{"id":8823,"date":"2023-11-26T10:01:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-26T10:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8823"},"modified":"2023-11-28T10:36:41","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T10:36:41","slug":"bees-to-beat-the-arsenal-beehive-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=8823","title":{"rendered":"Bees To Beat The Arsenal? – Beehive Yourself!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Before yesterday Brentford had lost only one of their last ten home league games, while Arsenal had won five out of six games against them since they returned to the top flight. It was Mikel Arteta\u2019s 200th game in charge and he has achieved, in that time, a better win record (115) than even Arsene Wenger (111) and George Graham (107). I\u2019ve done those figures from memory so apologies if they\u2019re not quite right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


The Arsenal went with their usual 4-3-3. Tomiyasu moved to right back, Zinchenko played his inverting left back role, and Rice anchored the midfield between Trossard and \u00d8degaard. Jes\u00fas returned at centre forward between Saka and Martinelli. The main talking point, of course, was a start for Aaron Ramsdale in place of the ineligible Raya, on loan from the hosts.
Brentford opted for a 3-5-2 formation to deny the visitors space in the attacking two thirds of the pitch. A ploy which you would have to say worked very well for them. Every time Arsenal approached Brentford\u2019s penalty area they had nine men inside it if you include their goalkeeper and space, for a long while and at Arsenal\u2019s rather pedestrian build up speed, proved almost impossible to find.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


In the early stages Brentford hurried and hassled Arsenal who had the majority of possession, but couldn\u2019t find the room or time to genuinely threaten the hosts’ goal. There was a heart in mouth moment on just 13 minutes when Ramsdale, trying to draw the Brentford press, attempted to walk the ball forwards and stumbled over it under pressure from the Brentford forward who won the ball, made room for his shot and drove it towards goal. I was already simultaneously cursing our luck and sympathising with Ramsdale – this was the very last thing he needed – and expecting to see the net bulge, when Declan Rice appeared out of a magic lamp and cleared the shot off the line.
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The pressure on Ramsdale was clearly telling and on 31 minutes he did one of those comedy throws and launched the ball into the ground right in front of him. But instead of disaster, the Gods smiled, the ball was cleared and a dangerous counter attack ended only when Saka got his feet mixed up on the edge of the Brentford area. It\u2019s sad to see what our goalkeeping situation has done to Aaron Ramsdale. Last season\u2019s confident, vocal character between the posts has been replaced by a nervous, haunted looking figure. I am a huge fan of Arteta and I understand he must choose the players he believes are best suited to the game he wants to play. I am not party to what has been said at Shenley but I feel Ramsdale, remember last season\u2019s keeper of the season, has been harshly dropped without doing a lot wrong and Raya has been brought in by his ex Brentford goalkeeper coach without being much, if anything, of an upgrade. This has to be down to Arteta and we now have two reputedly great goalkeepers who have not an atom of confidence between them. 
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However, on 41 minutes Leandro Trossard scored, bravely repeating his recent header just inside the goalpost, the assist coming from Gabriel Jes\u00fas after his own effort was parried out by the keeper. Or rather, we didn\u2019t score. Michael Salisbury, this week\u2019s Ringmaster at Varnum\u2019s Circus, needed two lines in different colours to decide that Trossard\u2019s toe was forward of Jes\u00fas\u2019 own digit and chalked the goal off. If anyone can explain how this was disallowed but Newcastle\u2019s goal against us stood, I\u2019d be much obliged.
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The 3 minutes of added time saw a yellow card for Ajer, who flattened Jes\u00fas from behind and a back heel shot from \u00d8degaard that went well wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


HT Brentford 0 – 0 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


Arsenal began the second half moving the ball more quickly and looked more threatening for it. We were losing possession more though as Ramsdale had decided to go long almost all the time to avoid any more errors. You can see why Arteta wants to play out from the back but Ramsdale appears currently to have lost the confidence to do it.
Martinelli and Saka both played in great crosses but nobody was really looking to get on the end of them. This seems to be a problem with our present approach. The quest for control in the final third is leaving players too afraid to penetrate the area or try a shot in case they lose the ball. Eddie Nketiah was sent on for Jes\u00fas after 64 minutes to give us a bit more presence in the box but another brilliant Martinelli cross was easily put out for a corner.
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Brentford exchanged Yarmoluk and Wissa for Baptiste and the odious Neil Maupay, whose first involvement was to foul Tomiyasu and then inevitably moan at the referee, Tim Robinson, for awarding the free kick. What a horrible little man he is.
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Zinchenko gave the ball away in his left back position on 76 minutes, by trying to overplay under pressure. The resulting Brentford attack almost ended in them scoring but somehow Zinchenko had made up the ground to make a brilliant clearance at the far post. Arteta sent Kai Havertz on for Martinelli on 78 minutes and the German was immediately busy in the Brentford area. Rice had a decent drive deflected for a corner and Onyeka was so impressed with our new super star that at the resulting set piece he tried to force him into an early exchange of shirts. Rice appeared somewhat confused to have the free kick for all the grappling awarded against him.
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On 80 minutes Arsenal decided it was finally time to win the game. Saliba shot wide and Nketiah fired one in that was easily gathered by keeper Flekken. And then on 88 minutes it happened. Saka curled a superb cross from the right towards the far post. Havertz watched it all the way and advanced to head it down and past the helpless goalkeeper. If you\u2019re going to win 1 – 0, the 88th minute is a pretty good time to do it. Not much beats a winner In practically the last minute of the game.
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The referee found an extra minute to add to the allotted additional four before Aaron Ramsdale went down clutching the final ball of the game.
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FT Brentford 0 – 1 Arsenal<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once again, despite not hitting last season\u2019s highs, the players never gave up on winning the game, gave their all in defence and showed quite clearly what a great spirit exists within the squad. Huge congratulations to Havertz by all the players on scoring his first goal for the club – apart from \u2018that\u2019 penalty – were matched at the final whistle when the entire team gathered to hug Aaron Ramsdale, who had risen to pull a dangerous cross out of the air in added time. 
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A hard fought, difficult, 1 – 0 win which we all said we would happily accept. So, no complaints here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, there is one complaint. The BT commentary team made a largely scrappy and dull game almost unbearable. Darren Fletcher and co-commentator Lucy Ward verbally filled every single second with the bleeding obvious right up to the 23rd minute, when we finally got a whole 4 seconds of silence. For the, ahem, experienced fans among us, the old, top tennis commentator Dan Maskell said, when asked what made a great commentator, ‘only speak when you can add to what the viewer can see’. Fletcher and Ward seem to be under the misapprehension that they are working on the radio. When he breathes she speaks and vice versa, repeating or \u201cexplaining\u201d what we veterans of hundreds or even thousands of games have known for years. Am I the only one who gets incredibly irritated by this?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


By the way – Man of The Match was our own Rolls Rice – and, we are top of the league, say \u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before yesterday Brentford had lost only one of their last ten home league games, while Arsenal had won five out of six games against them since they returned to the top flight. It was Mikel Arteta\u2019s 200th game in charge and he has achieved, in that time, a better win record (115) than even Arsene […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/8823"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8823"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8834,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8823\/revisions\/8834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}