{"id":7602,"date":"2023-03-17T09:54:54","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T09:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7602"},"modified":"2023-03-18T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2023-03-18T17:37:08","slug":"over-and-out-but-hopefully-not-done-and-dusted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7602","title":{"rendered":"Over and Out but Hopefully not Done and Dusted"},"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\/1473994731\" 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\/1473994731?et=GwVhZ-3QQg9SZek_hy2tiQ&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=M76ZePfzJQgUVrUmGCH5DjOjys2KK_N8S759vj7uKpE=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The goal in the knock-out rounds of any tournament is not to get knocked out. In that regard, we failed to achieve our goal on a wet Thursday in N5. Sporting Lisbon won the first competitive penalty shootout at the Emirates, 5-3, after our Europa League Round of 16 second leg had ended 1-1 after extra time, with the aggregate score at 3-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The result makes moot one of the questions that 21st Century Gooner so succinctly posed in his excellent preview: should we prioritise the Premier League title, last won in 2004, over European silverware, last won in 1994?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It does not, yet, provide an answer to his other salient question, might the pursuit of the Europa League trophy adversely impact our run-in for the Premier League title, a trophy most in this estimable establishment and the wider Goonerverse would consider the essential piece of silverware that the manager should be lifting at season&#8217;s end?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elimination from the Europa League might be thought to tilt the balance to the positive side\u2014fewer games to tax a young squad still learning how to pace themselves to the winning line. Yet, our first big European night at the Ems in three years (group games do not really count) tipped the scales in the other direction.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Among the negatives, Tomiyasu and Saliba were both lost to injury in the first 20 minutes; an additional half-hour of extra time will have only further drained legs that we shall need fresh on Sunday for the league visit of Palace, legs already wearied by an energy-sapping game played at high pace with Sporting pressing and counter-pressing with intensity and scrapping for every second ball; and the emotional exhaustion of defeat in a game in which we were second best for most of the time but nearly pulled off another last-gasp victory, only to be denied in extra time by three outstanding saves by Sporting&#8217;s keeper, Adan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By naming a strong team, Arteta answered the pre-match speculation about how seriously he would\/should take the Europa League. Having called out the defensive performance in the first leg, he started all the first-choice defenders save for Ben White, returning him (briefly, as it happened), Matt Turner and Jakub Kiwior to the bench.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Arteta had also highlighted the lack of midfield control in Lisbon in the face of Sporting&#8217;s press, it was a slight surprise to see our master controllers, Thomas Partey and Martin \u00d8degaard, both start on the bench. Yet Arteta&#8217;s cunning plan was to counter Sporting&#8217;s 3-4-3 and midfield overloads with a 4-4-2. Midfield duties were assigned to Reiss Nelson, Jorginho, Granit Xhaka and Fabio Vieira, with two of Arteta&#8217;s collection of Gabis, Jesus and Martinelli, upfront. This selection promised to morph into the more accustomed 4-3-3 when we were attacking and allowed Bukayo Saka to put his feet up on the bench for a much-deserved and needed rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For Sporting, there were two changes from the first leg, Ousmane Diomande and Manuel Ugarte coming in for suspended captain Sebastian Coates and Hidemasa Morita in defence and midfield, respectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the score level pegging at 2-2 from the first leg and away goals no longer counting double, both sides knew they needed to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will not relay a blow-by-blow account. Suffice it to say Sporting settled the faster, pressing hard and preventing us from establishing any rhythm. We struggled to string passes together or to hold onto the ball. After a quarter of an hour, we started to find our feet and scored, somewhat against the run of play. Jorginho, the Italian with a Brazilian name, fed Martinelli on the left wing. The Brazilian with an Italian name, hared for goal, cutting in as he reached the penalty area. Adan&#8217;s left leg blocked Gabi\u2019s hard, low strike for the far corner, but the ball rebounded to Xhaka, some 12 yards out, who hammered it into the corner Martinelli had been aiming for. &#8216;One-nil to the Arsenal&#8217; rang out, and thus it stayed, somewhat uneasily, until half-time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>HT 1-0 (agg 3-2)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second half started in the same fashion as the first. Again, we could not establish control and were being harried out of possession by Sporting&#8217;s press. However, this time, this continued until the 90 minutes were up.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our one-goal advantage was negated in the 62nd minute by Gon\u00e7alves spectacularly chipping the backpedalling Ramsdale from 46 yards after we had again turned over the ball. Almost immediately, Ramsdale saw a powerful header pass narrowly over his bar and then had to produce a top-draw save to deny Edwards, formerly of a neighbouring parish of little repute. We were rocking, and not in a good way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The early injuries to Tomiyasu, who slipped going into a tackle, doing the splits and injuring his groin, apparently seriously, and Saliba, who ricked his back, had removed two of Arteta&#8217;s three opportunities for tactical substitutions that might have turned the tide. The lively Jesus was withdrawn at half-time rather than after 60 mins as planned, so Arteta could retain some flexibility over making a second-half double change. Partey and Saka came on for Jorginho and Nelson with 25 minutes of normal time to go. That stabilised us, but Sporting remained dangerous on the break, and we remained our worst enemy, mispassing and giving away the ball. There were chances at both ends, but the card-happy Spanish referee, Maleu Lahoz, blew for full-time with the scores still level in the match and the tie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>FT 1-1. (agg 3-3)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In extra time we were a team transformed, playing on the front foot and attacking Sporting as we looked for a late winner as we had done successfully against Villa and Bournemouth. Trossard was nearly gifted that six minutes into extra time via a sloppy back pass, but Adan produced an excellent save to touch the Belgian&#8217;s shot onto a post, and the ball bounced to safety. An offside flag then negated an appeal for a handball, as it had two decent first-half penalty shouts for players bundled over; in some games, you just don&#8217;t get the breaks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As the clock wound down towards 120 minutes, Gabriel was twice denied by top saves by Adan, and Sporting had Ugarte sent off for a second yellow for taking time off from clattering Martinelli to clatter Saka. But the winning goal could not be forced.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AET 1-1 (agg 3-3)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so the shootout. Sporting were perfect, but that man Adan again denied Martinelli. Nuno Santos slotted the fifth and winning penalty. We were out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Penalties 3-5.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the two legs, we probably needn\u2019t have lost, but it is difficult to say that we deserved to win. Arteta has a huge task now to lift tired minds and bodies and deflated spirits for Sunday. Whether his young team can dust themselves down and pick themselves up will be a real measure of whether they have the reserves of what it takes for the only thing they now have left to concentrate on, becoming league champions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images The goal in the knock-out rounds of any tournament is not to get knocked out. In that regard, we failed to achieve our goal on a wet Thursday in N5. Sporting Lisbon won the first competitive penalty shootout at the Emirates, 5-3, after our Europa League Round of 16 second leg [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"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\/7602"}],"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\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7602"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7615,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7602\/revisions\/7615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}