{"id":9897,"date":"2024-08-08T20:49:21","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T19:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9897"},"modified":"2024-08-12T21:35:45","modified_gmt":"2024-08-12T20:35:45","slug":"the-proverbial-walk-in-the-park","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9897","title":{"rendered":"The Proverbial Walk in the Park"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

81 days on from the anguish of missing out on the title on the final day, The Arsenal were back in N5. Bayer Leverkusen were in town for the first of two friendly matches on the carpet, with The Gunners facing Lyon on Sunday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arteta named a strong team to take on the Bundesliga champions, although, disappointingly, Timber and Calafiori were nowhere to be seen. Saka and Rice were on the bench hoping for their first involvements of pre-season following their exploits with England at the Euros. Havertz began in midfield and Vieira was given a go on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arsenal started strongly and we took an early lead on eight minutes through Zinchenko. The Ukrainian played a line-breaking through ball to Havertz down the left, who picked out Zinchenko, who had found more space following Trossard\u2019s clever dummy, and our new number 17 drilled it hard and low into the \u2018keeper\u2019s bottom left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost immediately, we doubled our lead. Trossard stole the ball off the returning Xhaka\u2019s toes, and a few incisive passes later the Belgian sat down the defender and goalkeeper in one fell swoop as he passed home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We found a third shortly before half time and it was another sensational effort this time from Jes\u00f9s. The Brazilian seized possession well inside his own half from a terrible Leverkusen throw in, drove forwards with no Bayer defenders anywhere near him before driving the ball into the \u2018keeper\u2019s bottom right corner. Leverkusen were getting carved apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Arteta made a couple of changes at the break as the likes of Saka and Myles Lewis-Skelly were given the opportunity to get some minutes into their legs. Whilst Leverkusen sharpened up a notch or two, Arsenal were still comfortable and added to their lead halfway through the second period through Havertz. Nwaneri drove forward from midfield, fed Saka on the right who darted into the box and saw his cross diverted towards Havertz who had the simple task of prodding home for his second goal of pre-season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The German outfit found a consolation 15 minutes from time through Adam Hlozek but the Gunners sailed through to full time with a very comfortable win over Xabi Alonso\u2019s \u201cInvincibles\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in all, it was an enjoyable evening back at the Emirates after three months away. You do really miss the whole vibe after such a long break. And these friendlies are always a great opportunity for those who don\u2019t often get a chance to go to games to watch their heroes in the flesh and sample the atmosphere. Whilst I do believe those participating in a Mexican wave and chanting, \u201cStand up if you hate Tottenham\u201d ought to be banished to Siberia for all of eternity, those of us who do go regularly sometimes take for granted how lucky we are. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our annual pre-season trips to the States or to South East Asia as it often was under Wenger, hits home just how global AFC really is and demonstrates how we attract support from all corners of the globe. I only stayed up to watch one of the three stateside friendlies and it makes you realise how big a commitment it is for so many fans to regularly get up in the very early hours to watch Arsenal games, often before going into work or school. If I ever find myself living on a different continent, would I set my alarm for half three in the morning two or three times a week to watch all our games? I\u2019m not sure but for the many that do exactly that, we salute you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was certainly a very exciting performance and one which only fuels the excitement ahead of next weekend\u2019s big kick off. Our pre-season performances up to this point haven\u2019t been bad but they lacked the zip on show yesterday evening. But that\u2019s to be expected when you\u2019re this close to the start of a new campaign. Leverkusen were a week behind in their preparations as the Bundesliga starts a week later and that does make a big difference in pre- season. Having said that many of their stars from last season featured at the Emirates. Ligue 1 starts at the same time as the Premier League so we may see a more physically demanding game on Sunday afternoon. But this was a good run out, nonetheless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Onto Sunday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

81 days on from the anguish of missing out on the title on the final day, The Arsenal were back in N5. Bayer Leverkusen were in town for the first of two friendly matches on the carpet, with The Gunners facing Lyon on Sunday.  Arteta named a strong team to take on the Bundesliga champions, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"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\/9897"}],"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\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9897"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9900,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9897\/revisions\/9900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}