{"id":7774,"date":"2023-04-23T06:37:03","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T05:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7774"},"modified":"2023-04-25T21:19:59","modified_gmt":"2023-04-25T20:19:59","slug":"resilience-and-exuberance-not-quite-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7774","title":{"rendered":"Resilience and Exuberance&#8230;not&#8230;quite&#8230;enough"},"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\/1252055875\" 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:60.606064% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1252055875?et=FfQbQJ-DRQt8jG0fmIiV2A&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=LBpOP1jm9ESNTJLIsC9zwuBVHZuxdb9dmp6R_z37A2A=&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=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, that was quite a game.  Not quite what we wanted for an outcome, certainly not quite what we needed.  Considering what was at stake it was quite a comedown, but considering how close we came to both losing and winning my blood pressure still hasn&#8217;t quite recovered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal hosted Southampton&#8217;s Saints in a Friday evening fixture at the Grove, with the 8 pm kickoff meaning a lunchtime watch for your humble scribe from California.  All Arsenal fans know what we had to do, to quote Peter Drury (himself aping Mikel Arteta), a win was &#8220;non-negotiable&#8221;.  Top vs. bottom, an Arsenal in need of the three points to make two straight draws, both from leading 2-0, into something palatable ahead of that red-circled date with the-expensively-assembled-\u20acitzens-of-(allegedly)-Off-Balance-Sheet-FC (\u2122Lonestar Gooner) next week.  The Saints arrived in North London looking up at the entire league, knowing a defeat here would keep them rooted to the foot of the table with yet fewer games to get themselves off of that dank canvas and back into the ring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So I was hardly settled into my luncheon in front of the television when we were down a goal.  After about 20 seconds Gabriel passed the ball back to Ramsdale, who had options left, and right, with Zinchenko offering himself between Walcott and Alcaraz at the top of the box.  And our Aaron, who has done so well this season, made the wrong choice:  he passed to Zinchenko.  Alcaraz anticipated the move, intercepted the ball, and laced it in to the far corner, Ramsdale barely getting a touch that put it onto the post, but in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 0-1 Southampton (Alcaraz, 1&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And the crowd, rowdy and boisterous (dare I say exuberant) at the start of the game, sat in stunned silence.  No doubt they were asking themselves if they&#8217;d seen what just happened, and if they believed what they&#8217;d seen.  I certainly was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We began to play our game after that, though often careless passes put us under the cosh of their excellent press.  A strong run by Gabi led to him running out of room at the byline; M\u00f8 put the ball into the side of the net on recycle from a corner.  At that point, in the 6th minute, the Saints&#8217; goalkeeper Bazunu began wasting time; I will note now it took until the 61st minute for referee Simon Hooper to warn Bazunu about this, and he largely continued to waste time at every opportunity until the end of the game without the sanction of a yellow card.  Great job, Simon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We spent the next eight minutes or so being successful again and again down the left, with Gabi&#8217;s cutbacks amounting to nothing, but building pressure.  Suddenly, *poof*, it was gone.  After a goal kick we won the ball in midfield, but Saints pressure forced M\u00f8 to fire a pass towards Vieira which was intercepted in the center circle.  Our defenders had dropped deep, so there was both time and space for a pass to Alcaraz in the middle of our defensive third, with Theo outside right of Gabriel.  Theo put on the afterburners to meet a sumptuous throughball from Alcaraz inside of Gabriel, Theo sidefooting the ball past Ramsdale into the far corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 0-2 Southampton (Walcott, 14&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All that could be heard was the Saints&#8217; anthem about them marching in.  I heard someone scratching their head about what they were witnessing.  I don&#8217;t even think Cynic&#8217;s favorite drummer could muster a beat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This lasted for two minutes.  The fans gathered their breath, and their wits, and began singing and cheering Arsenal along in a rising tide of energy.  Then Holding put a great ball to Saka down the right, and he crossed to Zinchenko at the left of the box.  His fizzed cross was a bit hot to be met by Gabi, who&#8217;d kept running, and Saka, who had not.  Foreshadowing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Our next foray forward took a number of passes around the defense, who could not find a ball into the midfield until Partey played himself a nice backheel and passed to Zinchenko in the circle, who moved it forward to M\u00f8 between their lines.  Saka carried M\u00f8&#8217;s ball to the byline, beating Perraud, and cut the ball back to the middle of the box for an advancing Gabi to volley home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 1-2 Southampton (Gabigol, 20&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Suddenly, the crowd was going nuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even so, the next real action was from Southampton.  Lavia (who had a great game, perhaps we should be looking at him once Southampton are in the Championship) wriggled away from M\u00f8 with some nice dribbling skills, passing the ball out left for Perraud to cross to the far post.  Elyounoussi headed the ball directly at Ramsdale&#8217;s feet; Aaron blocked the shot, which rebounded to Alcaraz who worked hard to hit a high volley hard at our goal from about four meters.  Aaron instinctively thrust his hand up and tipped the ball over the crossbar, certainly saving us from the Saints&#8217; goal number three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rest of the first stanza played out largely in the Saints&#8217; defensive half, with the Saints earning three yellows (Alcaraz, Perraud, and Walker-Peters) and having to substitute Bednarek after he was upended by Gabi and fell hard on his back, neck, and head.  The Pole was decidedly unhappy about being subbed, trying in vain to get back on the pitch before Caleta-Car replaced him.  Arsenal had a largely toothless 66% possession for the entirety of the half, though we very nearly scored during the 7 minutes of stoppage time when Saka&#8217;s corner was headed at the near post by White, only to be cleared off the line by Alcaraz.  In the last action of the half Saka put in yet another beauty of a cross to Gabi, who volleyed it to Jesus.  His header was blocked, and after a scramble White&#8217;s shot was blocked as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Halftime:  Arsenal 1-2 Southampton<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sell\u00e9s took off Alcaraz at the half.  I don&#8217;t know why he did that, especially not why he replaced him with a defender in Lyanco.  But he did, and I think, in the end, that was a good thing for Arsenal.  Alcaraz had a goal, an assist, and saved a goal off the line&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first 15 minutes of the second half was all Arsenal.  We advanced again and again, our crosses from either wing leading only to half-shots, blocks, or clearances.  For example, Saka again curled in a cross to die for, only for the defender to get the slightest of touches, taking it away from Vieira just enough it glanced out of play for a goalkick.  In the 52nd minute there was a bit of a penalty shout; Elyounoussi had hold of M\u00f8&#8217;s arm, preventing him from going after a ball in the box.  Neither the ref nor VAR thought it was much of a challenge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On 57&#8242; Trossard came in for Vieira, and we continued to press for our second goal.  As we tried to clear from a rare Saints attack Partey was caught out at the edge of our box, leading to a Southampton corner.  Ward-Prowse knocked a sharp inswinger that Bella-Kotchap nodded on from the front post to Carleta-Car, who had a simple tap-in header amongst the Arsenal ball-watchers at the back post.  Cue pandemonium in the visitors&#8217; section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 1-3 Southampton (Carleta-Car, 66&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And that seemed to be it for us on the night.  Maybe for our title challenge.  It was enough for many to start thinking about, then heading for, the exits over the remaining 25 minutes.  That said, it took about four minutes for those who remained to get behind our boys again, when Gabi floated in yet another perfect cross, only for Jesus to volley over.  It was a difficult shot, but one would have hoped he could have tested the keeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the following minutes Eddie came in for Zinchenko, Theo (in probably his last visit to the Grove, thank you for all of it, Theo, well, except for that goal tonight!) and Armstrong came off for Sulemana and Onuachu.  The latter is 6&#8217;7&#8243; tall, and strong.  At one point he carried the ball down most of the length of our half of the pitch before Gabriel could tackle it out into touch.  We tried again and again to get our second goal, and like in the first half had shots blocked, nicked off our toes, and saved.  I have to say something here about Gabi and Saka.  I&#8217;ve not seen them play better all season, they were so switched on, so willing to put themselves on the line, and played balls of such high quality into their teammates.  It was a close run thing between the two for my MOTM, but I&#8217;ve got to shade to Saka.  You&#8217;ll read why in a minute (more foreshadowing).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nelson came in for Gabigol in the 85th, just before Lavia (remember him!) came off for Diallo.  The clock ticked towards 90 minutes and a famous Saints victory.  First, however, Ramsdale hit a goalkick out to White, who dinked a lovely ball over the top for Saka, cutting in from the right.  Saka&#8217;s cutback was cleared by Caleta-Car back to White, who played a 1-2-1 with M\u00f8 at the top right corner of the box.  M\u00f8 took the return pass, got it out from his feet, and curled an absolute peach of a ball into the far corner.  You could see what that goal meant to our Captain, his energy and emotion ran high and he was absolutely leading by example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 2-3 Southampton (\u00d8degaard, 88&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the restart M\u00f8 got the ball in the middle of their half and drove hard towards goal, passing the ball to Eddie; it came off him to Jesus, whose shot was blocked.  We remained in control of the play, and a Gabriel throw-in ended up with Trossard on the left wing.  He played a perfect nutmeg of a pass through Ward-Prowse to Jesus in the box, who knocked it still to an onrushing Nelson.  Reiss&#8217;s shot was saved by Bazunu but only out to Saka just off the penalty spot.  He made no mistake, his shot a nutmeg of Bella-Kotchap past the sprawling keeper into the back of the net.  Cue pandemonium in the stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Arsenal 3-3 Southampton (Saka, 90&#8242;)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2 minutes and 19 seconds separated our last two goals.  Due to the timewasting and various &#8220;injuries&#8221; to Saints players in the second half a minimum 8 minutes of stoppage time was given.  There was only one team that was going to score, and it wasn&#8217;t the team from the South coast.  THOF was ROCKING.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In stoppage time Trossard made a glorious run to about 20 yards from goal and hit a shot off the crossbar that, had it been six inches lower, would have won us the game.  These are the inches Mikel has been talking about lately.  As the clock wound down we worked the ball up the right between Saka, Jesus, M\u00f8, and White; Saka brought it inside, holding off his defender with wonderful strength, and passed it to Trossard.  Our Belgian chipped it into the box for Saka to nod to Jesus, who went down under little pressure.  The ball pinged around the top of the box until it fell to Bournemouth hero Nelson:  could lightning strike twice?  Unfortunately not, Ward-Prowse knocked his snap shot just wide of Bazunu&#8217;s post; again, just inches.  Partey blazed an unlikely shot over, and in the last play of the game Trossard floated yet another beautiful cross to White, who gathered it in the box and sent it to Jesus whose shot was blocked but who also looked fouled&#8230;but no penalty was the decision.  And that was it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Full time:  Arsenal 3-3 Southampton<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We came tantalizingly close to pulling yet another rabbit out of this season&#8217;s hat.  One could argue that we should be good enough not to have to rely on miracle endings against the team bottom of the league, but this year has really given life to the old clich\u00e9 about &#8220;any given day.&#8221;  Southampton were certainly worth their lead against the run of play; in the first half especially their pressing was excellent and they made our passing look woefully like Tottenham&#8217;s.  We were better in the second half, but their third goal was yet another defensive lapse in a season that is seeing too many of them for my liking.  Would that William is back for the game next week in Manchester!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And so it goes.  We are still 4 points clear at the top of the league, even with the-expensively-assembled-\u20acitzens-of-(allegedly)-Off-Balance-Sheet-FC (\u2122Lonestar Gooner) having two games in hand.  As Southampton showed, they could have beaten us.  It&#8217;s not out of the realm of possibility that we could beat City, or at least come away with a fourth straight draw.  The latter won&#8217;t benefit us in the sense that winning the title wouldn&#8217;t be in our own hands anymore, but I&#8217;ll take that psychological boost against a loss any day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, and Happy St. Totteringham&#8217;s Day!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Well, that was quite a game. Not quite what we wanted for an outcome, certainly not quite what we needed. Considering what was at stake it was quite a comedown, but considering how close we came to both losing and winning my blood pressure still hasn&#8217;t quite recovered. Arsenal hosted Southampton&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/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\/7774"}],"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=7774"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7788,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7774\/revisions\/7788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}