{"id":8448,"date":"2023-10-03T22:43:51","date_gmt":"2023-10-03T21:43:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8448"},"modified":"2023-10-07T09:41:57","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T08:41:57","slug":"arteta-under-the-microscope-in-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8448","title":{"rendered":"Arteta Under the Microscope in Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Despite the fact that it is only a short hop from London to Lens, the team arrived late due to storms over the South-East of England. Quite possibly the result of The Gods laughing at the VAR audio from the Diaz decision on Sunday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the pre-match TV interviews, the travel travails certainly didn\u2019t impact the serenity currently settled over players and manager; Arteta seemed relaxed and positive and this was certainly reflected in his team selection, with only White of the first choice players being rested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tomiyasu Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard (c) Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka Jes\u00fas Trossard<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From the kick off, the Lens fans really created a raucous atmosphere.  This former mining town in North East France has a passionate crowd reminiscent of those in the north of England.  Reacting to this support, from corner which we failed to clear, Danso, hammered past the post. A warning shot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took a while for Arsenal to get going, but from the 10th<\/sup> minute we saw the first extended period of Arenal possession with some excellent passing and moving, without necessarily creating chances.  While not succeeding in silencing the home crowd, it notably reduced the volume.  After around 3 minutes where we had the ball almost constantly, winning it back almost immediately when we weren\u2019t in possession, we made the breakthrough. Arsenal pressure high up the pitch resulted in an interception from Saka. Saka passed first time into Jes\u00fas who then took the ball wide of the defender and hit it early into the bottom left corner, without needing to take it past the defender. A superb finish. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having gone behind, Lens kicked into overdrive and began really pressing Arsenal very high up the pitch. Arsenal managed to play round them on a number of occasions with Saliba and Rice in particular showing just how press resistant, in the modern terminology, they are. Unfortunately, this pressure resulted in our giving away a poor goal. A very poor pass from Raya, looking to pick out Tomiyasu, himself under pressure from a Lens player, led to the opposition winning the ball and breaking. Stretched at the back, their centre forward was able to direct the ball into the path of the left winger to strike past Raya from the edge of the box.   This was totally self-inflicted, and Raya has now made his first significant mistake.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 33 minutes, the wisdom of playing Saka yet again from the start was called into question as he had to be taken off, suffering from some kind of leg injury, with Vieira taking his place.  The rest of the half played out with Lens pressing and Arsenal seeking to hold them off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half-Time Lens 1 Arsenal 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal started well in the second half and on 48 nearly scored after Jes\u00fas, harrying the defender, won the ball back and passed to Trossard who shot at the keeper. From that point on, Lens really began to dominate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 66 minutes, a rare bit of incisive play from Arsenal led to a corner.  \u00d8degaard delivered well and Tomi, in oceans of space, hammered the ball low and hard only to see the keeper make a save with an outstretched leg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shortly after, Lens delivered the hammer blow. Their right winger, who had caused a problem all evening, delivered a fantastic cross behind the Arsenal defenders rushing back towards their own goal which Wahi guided home beautifully with his right foot with three Arsenal defenders marking space.  This was the signal for Arteta to bring on a number of substitutes in an attempt to inject some energy into what had been a really lifeless second half performance \u2013 Nelson, White and ESR for Trossard, Tomi and Havertz respectively. Quite honestly it was all too late and really didn\u2019t succeed in adding a lot of anything, although in the last of four minutes of extra time we had a couple of corners which caused some concern to the Lens fans. For most of the period up until then a combination of a deep block, good organisation and lack of inspiration resulted in watching the kind of horseshoe football we thought we had left behind a couple of seasons ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Score  Lens 2 Arsenal 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the performance, it is difficult to fathom quite what Arteta\u2019s plan was. He picked a strong team, but there was no energy or dynamism in the performance. Did he instruct them to save energy for Sunday, as we certainly weren\u2019t full of vim and vigour? He started Saka yet again and again saw him come off injured, for the third game in a row, this time walking down the tunnel. Would we have played any worse with some first teamers rested? Did the travel difficulties have an impact?  I guess, we\u2019ll have more of an idea on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onwards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Despite the fact that it is only a short hop from London to Lens, the team arrived late due to storms over the South-East of England. Quite possibly the result of The Gods laughing at the VAR audio from the Diaz decision on Sunday.  From the pre-match TV interviews, the travel travails certainly didn\u2019t impact […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"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\/8448"}],"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\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8448"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8448\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8451,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8448\/revisions\/8451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}