{"id":7240,"date":"2023-01-04T08:24:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-04T08:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7240"},"modified":"2023-01-08T18:20:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-08T18:20:12","slug":"not-quite-dominance-asserted-as-arsenal-draws-stoke-united-upon-tyne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7240","title":{"rendered":"Not-quite-Dominance Asserted as Arsenal Draws Stoke United-upon-Tyne"},"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.com\/detail\/1245968375\" 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\/1245968375?et=soxtdov9TJByqSSDvyLGWg&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=Gs2FYoMKfGx4wnC0vrVHM_9QD4c0xlqDE1Rw-aJPcL4=&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=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>In our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7210\">last post<\/a> Bathgooner called for our Arsenal to assert its dominance against chasers Newcastle United in the Tuesday evening game hosted at the New Home of Football in North London.  Unfortunately, rather than the Newcastle United expected to show up to play football, the rotationally-fouling Stoke United-upon-Tyne got off the bus and proceeded to take to heart the idea of &#8220;having a kickabout&#8221;.  Arsenal certainly asserted its dominance, and left the field of play bruised and battered with heads high in spite of not scoring a goal for the first time in the league this season.  The 0-0 draw was more than United deserved, and while we couldn&#8217;t pull out the three points we strove to actually play football until the very end against a side dedicated to time-wasting, stoppage of play, and getting by with everything the MWTW Madley was willing to let them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Writ large, we dominated large stretches of the game, including most of the first half; Newcastle&#8217;s only real threat was a long shot from Wilson gathered by Ramsdale. We had success in the first twenty or so minutes down the right, combinations of White, Saka, Partey, and M\u00f8 creating potential breakthroughs that just didn&#8217;t quite come off. Credit to Newcastle&#8217;s defense for shutting down this route, or forcing us away from it with double- and triple-teams against the ball carrier (primarily Saka). They closed Martinelli\/Xhaka\/Z\/M\u00f8 down the same way on the left as the game progressed.  Saka had a shot saved in the first five minutes, and shortly after that Martinelli crossed for Xhaka to hit the side netting after good work from Saka carrying the ball across the field from defense.  There were some other nice moments, including a great turn by Eddie on a ball in defense; he ran half the field with the ball before cutting back to Xhaka. Saka would have been through on goal if Granit hadn&#8217;t miskicked his pass. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We kept making intricate strides through their defense after passing the ball in a no-longer-death horseshoe, and yet we couldn&#8217;t make the final ball match some of the quality of the buildup.  Newcastle&#8217;s reaction to all this was to play on the break, foul rotationally, and waste time, from the very early parts of the game.  In the 20th minute Joelinton was down, and about five minutes later Bruno and Wilson were carded for kicking Eddie and Saliba, respectively.  MA8 was haranguing the fourth official, who really, really wanted him to stay in his box.  Our defense was gritty and composed in spite of the type of football Stok&#8230;er&#8230;Newcastle was &#8220;trying&#8221; to play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the second half one would have expected more of the same, but Newcastle came out and strove to actually play football for a few minutes.  Even then they reverted to type.  On a break early on Xhaka was adjudged to have &#8220;fouled&#8221; Wilson.  Xhaka touched both of Wilson&#8217;s shoulders, but lightly, and Wilson dove like cryptocurrancy after exchange fraud.  After a poor freekick by Trippier, Ramsdale nearly handed Newcastle a lifeline with poor play from the back, his pass out tipped by Wilson to Almiron at the edge of the box.  Only a sliding block by Xhaka prevented Almiron from waltzing in on goal, and in the end our defense regrouped enough that none of his teammates could get a touch on his cross across the box. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By the 57th minute Newcastle&#8217;s non-Stoke nature had been exhausted, and earned two more quick yellow cards.  The first came when Joelinton tripped Saka at the edge of the box reaching to get the ball; to be fair, he did get a slight touch on the ball, but had to trip Saka over to do so (Saka would have gotten the ball, I think, had he not had to deal with Joelinton&#8217;s leg).  The second was for a combination of timewasting and stupidity on Almiron&#8217;s part.  He kept creeping further and further over the 10-meter foam line after Madley told him to stop.  And then came, probably, the moment of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Saka took the freekick, looping it in towards goal.  Pope punched away, and on the recycle M\u00f8&#8217;s hopeful punt was gathered by a grateful Pope.  However, the MWTW missed a very, very obvious hold of Gabriel&#8217;s shirt by Burn, who pulled Gabriel to the ground by it without sanction.  Given Madley&#8217;s penchant for punishing shirt-pulling, having given out three yellow cards during this very game for that sort of foul, somehow Burn&#8217;s action did not even warrant a VAR check.  There was a VAR check on Gabriel&#8217;s &#8220;foul&#8221; on Burn at the end of the first half, surely this was reviewable?  I&#8217;m not really sure why it wasn&#8217;t&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moments later Burn put his elbow into Saka&#8217;s mouth just inside the penalty area; it was an accident, but it prevented Saka from trying for Partey&#8217;s lofted ball.  I&#8217;ve seen those given, too, in other areas of the pitch, but no, not by Mr. Madley.  Also, a question for the Madman: is the corner quarter circle no longer the limit for placing the ball on a corner kick?  This is something, I suppose, for the PGMOL to address (ha!), but it seems like the ball is getting further and further away from the line with each passing week, whenever the corner is on the side opposite the linesman.  I can&#8217;t say Arsenal isn&#8217;t guilty of this, but it speaks to the laxity and variability with which games in the PL are refereed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal re-asserted their dominance after Saka recovered from Burn&#8217;s elbow.  Martinelli curled a right-footed shot to the far corner that was caught by Pope.  Saka drove down the right, evaded one defender at the edge of the box, then had Joelinton poke away the ball for a corner as Saka bore down on goal.  Eddie made a great turn at the top of the box and drove into the box; his pass to Martinelli was cut out and made its way through to Pope to smother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the 75th minute Tomi came in for White.  We came at them repeatedly, and had a number of corners that we just couldn&#8217;t convert into anything meaningful; Gabigol put one header just past the far post from M\u00f8&#8217;s corner.  Newcastle kept falling over at the slightest touch, kicking the ball away, and complaining to Madley, wasting more and more time.  By the 87th minute it was clear Newcastle were running on fumes; St.-Maximin replaced Willock to try to give Newcastle some sort of energy.  Willock had had a rough day.  While Partey purred in the engine room, he physically dominated Willock in a way I haven&#8217;t seen since Arsenal got the Partey started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And then we had our best chance of the game.  Partey and Gabriel played keep ball out by the center circle, then Gabriel put through a beautiful ball to Xhaka, who simply let it carom over his foot for Eddie to run on to.  His left-footed strike was excellent; unfortunately Pope&#8217;s left-foot save was equal to it.  It would have been a fitting goal for Eddie to have scored.  He worked really hard today, playing in the half spaces that J\u00e9sus usually occupies out towards the halfway line, using his strength to back down and\/or turn defenders, and came closest of all to scoring to win the game for us. In the three games since we&#8217;ve lost Gabriel J\u00e9sus he has shown himself to be a formidable replacement. It&#8217;s unfortunate he can&#8217;t play every minute of every game until GJ gets back. Note to our board: BUY A BACKUP STRIKER IN JANUARY!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That was the end of the 90 minutes, and *gasp* there were only 5 additional minutes added for all the time wasting Newcastle put forward.  According to one observer the game involved only 53 actual minutes of football, the rest was time wasted.  There has to be a better way&#8230;  In stoppage time Tomi came a long distance to cut out a pass on a Newcastle break.  Nearly every time Arsenal were threatening we overhit our final ball, or just didn&#8217;t have the right touch.  At the end of stoppage Xhaka&#8217;s crossed ball hit Murphy&#8217;s arm from close range inside the box.  VAR gave nothing (and I think rightly so, there was nowhere else for his arm to be as he turned away from the ball), but it spurred handbags between Arteta and Howe, mostly thrown from the Arsenal manager&#8217;s tactical area.  The whistle blew shortly thereafter, and the draw was on the cards.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re still awake and reading this far down the page, remember what I said in the opening paragraph:  we left the field of play bruised and battered with heads high.  We were clearly the better side, and if we&#8217;d gotten the rub of the green, a review of certain fouls, and a few more minutes of stoppage time I think we could have pulled out a win.  As it is we&#8217;re still 8 points ahead of City with their game in hand against Chelsea on Thursday, and 9 ahead of Newcastle with our game in hand.  Our 44 points from 17 games still specs out to nearly 2.6 points per game, or 98 points if we can keep it up over a whole season.  We may not do that, we may not win the league, but I am so proud of the way we played today in spite of Stoke-upon-Tyne&#8217;s visit to our house.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A note to the board:  INVEST IN JANUARY and we just might make this a season that sets the foundation for the next decade or two.  We might still if no investment is forthcoming, but if <strong>that<\/strong> is the case it&#8217;ll be down to an amazing group of players and a manager who infuses intelligence, passion, and grit into his players, allowing them to play with flair, wit, and joy.  Aren&#8217;t we all enjoying this so far?  I know I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>COYG!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images In our last post Bathgooner called for our Arsenal to assert its dominance against chasers Newcastle United in the Tuesday evening game hosted at the New Home of Football in North London. Unfortunately, rather than the Newcastle United expected to show up to play football, the rotationally-fouling Stoke United-upon-Tyne got off [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"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\/7240"}],"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=7240"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7253,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions\/7253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}