{"id":937,"date":"2020-06-18T01:50:09","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T00:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=937"},"modified":"2020-06-19T22:13:28","modified_gmt":"2020-06-19T21:13:28","slug":"definitely-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=937","title":{"rendered":"Definitely Maybe."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pre-match ritual for this game was\nunlike any that I have previously experienced. No fine Italian food and wine,\nnot even the Ruby Murray much beloved by CM100. I had planned a nice pre-match piece\nof pork belly accompanied by the Wine Society\u2019s California Old Vine Zinfandel\n2018 and while I did partake of these delights the whole experience was\ndominated by the force of nature. Not Covid-19, but an extended Wagnerian\nthunder and lightning storm that struck while the pooch and I were walking in\nthe fields below our village. Initially, we sheltered in a copse at the edge of\nthe field, standing a strategic distance from the tree trunks given the risk of\nemulating the fine Scottish inside forward John White who sadly played for a\nsecond-rate outfit before he was fried taking shelter under a tree on a golf\ncourse in the 60\u2019s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After fifteen minutes, with the rain\nintensifying and us slowly getting as wet under the canopy as if we were out in\nthe open with ongoing thunder and lightning, we legged it the mile or so home\ngetting soaked to the skin. After a reviving hot shower, I attempted to warm up\nfor our game by watching the Villa v Blades match only to discover that the TV was\ndead. Changing the fuse and a consultation with Google established that the\nlightning had zapped the power board. Not the best pre-match build up I\u2019ve ever\nhad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mikel surprised me by going for youthful\nenthusiasm and new blood rather than experience:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, Mari, Tierney; Guendouzi,\nXhaka, Willock; Aubameyang, Nketiah, Saka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Subs: Martinez, Luiz, Kolasinac, AMN,\nCeballos, Nelson, Pepe, Martinelli, Lacazette.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his pre-match interview Mikel said this\nwas a very emotional game for him and that he had picked what in his opinion\nwas the best team to win this game. Sokratis apparently has a thigh strain. Torreira\nwas deemed unfit earlier this week. The pre-match talking point was no sign of\n\u00d6zil in a 20-man squad! Mikel said he was going to address that after the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apparently, Arsenal flew in just an hour or\ntwo before kick-off to avoid the infective risk of a visit to Mancunia. It was\npissing down there too of course. A leveller? Time would tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We lined up with Eddie in the middle, PEA on the left and Saka on the right. Willock seemed to be our deepest midfielder. Early on, Eddie ran onto a ball over the top but was called off-side. This was followed by a free kick on the edge of our box from a clumsy Mari challenge that Leno touched over. After just four minutes Xhaka tripped over Guendouzi and knackered his right ankle forcing an early substitution by Ceballos. I could hear TTG cheering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both teams began using a high press and\nplaying out from the back which I have to say we did far better than I\u2019ve seen\nus do previously. After 12 minutes Saka put a nice ball into the box which was\nflicked wide by Eddie from 6 yards. We looked quite silky in possession and\nafter 17 minutes had shared possession 50:50 with Shitteh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A flick from Jesus allowed Walker to run\ninto our 6-yard box and play a dangerous cut back that fortunately fell to Mustafi\nand Mari rather than to a teammate. After 20 minutes, Mari went down clutching\nhis left ankle, limped off and was replaced by Luiz. Saka looked lively on our\nright but was caught offside on too many occasions. Our press yielded a chance\nfrom the edge of the box for PEA who sent it well over. At the other end, good\ntracking back by Ceballos allowed him to intercept an incisive through ball\nfrom de Bruyne to Mahrez. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We were competing well in midfield and giving as good as we were getting in the first half hour. As their lack of stamina kicked in, both teams now started dropping off when they lost possession. Eddie appeared to be causing Shitteh problems. Running towards the Shitteh box, he was wrestled to the ground by Garcia but Taylor strangely saw nothing illegal. Even Gary Neville saw that foul. A shot from the left of our box by Sterling was palmed away by Leno who then made another good stop from Silva\u2019s turn and shot in our box which was then cleared by Ceballos. Shitteh seemed to be finding a groove and we were reduced to counterattacks as Shitteh possession rose to 59% as they began to dominate the midfield. Leno made a superb save with his right foot from Mahrez running onto a de Bruyne ball into our 6-yard box. Another superb ball into the box by de Bruyne saw Sterling dink it over Leno and the bar from the same position. Could we survive to half time with our goal intact?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the other end, a curling Saka free kick\nwas almost met by Mustafi on the stretch in the Shitteh 6-yard box. Just as it\nlooked as if we would survive to half time with our goal intact, a sloppy\nmistake by David Luiz in added time gifted Shitteh a goal. He was standing at\nthe edge of our box and let a speculative de Bruyne punt bounce off his thigh\ninto the path of Sterling. He fired it high past Leno into the far netting. The\ngoalie had no chance of saving that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HT Oilers 1 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In summary, we matched them for 30-35\nminutes but were under the cosh for the last 10 minutes of the first half and\nbut for Leno\u2019s three excellent saves would have been behind before David Luiz\ngifted Sterling his goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither club made any half-time changes. The\nsecond half began as the first ended with Shitteh calling the shots. A long\nball from Ederson found Mahrez running into our box but his first touch was a\npass to Leno. Mahrez then ran into the box past Luiz who put a hand on his\nshoulder and the Shitteh player threw himself to the ground. Taylor had no\nhesitation in blowing for a penalty and waved a red card at Luiz. There was no\nreprieve from VAR. Uphill from here. De Bruyne sent Leno the wrong way and\nkilled the game on 50 minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oilers 2 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka moved to left back and Tierney stepped\ninside to centre back with Ceballos. Sterling then slid into Mustafi with studs\nup. VAR reviewed it while Mustafi writhed in agony \u2013 no card. Fortunately,\nMustsafi was able to continue but it was surely now damage limitation. As we\ncame towards the hour mark Jesus hit a long-range effort straight at Leno. Leno\nthen made an excellent interception from a low Mahrez cross across the 6-yard\nbox as several Shitteh forwards rushed in. \nAt 64 minutes David Silva and Mahrez were replaced by Foden and Bernardo\nSilva. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ceballos, Guendouzi and Willock kept\nworking in midfield and Nketiah was lively up front but PEA was utterly\nanonymous throughout the second half. Nketiah, Willock and Guendouzi were\nreplaced on 67 minutes by AMN, Nelson and Lacazette, adopting a 4-4-1\nformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chip from the left from Silva was touched\nby Sterling in our box for de Bruyne to run onto but the shot was well saved by\nLeno. It was a relief to see de Bruyne replaced by Rodri as he had put in an\nimpressive performance. Shitteh were moving the ball well, pulling our\ndefenders around and when we broke out their high defensive line repeatedly regained\npossession as we approached the halfway line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At 75 minutes Tierney received a yellow for\na late challenge on Silva 40 yards out. Rodri blocked one of our players\nrunning out of the wall to block a pass to Silva who waited on the right of our\nbox. Fortunately, Leno saved the shot as the block wasn\u2019t penalised. The\ncommentators hoped that VAR would have intervened had a goal been scored! Rodri\nthen got his deserved yellow for a foul on Ceballos. Fernandinho came on for Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A long Arsenal punt upfield led to Ederson wiping\nout Garcia on the edge of the Shitteh box after 80 minutes. Players from both\nsides looked shaken by the state of Garcia but Ederson seemed to find it\namusing. Gundogan and Aguero seemed to have been slipped onto the pitch while\nGarcia was being resuscitated. It took 8 minutes for him to be stretchered off\nand Shitteh had no more substitutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

10 v 10. Game on? Could we pull one back in\nthe 11 added minutes? No. We seemed to get on the front foot for the first time\nin ages but as a result Shitteh moved the ball nicely through our defence and\nSterling fed an unmarked Aguero running in from our right. His shot hit the\npost but the rebound fell to Foden who cracked it into the net past Leno. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oilers – 3 Arsenal- 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our use of the ball in their half just\ndidn\u2019t compare though we did try to make something happen. I remember Shitteh\u2019s\nexpensively assembled side under Mancini coming to our place and embarrassingly\nplaying for a 0-0 draw but steady investment of another few hundred million\npounds of oil revenue has opened up a major gap in quality between these teams.\nAt 95 minutes Silva cracked a shot wide from inside our box when he looked odds\non to score then Aguero hit the side netting as he ran unmarked into our box from\nour left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In reply, Lacazette worked hard to regain\nthe ball in midfield and was then found by Saka on the left but his ball into\nthe box for Nelson was cut out. Then a Nelson cut back from the right found PEA\non the edge of the 6-yard box. Surely? A consolation? He scuffed his shot which\nwas turned away for a corner that was wasted. A shot on target, perhaps?\nApparently not!  Another nice Arsenal\nmovement involving Nelson and Lacazette ended in a poor pass by PEA as we tried\nto build another attack on the edge of their box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Taylor then blew his whistle to put us\nout of our misery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

FT Oilers \u2013 3 Arsenal \u2013 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think 3-0 was a fair reflection of the\ngap between these teams. We started well with Eddie making good runs behind the\nShitteh defence but we wouldn\u2019t have got anything out of this match even\nwithout Luiz\u2019s critical contributions. I don\u2019t think the enforced substitutions\nearly on made a substantial difference to the outcome. Overall, we had only 33%\npossession. Shitteh had 20 goal attempts vs 3 from Arsenal, with 5 v 0 on\ntarget. Frankly this Arsenal team doesn\u2019t look good enough to make top four\nthis season. Mikel almost certainly knew the size of his task before this\nmatch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There were a few positives. Leno was\noutstanding and MotM for me. Without his contribution, we would have been dead\nand buried by half time. Tierney looked as good as we\u2019d hoped when he was\nplaying at left back. He was pulled around a bit late on playing at centre back\nbut can\u2019t be heavily criticised for that. Eddie was busy up front, looked our\nbiggest threat in the first half but faded later as our possession dropped off.\nSaka looked effective both at wide right and when he slotted into his recently\nhabitual position of left back. Lacazette and Nelson both looked lively late on\nand tried to turn the tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEA was anonymous throughout and Luiz\u2019s\ncontributions were disastrous. That should clarify the contractual issues as\npresumably does the absence of \u00d6zil (which was for tactical reasons according\nto Mikel). Our allegedly constrained financial resources have to be invested into\nour young players and to building a team that is greater than its parts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have too many CBs already. There is\nabsolutely no point investing in keeping error-prone Luiz as an option though\nMikel says today hasn\u2019t changed his view. Credit to David Luiz that he came out\nfor a post-match interview and said that tonight\u2019s result was entirely his\nfault. He added that he wants to stay. I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PEA has scored many fine goals for us over\nrecent years but he is 31 the day after this game and is not part of our\nfuture. I suspect at least part of him wants to leave Arsenal to win medals and\nif we get a half-decent offer, we should take it and invest in Saka, Eddie and\nMartinez. Finally, we simply have to find two players that are nowhere to be\nseen in this squad: a player who will dominate the midfield and a new\nplaymaker\/Number 10 who will create the opportunities for our forwards that we\nhave failed to create all season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rome wasn\u2019t built in a day.\n\nOnwards.\n\n\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pre-match ritual for this game was unlike any that I have previously experienced. No fine Italian food and wine, not even the Ruby Murray much beloved by CM100. I had planned a nice pre-match piece of pork belly accompanied by the Wine Society\u2019s California Old Vine Zinfandel 2018 and while I did partake of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"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\/937"}],"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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":939,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/937\/revisions\/939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}