richarlison scored. Again, the goal was struck for offsides on VAR, and again Arsenal were thanking their lucky stars that playing with fire had yet to burn their fingies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In minute 63 Xhaka earned his now-standard stupid yellow card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Pat Rice was shown, in minute 69, sitting in the stands as cold and rigid as Arsenal’s offense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Gordon should have been at least yellow-carded for a heavy slash through Nuno’s shin in the 76th minute. No, nothing was given, not even a foul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 A terrible return pass from Partey to Nuno on a throw-in led to Everton bringing the ball across the field to Ramsdale’s right, where Gomez had a shot blocked that dropped to Gray. Gray hit his shot off Ramsdale’s fingertips onto the bar, and Richarlison made no mistake with his header off the rebound, beating a prone Ramsdale for Everton’s goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 In the 82nd M\u00f8 had a snapshot blocked from the top of the box after some nice work, then after maybe our best movement of the night down the right Saka’s cross to Eddie ended up off Eddie’s head onto the post, with the rebound ricocheting off Eddie’s elbow behind the goal, just on the wrong side of the post. Our best chance of the second half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 We did have one more chance, in the first of 6 minutes of stoppage time, where M\u00f8 had another snap shot blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Everton’s recovery after that block led to the shot of the game, with Gray collecting the ball to the left of goal, stepping inside and lashing a worldie in off the post with his right peg. A magnificent goal in the 92nd minute, a worthy game winner, and cause for me to use language I won’t repeat here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 With the last kick of the game we saw a dispirited Auba place the ball weakly wide of Pickford’s goal. I’d forgotten he was on the pitch, coming on for Laca as he did in the 85th minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a terrible, deserved result, to lose 2-1 after a really poor game from Arsenal. Except for the length of his toes, Richarlison could have had a hat trick and we could have lost this game 4-1. It wouldn’t have been an unfair result. It really was water torture to watch, drip by drip. Even hiding behind the couch wouldn’t have helped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I struggled while writing this to not pin the blame on, and slag only, Xhaka and Partey. Very few of Arsenal’s players covered themselves in glory. I have to give credit to Tomi (who played through Gray’s stamp on his face as though nothing had happened), M\u00f8 (beautiful goal, and he did work hard), Saka (suffered GBH at the hands of Everton’s players, encouraged by the inattention of Tuesday Mike), and Ramsdale were effective. KT3 played a variable game, his cross for M\u00f8’s goal was perfect, but he lacked power and penetration down the right, and tired early. The rest of the squad didn’t cover themselves in glory, and at times seemed to be passing the time with their play rather than trying to achieve anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mikel has to sort out his priorities. To paraphrase the great Coach Beard, “if Mikel is willing to let the team (and its fans) suffer because of one player\u2019s feelings, then I don\u2019t know Arsenal should be entrusted to someone that selfish.” If Sambi deserves the bench (for the Liverpool game? Nuno didn’t…) and Xhaka doesn’t, what is that telling our other players? Will Xhaka be Mikel’s Achilles heel? And I like Mikel, and still have great hopes he can lead Arsenal to higher and higher heights. But he has to sort out the midfield, and his priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We return to the comfort of the Emirates to play Southampton on the 11th. Let’s hope ESR is fit and ready to go after a ten-day layoff. But let’s also hope Mikel finds a way to rely on other players (remember who was there and who wasn’t in that 10-game unbeaten streak!) so that Emile’s absence and our lack of midfield quality aren’t fatal to our vibrant, creative, often incisive play…having been bushwhacked by Everton on the Horseshoe Trail, we should be loathe to return there any time soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What a terrible game. Arsenal traveled to Goodison Park to play Everton for a Monday evening kickoff, in hopes of overcoming Thursday’s “shoot-self-in-foot” loss to Manchester United. Would we play with the alacrity and verve we showed during our recently-collapsed undefeated streak? Or with the ponderous lack of energy we saw far too often in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"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\/4318"}],"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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4318"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4342,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4318\/revisions\/4342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}