{"id":9202,"date":"2024-02-18T09:57:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-18T09:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9202"},"modified":"2024-02-20T15:55:38","modified_gmt":"2024-02-20T15:55:38","slug":"if-only-arsenal-had-a-striker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9202","title":{"rendered":"If Only Arsenal Had a Striker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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With the weather being exactly what you would expect from the North West at this time of year, the Arsenal team rolled into Burnley with the intention of continuing the brilliant form of late. Liverpool has unsurprisingly rolled over a pretty supine Brentford in the lunchtime kick off and nothing but a victory would do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team was as expected with the only surprise, and disappointment, being that none of our injured or returnees from international duty had even made the squad. As a result, the bench included James Sweet and Mauro Bandeira who hadn\u2019t a minute of first team football between them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Burnley started off in a manner of which Dyche would be proud, with a Stoke-style long throw and a couple of fouls in the first few minutes. The spirit of Dyche was clearly living on and physically embodied by Craig Bellamy on the touchline, with the sublime footballer that was Vincent Kompany banished to the stands as a result of indiscretions last week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It took only 4 minutes to crack the case however, as Martinelli sprinted down the left wing, cut back and picked out \u00d8degaard on the edge of the area. The Norwegian took a first touch to control the ball and then absolutely arrowed his half-volley shot into the very corner of the goal. A superb finish and indicative of the form which he is in at the moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spirit of Dyche continued to be channelled by the Burnley players a couple of minutes later with 2 fouls visited first upon Martinelli and then on Saka in quick succession as we broke up a Burnley corner and looked to counter-attack. The referee, who I thought did a good job on the day, was having no nonsense from Burnley and booked a Burnley player – Aaron Ramsey, no less- for the Martinelli foul. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The high press with which Burnley had bravely started, was beginning to fade and after 20 minutes it became noticeable that Burnley were starting to fall back deeper behind the ball when out of possession. Which was quite a lot! On 22, at an Arsenal corner, we saw the increasingly common sight of wrestling at a corner with the Burnley defender literally grappling with Ben White in order to prevent him from making his now customary run to position himself in front of the keeper. The referee did not cover himself in glory here, as gave a free kick to Burnley for White being put into the kind of hold that many will remember seeing last in the 1970\u2019s ITV Saturday sports show \u201cWorld of Sport\u201d, being inflicted on some hapless dupe by Mick McManus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 23 the one ray of sunshine on the Burnley team, the young winger Odobert beat first Saka and then White and fired in a shot from a tight angle which was well saved by Raya as it took the kind of deflection which could have seen the ball ping into the net. Good reactions from the keeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal were well in control but without the second goal which would probably seal the victory and on 33 we missed a great opportunity as Saka crossed in from the right and both Havertz and Trossard exhibited poor control and the opportunity was gone. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard was now the human embodiment of the oil in the machine. He reduces the friction as they ball progresses up the pitch and facilitates the smooth running of the entire machine. On this form he is a joy to watch. Shortly before half time he combined with Havertz to send Trossard through on goal and a poorly timed tackle saw him upended. A certain penalty despite the frankly ridiculous protestations of the Burnley defender. Saka eventually took the penalty and his not entirely convincing effort just beat Trafford and nestled in the corner,. 2-0 as we went into half time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We came out for the second half with the intention of putting the game beyond doubt and it took only a minute to add to the lead. Havertz controlled well a difficult ball into him in the final third and shifted the ball on to \u00d8degaard, who in turn hit a delightful pass inside the right back for Saka to run onto, cut outside the defender and leather his right footed shot high into the roof of the net at the near post. This was now exhibition stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal attacks came in waves and were it not for some curious finishes from Trossard we could have scored a few more before the Belgian finally put the onion into the bag, being rewarded for his patience and perseverance after joining the orderly queue at the back post which had formed rather in the manner we used to see at a London bus stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arteta now decided to make some substitutions and we saw C\u00e9dric, Nketiah and Nelson come on for White, Trossard and Saka, respectively. With the CL away tie with Porto coming up next week, this was an excellent and uncharacteristically early decision from Arteta and all the more welcome for it..   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On 77, Havertz scored a truly excellent goal, capitalising on some either sleepy or downright daft defending from Burnley who seemed to squeeze up at an Arsenal throw on half way, allowing Havertz to run in behind the defence, take the ball on, nutmeg his defender and slide past the keeper. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At this point Arteta decided to replace Rice with Jorginho, another excellent substitution, with the game now well and truly decided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

We have heard a lot from the media naysayers along the lines that Arsenal need a proper striker to compete with Liverpool and Abu Dhabi. And yet nearly 2\/3 of the way through the season, we have only been outscored by Liverpool. Could it be that the usual suspects don\u2019t actually know what they\u2019re talking about and have simply been guilty of projecting what they want to see? Surely not, for they are experts who couldn\u2019t possibly be guilty of reducing a nuanced tactical development in the game to an easy to communicate binary view. Oh for more Brian Glanville\u2019s and fewer Gary Neville\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are more difficult away days to come this season \u2013 City and the Walthamstow Marshes among them. However, we appear to be hitting form at just the right point of the season. In the first half of the season, we amassed points but were way off the standards set last year. Looking at it with the benefit of a certain amount of hindsight, this may perhaps have been by design, with Arteta looking to conserve energy for the final third of the season. Recent performances have been all the more impressive given that we have 6 first team players out: Timber, Tomi & Zinchenko in defence; Partey & Vieira in midfield; Jes\u00fas up front. If we start to get these players back, we could be in for a very exciting run in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the weather being exactly what you would expect from the North West at this time of year, the Arsenal team rolled into Burnley with the intention of continuing the brilliant form of late. Liverpool has unsurprisingly rolled over a pretty supine Brentford in the lunchtime kick off and nothing but a victory would do.  […]<\/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\/9202"}],"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=9202"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9205,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9202\/revisions\/9205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}