{"id":9027,"date":"2023-12-29T09:14:53","date_gmt":"2023-12-29T09:14:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9027"},"modified":"2023-12-30T20:44:24","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T20:44:24","slug":"west-ham-burst-arsenals-bubble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9027","title":{"rendered":"West Ham Burst Arsenal\u2019s Bubble"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Apologies if this turns out to be a short report but your author is currently struggling with household and waiting duties as Mrs Trev is out of action, recovering from surgery on a broken ankle suffered when she performed some involuntary gymnastics on the end of a helter skelter at London\u2019s Winter Wonderland last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pre-match news was that Arsenal were going for it. Kai Havertz was suspended and his place was given to Leandro Trossard with Declan Rice in the centre and Martin \u00d8degaard on the right. Otherwise we were unchanged from the game against Liverpool. West Ham had a makeshift centre back partnership of Mavropanos and Ogbonna so what could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What went wrong was that Arsenal had a Premier League record number of touches in the opposition penalty area, created a number of chances that were all missed and a couple of defensive mix ups resulted in a 0-2 defeat. I doubt anyone wants to read about our succession of missed chances so I will offer you a few opinions to argue with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first opinion is actually not mine but came from Amazon Prime\u2019s pre-match chat with Thierry Henry. He pointed out how Gabriel Jesus could improve his own goal scoring by making better runs. Jesus is often selected as our \u201cnumber nine\u201d but just naturally seems to drift outwards to his more usual wide positions. Tim Stillman did a very good piece on Jesus which highlighted how he scores goals better from wide positions than he does centrally because that is what he is more used to doing. Thierry showed examples of his movement around the area taking him wider and making the shot more difficult where, once the centre back has moved, he could make a second run to come back into the central space and get a one-on-one with the keeper. The only times Jesus got chances in front of goal last night were unfortunately both with his head and both went begging. He always puts in a tremendous shift for the team and offers a lot – but unfortunately, not<\/strong> a lot of goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It looks like we need something different up front as it has all become a bit predictable. The three starting up front last night have a total of 10 Premier League goals between them this season. That\u2019s why I was very interested to see what Emile Smith-Rowe could do. I would so like to see him succeed at the club as he has real talent, is someone who will run ahead of the ball and, of course, he is another product of the academy. His introduction last night came on 78 minutes when he replaced Trossard. Almost the first thing he did was to make a great run towards the West Ham goal which was spotted by \u00d8degaard on the opposite side of the pitch. \u00d8degaard\u2019s long cross was just too high as ESR jumped to try and make contact near the post – which would have given the keeper little chance. The point was that ESR spotted the opportunity as soon as he saw \u00d8degaard look up with the ball and drove at the heart of West Ham. Too many of our players have stopped doing that but it is the first thing ESR looks to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Too much of our build up play is too slow to stretch a packed defence, with balls going backwards and forwards to feet in intricate patterns but too much of it in front of the opposition. We do play some wonderful passes inside the box too but the resulting crosses and cut backs are being hit into a crowd scene. A player like Smith-Rowe always looks to drive through the opposition and pulls players out of shape. His reintroduction from injury has been very slow even though Mikel Arteta has been very positive about his attitude. The same approach was taken with Martinelli after his problems and that seems, so far, to have worked well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s strange that under Arsene Wenger we always seemed to have a strong attack but our defence, in the Emirates era at least, was often questionable to say the least. We now have possibly the best central back three in the world with Saliba, Rice and Gabriel, but our attack is struggling to fire despite having all high quality players in Saka, Jesus and Martinelli. I think the problem might be that, with Jesus constantly looking to wide areas, we lack a focal point up front, someone who can take the ball, hold it and turn on goal. And finish! This was obvious last night when \u00d8degaard was performing magic tricks with the ball but the chances he was creating fizzled out as there was no-one in the centre to take them.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Above all though, we need to move the ball more quickly to Saka and Martinelli, and beyond them to run on to, now they are always double marked. One way or another, they have to find space quickly otherwise they are left no alternative but to simply pass back to where the ball came from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zinchenko remains a conundrum for me. A very clever player who can find a subtle pass, a decisive through ball and help to control a game through midfield and possession. On the other hand, his desire to be involved in everything can slow our play down and cause some confusion with his teammates. We saw examples of that against Liverpool, and last night there was some kind of mix up with him, Gabriel and Raya trying to clear West Ham\u2019s cross before their first goal. He isn\u2019t a great defender in the sense of an old fashioned full back, but he is one of few players who can combine that role with that of the inverting midfielder when we have the ball.
For West Ham\u2019s second goal, he started grappling with Mavropanos at their corner, but completely lost the bigger, stronger man who scored with a great, but free, header when the ball came across. He should not really have been trying to contend with Mavropanos but that must ultimately come down to the manager or the captain. I think he should be used as a proper \u201ceight\u201d but at the moment needs must until our other full backs have recovered from injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now, sadly, we have to talk about VAR. West Ham\u2019s first goal should have been disallowed. Just as at Newcastle, VAR said there was no conclusive evidence to change Michael Oliver\u2019s decision of \u201cgoal\u201d because they couldn\u2019t see whether the ball had gone out of play or not. The problem this time was Bowen\u2019s right leg which was obscuring their view of the ball. When played frame by frame though, the whole of the line could be clearly seen next to Bowen\u2019s leg. As soon as the video moved on a frame, the very edge of the ball could be seen encroaching on the line. This was inevitably the frame VAR decided to use and after some 3 1\/2 minutes the goal was allowed to stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When will someone put this miserable thing out of its misery? It\u2019s operated by people who either don\u2019t know how to use it, or decide how they want to use it in any given circumstance – protect your mate, please your alternative employer, even up a row with a disgruntled manager. It\u2019s a disgrace – yes, I know what that means \ud83d\ude0f – and it really is!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We still sit second in the league, just 2 points behind Liverpool who will be coming to the Emirates in the next few weeks – so a chance to overtake them again. Not a bad position to be in but that was a surprisingly poor performance last night, albeit against a very well organised West Ham side, managed by David Moyes looking for his first ever away win against Arsenal in 23 attempts – and there are issues that need to be sorted out if we are to maintain a genuine title challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apologies if this turns out to be a short report but your author is currently struggling with household and waiting duties as Mrs Trev is out of action, recovering from surgery on a broken ankle suffered when she performed some involuntary gymnastics on the end of a helter skelter at London\u2019s Winter Wonderland last week. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"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\/9027"}],"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=9027"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9031,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9027\/revisions\/9031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}