{"id":7819,"date":"2023-05-03T11:14:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T10:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7819"},"modified":"2023-05-06T00:13:51","modified_gmt":"2023-05-05T23:13:51","slug":"gunners-down-bleak-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=7819","title":{"rendered":"Gunners Down Bleak Blues"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Chelsea Manager Frank Lampard displaying the silverware successfully gained from the new owners\u2019 huge investment<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal managed to keep their relatively slim title dream alive with a one sided 3-1 victory over a pitiful Chelsea side on a mild Tuesday evening at the Emirates. After a poor run of three draws and a defeat, Mikel Arteta\u2019s side knew that it was three points or bust in terms of the title and three points is what they got. The West Londoners came into the game in even worse form, languishing in 12th<\/sup> place off the back of five defeats in all competitions since Frank Lampard returned to the club on an interim basis. Following last week\u2019s brutal demolition at the hands of title rivals, Manchester City, Arteta tinkered with his side for the visit of Chelsea. A first premier league start was handed to Polish international, Jakub Kiwior in place of the much-maligned Rob Holding. Jorginho started against his former side and our other January signing, Leandro Trossard, came in for Gabriel Martinelli. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal began brightly and nearly took the lead after five minutes. A long ball from Jorginho was flicked on by Jes\u00fas, wreaking havoc in the Chelsea box. Azpilicueta\u2019s weak headed back pass was latched onto by Granit Xhaka who prodded the ball straight at Kepa. But on 18 minutes we were ahead. Zinchenko found Jes\u00fas who turned and found Xhaka on the left-hand side. The Swiss pinged a lovely switch to Martin \u00d8degaard who was steaming into the box, and our Norwegian skipper thundered it in off the bar. 1-0. A deserved lead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We continued to pin back the Blues. However, Ramsdale had to be alert when Ben Chilwell found himself in on goal following a cross field pass from Ngolo Kante, but Ramsdale palmed away well from his international colleague. Within moments we had significant breathing space, and the second goal came from the exact same source as the first. Once again, we found Xhaka on the flanks following more neat build up play on the left and he played an almost identical pass into \u00d8degaard who once again converted the opportunity. He bounced the ball into the ground and Kepa was floundering as the ball settled into his bottom left corner. That\u2019s now fourteen Premier League goals for our Capitano, who has gone up several levels this campaign. As have so many of his teammates, but \u00d8degaard\u2019s improvement has been particularly impressive. He now has double the number of goals that he managed last campaign and there are still four more games to add to his tally. His finishing has been world class at times. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it was about to get even better for the home side. Benjamin White played in a diagonal cross with his wrong foot, Gabriel Jesus was able to chest it down and find Xhaka, who scrambled a shot which bounced back to the Brazilian who gleefully smashed home through the legs of Kepa for 3-0. Yet more awful defending from Chelsea but Arsenal didn\u2019t care. They were absolutely cruising, and more goals looked imminent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal began the second half in the same vein as the first and had several chances to add to their lead. Gabriel thought he had added a fourth following a corner, but his header was scrambled off the line by his international compatriot, Thiago Silva. Xhaka was next to go close as his effort was turned around the post by Kepa following a fast break. Kepa saved well again from Saka following a low drive. Somehow it was still only 3. The Chelsea goalkeeper was single-handedly keeping the scoreline respectable. And somehow it was Chelsea who found the next goal. Kovacic\u2019s through ball found its way to Noni Madueke. Meanwhile Zinchenko had gone to sleep at the back post as the England youth international poked in a consolation for the visitors. Another home game goes by without a clean sheet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worryingly, Gabriel was forced off with what appeared to be a groin strain. Hardly what we need ahead of a crucial trip to St James\u2019 Park on Sunday, although Gabriel went straight to the bench as opposed to down the tunnel so hopefully that points to a precautionary measure rather than anything more serious. The Brazilian has been Mr Dependable this season, and I don\u2019t think many of us would fancy our chances up in the Northeast without him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other than that, the game concluded without much incident. The lack of goals in the second half was disappointing but ultimately this was a night where the result took priority above all else. We now sit on 78 points, 2 points above Citeh who have 2 games in hand. But they will have to win them first. We now have just 4 games left and we will have to win them all. We are relying on others to do us favours but at the very least we need to consolidate second place which we can effectively achieve with a win at Newcastle. Will we be crowned champions in 25 days\u2019 time? Right now it looks unlikely but stranger things have happened\u2026..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Arsenal managed to keep their relatively slim title dream alive with a one sided 3-1 victory over a pitiful Chelsea side on a mild Tuesday evening at the Emirates. After a poor run of three draws and a defeat, Mikel Arteta\u2019s side knew that it was three points or bust in terms of the title […]<\/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\/7819"}],"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=7819"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7823,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7819\/revisions\/7823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}