{"id":7426,"date":"2023-02-16T16:27:21","date_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:27:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7426"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:16:17","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T16:16:17","slug":"a-bridge-too-far-but-the-war-is-far-from-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7426","title":{"rendered":"A Bridge Too Far But The War Is Far From Over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From left to right: Ramsdale, Odegaard, Arteta, Josh Kroenke and Granit Xhaka in the Hollywood movie of season 22\/23<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s cast our minds back to December 15th<\/sup>, 2019. Arsenal had just suffered a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City. Just three weeks prior to that humbling, the hapless Unai Emery had been relieved of his duties. Freddie Ljungberg had taken interim charge as we looked for a permanent manager for only the second time this century. In the opposition dugout there was also a former Gunner in Mikel Arteta. Following his retirement with us in 2016, the Spaniard made the move to East Manchester to assist City\u2019s gleamingly bald new manager, Josep Guardiola. He had hand-picked our Mikel as his main right-hand man. And it worked out fantastically for both men. In those 3 years Citeh won two Premier League titles with the help of being allowed to cook their books. But on the pitch, there were two geniuses at work. Many jokes were made about Arteta being Pep\u2019s designated \u2018cone man\u2019. That couldn\u2019t have been further from the truth. And so, following that defeat Arsenal\u2019s board members tailgated Arteta\u2019s motor back up the M1 and then the M62 and they negotiated a deal long into the night. Just five days after that loss Arsenal proudly announced Mikel Arteta as their new head coach on a three and a half year contract. Much to the annoyance of the financial dopers. And the rest is history. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now despite suffering a similar defeat in terms of the scoreline, the context and circumstances are chalk and cheese compared to that crushing defeat. Both sides are now locked together on 51 points. Arsenal have a game in hand but City currently lead on goal difference as they should with the money they\u2019ve spent. And we competed well. We went behind after 25 minutes following Tomiyasu\u2019s weak headed back pass which left Ramsdale in no man\u2019s land and Kevin De Bruyne, our chief tormentor on so many occasions over the last few years, was only too happy to lob the ball over Ramsdale into an empty net. But we deservedly found our way back into the game before the break. We enjoyed the novelty of being awarded a penalty (only our second of the season) and Saka stepped up to take it. Ederson pointed to his right, no doubt an attempt to distract the youngster, and Saka put it there. Ederson dived to his left. But he could\u2019ve dived right, diagonally, upwards or downwards and he still wouldn\u2019t have got near it. A pressure penalty in a game of high stakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the second half City upped the ante somewhat. We had plenty of the ball but struggled to create an awful lot. But the crowd remained behind the team every step of the way. We had a scare just before the hour where Haaland looked to have won a penalty but following a VAR check it was ruled out for offside. \u2018Draw the lines\u2019 was the cry from the Arsenal fans. Looks like they remembered to do their one and only job this time. I hope Lee Mason was watching. He probably forgot the game was on and watched Love Island instead. It\u2019s a good job that man isn\u2019t a pilot. But on 72 minutes, City regained their lead. We gave the ball away in the middle of the park, the ball broke to Gundogan on the edge of the box, who fed Grealish who was in acres of space on the left and his shot took a nick off Tomiyasu which took the ball past Ramsdale into the net. Not the greatest defending from us. Arteta brought on Trossard for the tiring Martinelli and the Belgian probably should\u2019ve had a penalty when he was tripped in the box but there was nothing doing. And before we knew it, City had a third, this time Haaland. It was a tidy finish into the corner with his weaker right foot after another De Bruyne assist. Nketiah had a great chance to pull a goal back, but he directed his header wide of the mark. And that was that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The crowd remained in good voice at full time. Until the third goal the Emirates was one of the loudest atmospheres I\u2019ve seen there. But I think most in the stadium were aware that despite being knocked off our perch, the title race is far from over. The good news is we have a favourable run of games coming up from now until Liverpool away over the Easter weekend, against mostly bottom half sides. We go to Aston Villa on Saturday lunchtime; a quick turnaround is exactly what you want after a defeat. No time to fester in disappointment. Then another away trip in the Midlands, to And Leicester, followed by extremely winnable home games against Everton and Bournemouth. Then a pair of London Derbies against Fulham and Palace to take us up to the international break at the end of next month. Five of those six sides are in the bottom half. We normally thrive against those sides so it\u2019s a prime opportunity to pick up a healthy number of points. We really need to make that game in hand count you feel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I would say about this game is despite the result I still don\u2019t feel there\u2019s anything between the sides at all. And that is precisely what the table suggests too. The reality is, we picked up an unusual amount of points in the first half of the season. Deservedly so of course, but ordinarily we would\u2019ve drawn or even lost 2 or 3 more games than we did and we\u2019d be sitting here now \u2018floundering\u2019 eight or nine points behind top spot. But we find ourselves joint top after 22 games with a game in hand. Cynics would argue if the season ended now, we would finish second, but the season wouldn\u2019t finish with one side playing less games than the other. There are still 48 points for us to try and accumulate, 45 for City. There is a marathon stretched out in front of us and we\u2019re half way through, neck and neck with our main rival; the rest are stranded, packed together like a tin of sardines miles behind. Our rival has run more races than us and has more medals to his name. Well, recently anyway. And there are rumours he\u2019s being investigated for taking performance enhancing steroids. But the other runner comes from a family with a long history of running races. They haven\u2019t always won them, but they\u2019ve always been up there, more or less. They garner much more respect from their fellow racers too. Most with a moral compass would rather see them win than their cheating, doping rival. Apart from Gary Neville. But he\u2019s standing near the finish line by himself because no one likes him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems like the race is only just getting started\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s cast our minds back to December 15th, 2019. Arsenal had just suffered a 3-0 defeat to Manchester City. Just three weeks prior to that humbling, the hapless Unai Emery had been relieved of his duties. Freddie Ljungberg had taken interim charge as we looked for a permanent manager for only the second time this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/7426"}],"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=7426"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7429,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7426\/revisions\/7429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}