{"id":8135,"date":"2023-08-03T10:25:04","date_gmt":"2023-08-03T09:25:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8135"},"modified":"2023-08-07T11:18:14","modified_gmt":"2023-08-07T10:18:14","slug":"the-last-friendly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8135","title":{"rendered":"The Last Friendly?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<a id=\"hzukrmwwR1xbxc6eNH79DQ\" class=\"gie-single\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1588106624\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'hzukrmwwR1xbxc6eNH79DQ',sig:'en_nAFaKOQwjLQcHP07L5WUYQXCX_jhPF4KXof4kA7E=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'1588106624',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src=\"\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\" async=\"\"><\/script>\n\n\n\n<p>Arsenal finalised their pre-season preparations by lifting the prestigious Emirates cup, beating French outfit Monaco 5-4 on penalties following a 1-1 draw in N5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Arteta named a strong side ahead of Sunday\u2019s community shield showdown with Manchester City on Sunday. Jurrien Timber and Declan Rice both made their home debuts, with the likes of Saliba, Partey and Martinelli all starting. Arsenal began the game dominating possession whilst playing at a somewhat laboured pace. Pre-season is always the time to experiment and there were a couple of notable positional tweaks. The versatile Timber  began at left back and Emile Smith Rowe played in the right half space we have become accustomed to seeing \u00d8degaard thrive in. It was Monaco who had the first real chance through Golovin, who saw his left footed drive from range well beaten away by Ramsdale. You may remember his superb free kick against us whilst playing CSKA Moscow back in 2018. Golovin went on to star for Russia as they hosted that summer\u2019s World Cup and he was tipped for big things however his career has plateaued somewhat in the intervening years. That said, Golovin does get to live in Monaco and Erling Haaland has to live in the Northwest of England. I\u2019m sure he has no regrets about his life choices. We continued to dominate possession, but the intensity was lacking. It may be worth noting that we have not looked as sharp as we did in pre-season last term. Is this a symptom of an elongated campaign last year? Only time will tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Monaco took the lead on the half hour with a Fofana header following some neat build up. It wasn\u2019t great defending with Martinelli getting too easily bypassed but I\u2019m sure no one is going to throw their toys out of the pram over it. We upped the tempo a notch in response. Declan Rice surely would\u2019ve opened his Arsenal account if it weren\u2019t for a fantastic block. Tomiyasu forced a good save from the resulting corner and Nketiah equalised from the consequential corner. Our number fourteen slipped away from his man and tapped home in typical poacher\u2019s fashion. He looked very good physically and his link up play seems to have improved again. Hopefully Jesus\u2019 knock is nothing serious but as Nketiah demonstrated last season, and the season before, he is more than capable of filling the void.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Surprisingly there were no changes from us at the break. We continued to amble through the game. There was a scare when Ben Yedder hit the post on a breakaway but he looked to be offside. On the hour mark Arteta finally made wholesale changes. Off came Partey, Smith Rowe, Timber, Rice, Tomiyasu and Martinelli and on came Jorginho, Odegaard, Ben White, Havertz, Tierney and Trossard. The latter nearly made an immediate impact, firing at the keeper after Jorginho had sent him clean through. Vieira saw his volley tipped over the bar and off to penalties we went.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first six penalties were all converted with aplomb. Henrique, Fofana and Diatta dispatched their spot kicks, Odegaard, Jorginho and Havertz responded for The Arsenal. It was the former Liverpool man, Takumi Minamino who blinked first as Ramsdale stood tall to palm his spot kick away. Fabio Vieira consequently put Arsenal in the ascendency meaning Kevin Volland had to score which he did with distinction. but Gabriel had the chance to win it for the Gunners, this to join Yaya Sanogo and Joel Campbell in the Emirates Cup Hall of Fame, an opportunity he duly took. And there we have it. Your 2023 Emirates Cup Champions of the Universe, for a record extending seventh time, The Arsenal! A statement win that will send shivers down the spine of Pep Guardiola and his (allegedly) illegally assembled billion pound squad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what\u2019s next? A trip to Wembley Car Park where we will do battle with the FFP compliant oil riggers of Middle East Manchester. Is it a friendly? I don\u2019t know. But what I do know is it would be nice to lay down a marker by putting our title rivals to the sword ahead of the big kick off in ten days\u2019 time. We will likely see a performance featuring a far greater level of intensity than we\u2019ve seen over the last few weeks. In my personal view Arteta is sacrificing the use of certain key players and pre-season results for the sake of building B team cohesion. Don\u2019t be surprised if we see a slightly slower start to the season compared to last year. Instead, what Arteta is targeting is a greater level of cohesion throughout the squad in preparation for what we all hope will be a 55-60 game campaign. More games will be played, more players will be used. And if we are to go one better than last year and lift the title in May, we will need all twenty five or so players to slot straight in when needed. In Declan Rice we have potentially found the final piece of the jigsaw and in Havertz and Timber we have significantly reduced the drop off from the starting eleven to the number twos. So perhaps what we will see is a marginally slower start but there will be no seismic April-May collapse as we have seen in each of the last two seasons in our pursuits of the top four and the title. And if we do indeed continue on our trajectory of failing upwards then I expect no less than the Premier League Title and a Champions League Final loss to Union Berlin. And we shall fail until we have no room for anything but serial success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Onwards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>GoonerHolicsForever prediction contest in aid of Willow Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can you harness your inner Mystic Meg and see the final Premier League table for the upcoming season? Who is going to win the FA Cup? Or the League Cup? And what&#8217;s your bet on the first manager to get the tin tack this season? You can do all of this by entering the GHF Prediction Contest for 23-24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The purpose of the contest is twofold. Firstly, it is to increase your enjoyment of the upcoming season by providing a degree of light-hearted competitive rivalry as the season progresses. Secondly, it will enable us to support the Willow Foundation with a further source of charitable funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Check out the &#8220;GHF Contests&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?page_id=8112\">tab<\/a> at the top of the page for The Rules, the entry blank and information about how to enter the contest, and how the contest will be scored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Good luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images Arsenal finalised their pre-season preparations by lifting the prestigious Emirates cup, beating French outfit Monaco 5-4 on penalties following a 1-1 draw in N5. Arteta named a strong side ahead of Sunday\u2019s community shield showdown with Manchester City on Sunday. Jurrien Timber and Declan Rice both made their home debuts, with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/8135"}],"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=8135"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8166,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8135\/revisions\/8166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}