{"id":4596,"date":"2022-01-13T23:46:30","date_gmt":"2022-01-13T23:46:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4596"},"modified":"2022-01-16T17:59:53","modified_gmt":"2022-01-16T17:59:53","slug":"all-for-one-and-one-for-all-except-granit-obviously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=4596","title":{"rendered":"All For One, And One For All. Except Granit, Obviously."},"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\/1364486145\" 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:78.78788% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1364486145?et=caWuC3T3TYpw1vsbhMD_RA&amp;tld=co.uk&amp;sig=J3yDaBTa58YCjRsj9xnZMsaQn8-YBjNcDuKWMvPpYa8=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\" width=\"594\" height=\"468\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We got out of Anfield with a nil-nil draw and so many positives that I am going to enjoy writing about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But first, let\u2019s just dive into Granit Xhaka\u2019s performance and get it out of the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do not like the guy, and anyone who has read anything I\u2019ve written before will know that. Yet, before the game, even I said that I hoped he was available to start. My reasoning for this was that I thought it sensible to play two professional central midfielders in central midfield against Liverpool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, our erstwhile captain (Mr. Burns style shudder) only managed twenty-four minutes of passing dangerously back to Ramsdale whilst under little pressure himself, and charging upfield to \u2018press\u2019 the Liverpool centre-backs, in a way that had Sambi Lokonga wishing for the positional experience of Charlie Patino next to him, before he delivered his <em>coup de grace<\/em> and got a thoroughly deserved red.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Pool played a long ball over the top, Xhaka kicked out ludicrously at Jota, catching him in the belly, and got as clear a red card as you will see. The guy has no head for the occasion \u2013 he has to use up one bottle of shampoo at home before his wife lets him open a new one; she knows he can\u2019t handle making the decision if both are open at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only issue was whether Michael Oliver gave his red for dangerous play or denying a clear goalscoring opportunity. I believe he went with the latter, which carries a lighter suspension, although whether that\u2019s a good thing for us or not, I honestly could not say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Xhaka is an idiot who does stupid things that damage our club and I hope he leaves soon so I do not have to watch him hurt our team anymore. If I were a Spurs fan I would want Granit Xhaka to stay at Arsenal forever. What more can I say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Right. That\u2019s it. Moving on. Nothing to see here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Every other human being associated with Arsenal tonight was an absolute hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First up, a shout out to our amazing away support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our very own CER had made the journey up to Scouseland for this one, and I am sure I was not alone in imagining the gut shot he, and many others, must have felt when we went down to 10 men with over an hour still to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet, the away fans were magnificent. They did the entire club proud tonight, and the lads on the pitch knew that our fans were right there with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those same lads on the pitch sure as hell gave them something to cheer about. The performances we saw today were stellar. They played their hearts out for the shirt, the club and for their manager. Whatever we see from the outside, inside that squad they all give it everything they have and they back Arteta to the hilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>None more exemplified this than Callum Chambers, who was thrown in after ten minutes and an injury to Cedric (I can\u2019t have been alone in feeling this might have been a good thing for us?) and played a blinder for 80 minutes. I don\u2019t see what more he could have done \u2013 it was a wonderful effort from a player who has been on the fringes of things but showed up big time when it mattered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After The Moron had left the pitch, we restructured; Eddie had to be hooked and Rob Holding came on as we went to a strange 5-1-2-1 formation. It was a back five, with Sambi in front. And then Saka and Gabi on the wings with Laca up top. Holding anchored the back three and, fortunately, has recaptured and locked up his evil twin, who played the Forest game at the weekend, in the attic at Holding Towers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The odd formation was fluid enough for one of the defenders to step into midfield occasionally, or the wingers to track runners across the pitch. At times, as Liverpool tried to apply the pressure their dominance of possession begged for, we had Laca about 5 yards outside our box as the furthest man forwards and every other man and his dog lined up in, err, dogged defence of our box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of this one was not a pretty watch. Even before the Leaden One xhakploded on us, we looked nervy. Ramsdale had an unusually off-colour night, mixing some good things with some poor decision-making that we have not seen much of from him. As a 23-year-old keeper playing in a big game trying to deal with a series of dodgy back passes he has my sympathy, but he contributed to an opening twenty minutes where we never really settled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>White got a touch to prevent a Firminho chance, but it nearly went past Ramsdale for an own goal. In the first fifteen minutes Liverpool had four corners, and only stout defending prevented them from making their fast start count. We had one good run and cross from KT but were struggling to get forward in the opening stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After we streamlined our formation on 24 minutes there was a predictable spell of Pool pressure. On 40 minutes the stat came up on the TV that we had had 11% possession in the preceding 15 minutes. I don\u2019t remember seeing a team get 10% or less over five minutes, let alone fifteen. We could not get our collective foot on the ball (you gotta love that turn of phrase! I mean, imagine if we had a collective arsehole. Oh, wait\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, pressure was not being converted into chances, as our forward lads buzzed about chasing everything, and our defenders showed admirable positioning and communication. Liverpool probably should have gone wide more often, as we did a good job crowding them out as they tried to play intricate central balls, but hey, for Gooners, it was kinda nice to see another team fail to make the dream ball through the middle as bodies kept getting in the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Out of nowhere, we had the better of the last five minutes of the first half. Saka had a few moments where he just looked like making something happen. He got through into good spaces a couple of times, won a corner from nothing, and managed to get close enough to the captain, leader and absolute superstar Lacazette that a few things nearly came off for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At half time neither team had registered a shot on target. And only one team was happy about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Liverpool fans are generally excellent, yet even they were subdued as it became clear that this Arsenal side were digging in, mounting a rearguard action, and might not be so easy to turn over as previous incarnations had proved. When Saka ran through and had a shot blocked a couple of minutes into the second half, I\u2019ll bet there were a few hearts in mouths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saka caught Matip a little late on the hour, but Michael Oliver did nothing. He ignored quite a lot of fouls, but none of them were particularly dangerous, and he was consistently myopic; I\u2019d rather have a consistently poor ref than one whose inconsistency costs one team but not the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We settled into a gentle time-wasting rhythm. We took time out of the game without over-stepping the mark and getting any cards for it. Again, it cannot just have been me that was damn glad to see that Arteta has managed to bring the sort of Dark Arts know-how that marks out the nice teams from the bloody-minded ones?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I would rather we were covered in guts and gore, intellectually speaking, of course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 68<sup>th<\/sup> minute, Minamino flashed a great ball across goal that, in all likelihood, Salah or Mane would have tapped in. But they weren\u2019t playing, so they didn\u2019t, and there is not a small enough violin in existence for me to play my Concerto For a Missed Liverpool Chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Four minutes later Lacazette fed Saka as he burst through the middle, and a heavy first touch meant he was reaching to hit the shot but Alisson still did well to get out fast and smother the chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I thought Liverpool\u2019s subs on 75 mins were a bit odd \u2013 Ox, Gomez and Neco Williams coming on for Fabinho, Matip and the man who Jamie Carragher is only legally allowed to refer to as \u201cTrent\u201d. However, five minutes later Saka went down, and although he did a wonderful job of continuing for another two minutes before going down again (all good time-wasting) he was subbed for Nuno Tavares, who got on to the pitch at the third time of stripping off his kit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, I am thrilled that Nuno got right back into the action, and that there appear to be no issues between him and the manager, but he did have a difficult spell as Neco Williams got forward well and put a few crosses in the box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the last five minutes Liverpool seemed to wake up. Lacazette had given everything he had; only Gabriel Martinelli was still chasing lost causes like St. Jude on amphetamines. Ramsdale made a couple of punches that screamed of a goalie trying to be dominant but just not quite at the races; Ben White with a good clearance after one of them was booted straight back into the box past the keeper as he made a valiant diving effort to recover from his own weak punch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The let off that we thought we might need came two minutes into extra time. After Ramsdale tried to claim a cross but was blocked by his own defenders, the ball fell to Minamino about 8 yards out. He should have scored but he skied it. This observer reckons we thoroughly deserved that break.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The game ended honours even. We could not have asked for more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As this is already a long report for me, I won\u2019t give you chapter and verse on each individual player. They were all brilliant. Ben White got MOTM but you could have picked any of them. They did not have the greatest quality, and they were up against a great team who made it hard. But they showed so much character. They worked their balls off. And there were a surprising number of situations that nearly broke for us. We did not create many clear cut chances but don\u2019t let that fool you; our counter attacking had some teeth, even with ten men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The travelling faithful responded wonderfully to the effort the players put in. They buoyed them up, and, at times, shouted down all of Anfield. That\u2019s proper support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the difficult game against Forest, we needed a performance tonight. And, although a scoreless draw might not be a classic result to demonstrate a performance (and leaving aside the daft actions of one daft man) we could not have asked anything more from everyone in that stadium tonight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Victoria Concordia Crescit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images We got out of Anfield with a nil-nil draw and so many positives that I am going to enjoy writing about them. But first, let\u2019s just dive into Granit Xhaka\u2019s performance and get it out of the way. I do not like the guy, and anyone who has read anything I\u2019ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"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\/4596"}],"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=4596"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4600,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4596\/revisions\/4600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}