{"id":6909,"date":"2022-11-04T16:06:31","date_gmt":"2022-11-04T16:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6909"},"modified":"2022-11-06T00:08:13","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T00:08:13","slug":"one-nil-to-the-arsenal-from-behind-the-couch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6909","title":{"rendered":"One-nil to the Arsenal from Behind the Couch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Arsenal played FC Z\u00fcrich Thursday evening at the Grove in the final group stage game of the Europa League. Matching the result of PSV Eindhoven, or bettering it, would see us top of the group, leaving PSV to play two extra games against the Champions League dropouts in January. We needed to end in the top place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bathgooner put it thusly in a private communication: “Zurich surprised us by being up for it. We had brief moments of fluency. KT3 scored a cracker to gain a HT lead. We missed a couple more chances. The last 30 minutes were an accident waiting to happen and not at all fun. We got away with a poor performance overall to top the group. Ends.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, really, that’s about it. Add to it a set of seven changes from the Forest game, and yesterday’s game turned on one moment of brilliance from KT3, who was our best player on the day. His low shot in the 17th minute swerved around two defenders into the bottom corner of the net after two Vieira shots were blocked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s not to say we didn’t play some impressive pressing defense from the front at times, repeatedly forcing Z\u00fcrich into mistakes (mostly forcing them to pass the ball out for corners or into touch). We had a couple-three breaks that slowed down as we got to their end, or ended with nothing happening other than ball-recycling. To their credit, Z\u00fcrich were a far better squad than we saw in our 2-1 victory over them in September; their new coach has gotten a somewhat strident, Stoke-light tune out of them. Their shin-pads must be made of alpen-horn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the best parts of our game were missing: the incision, the fluency, and the movement were largely absent, leaving us to rely on grit and determination, and no small measure of skill, to pursue our end, and to prevent Z\u00fcrich from pursuing theirs. We went through most of our defenders, and Tomi (substituted mid-second half) had to come off with what looks to be a hamstring issue. I have to imagine he’s a doubt for Chelsea, maybe for Japan’s world cup in the desert, a pity for both player and country if so. Saliba and Zinchenko (the latter we saw get a brief warmup as things got dodgy in the final third of the game) stayed on the bench, and will be ready to get in this weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A word for Z\u00fcrich’s crowd: excellent work, folks. Through a smaller TV than made in New Zealand I heard mostly your singing, and I am sure your flare\/vape smoke made it easier for your side, who is accustomed (no doubt) to such things. Having been to the PSV game at the Grove two weeks ago, I can say you surpassed their efforts, and that’s saying something positive. You also didn’t seem to be prats afterwards, requiring hundreds of police to shepherd you to and from the ground peacefully is good value for money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so it goes. We’re in to the round of 16 in the top spot for Group A, in spite of PSV’s 2-1 win in Norway. We avoid two extra games in an already packed post-WC schedule, and we came out of it with only one major injury, whose seriousness we’ll find out about in the coming days. We look ragged and leggy, but with only three games to go before much of our squad gets a six-week rest we can push on (because, truly, at least Chelsea of our upcoming opponents are as ragged as we are) until the break. One game at a time, then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal played FC Z\u00fcrich Thursday evening at the Grove in the final group stage game of the Europa League. Matching the result of PSV Eindhoven, or bettering it, would see us top of the group, leaving PSV to play two extra games against the Champions League dropouts in January. We needed to end in the […]<\/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\/6909"}],"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=6909"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6909\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6917,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6909\/revisions\/6917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}