Not dead yet. Neither me nor Arsenal. It’s a pleasure to be back after mauling that lot. Though we made heavy weather of that in the last 10 minutes that was an impressive performance. A fully deserved 3 points and justice was served. Both in terms of the result and in terms of injuries to Son and a red card for that irritating, sharp-elbowed, nasty little Argentinian.
As soon as he came on to replace the hamstrung Son, he started his normal spiky behavior – nibbling at Xhaka, instigating and generally acting like the penis that he is. Annoyingly he then scored a goal that the world is purring over. In addition to them scoring completely against the balance of play – well, in truth, I’m not sure you could say they played at all in the first half – we had to sit through endless replays and fawning over the brilliance of this sad little penis. I’d prefer though to focus on the replays of both his first foul on Xhaka and then the perfect picture of both his elbow into poor Tesco Tierney (TT) with little Darth Vader in the background waving one of his tentacles in the air. Someone needs to get a frame of that and sell it on Ebay (Is Ebay still a thing?). And then that pleasurable walk of shame off the pitch. Justice served. Thank you. It does not make up for David Luiz being sent off nor the endless decisions we don’t get (i.e. hand balls by Burnley last week) but it was more than well deserved. And, annoyingly, after he finally left the pitch, the rest of his team decided to start actually putting us under pressure.
We dominated the game and imposed ourselves on them from the beginning. But as soon as we took the lead and then they lost that list sad penis, we mentally imploded. That same self-destruct button we have consistently seen re-appeared. It was not enough to gift the Burnley knobs a goal nor the Greeks during the week. No, here from the minute we took the lead Gabriel – who was otherwise perfect today – passes the ball out behind TT. Then right after that TT manages to stub his toe making a pass right to their player. Partey, who was maybe tiring, starts passing to them. Mistakes start creeping into our game. The only two who didn’t were David Luiz and Xhaka. It’s obviously a team allocation thing. They had used up their weekly allocation of fucked-up passes. It was now everyone else’s turn.
Those last 10 minutes were beyond nerve racking. As content and happy as I was during the first 80 minutes (well, maybe not exactly calm) in those last 10 minutes I was utterly apoplectic with anger at our mental fragility. These constant stupid mistakes. We had the game in our finger tips and yet we seemed determined to throw it away. It’s as though this team is scared of winning. We are unable to believe we can and should win. Going behind is something we can react and recover from but taking the lead seems like a foreign concept. After the game both Cigarette and Arteta discussed their poor game management at the end of the game. It was our worst 10 minutes of the game. It was so clear though that they were able to acknowledge that right after the game. So maybe there is some hope.
This self-destruct capability is the trip wire though that will inevitably cause us to miss our targets for this year. Until we can delver into the psyche of our team and instill some backbone we won’t be able to progress in the way we anticipate. Imagine if there had been a full stadium of fans? Imagine how that angst would have transferred to the players and increases the stress on their mentality. We’re lucky to play these. Games without fans. In fact, I suspect the absence of fans allowed Arteta to retain his role through the painful losing streak in November. It gave him the time he needed to find the right formula. With fans screaming for results during that period I wonder if he would have survived to take us to the promised land.
So, back to the game itself. The lack of Aubameyang was unexpected. It tells us something about the self-confidence and belief Arteta has that he would confidently take this stand. Against our hated rivals dropping his talisman. What other manager would have done this? A loss today would have ended any slight chance to getting into Europe post Brexit. And to lose to Darth Vader would be unthinkable. Yet, he clearly believes he has the full support and backing off the entire AFC hierarchy such that he could put those pressures to one side to focus on the greater good of the team rules and togetherness. To let everyone know that all the rules apply to all the players finally puts to bed all those prior exceptions made from players like Ozil. It would be unimaginable for AW to have done this. And as for that dull accountant, he was too scared of his own shadow to contemplate such a move.
And where was Hector? That was not expected either. And what a good game our little Portuguese pigmy had today. Contrast that with their right back. Cedric was creative and dangerous. He has a solid football IQ and helped us dominate that lot. On the left Smith-Rowe was quite stunning. He ripped them apart consistently. Among all the great displays today his might be the most impressive. He darted around the filed making intelligent one touch passes. In-between he unleashed an Odergaard type shot that hits the cross bar. Along with TT they tore apart Bale and Doherty. Did they really pay £15 m to Wolves for that guy? I can’t believe they did not remove him at half-time. He was totally out of his depth. But then that’s true of most of their players. Today ESR showed us yet more improvement in his game. He contributed in more varied ways and kept the pace of our movement high. His passing under pressure is something to behold. Maybe this is was the original MO was like when he was younger.
Then there’s the new MO. After that stunning mid-week goal he snagged another one care of a nasty deflection. Maybe our luck is finally turning. That shot was never going to beat Lloris without the deflection. But rarely will you see a more deserved goal than that. We dominated them in every stage of the game. I can’t remember a single save Leno had to make – our post was more active than Leno.
Xhaka and Partey controlled the midfield. For once Xhaka was more dominant than Partey. Aside from that mental problem in the last 10 minutes he still has this unwarranted belief that he can shot a ball and hit the target. I’ve yet to see any evidence of this. Likewise there are times when – as in the second half – he tried to beat three players right by the half way line. It was not enough that he beat two of them. Rather than pas she wanted to take on the entire team. Hopefully someone is going to knock that tendency out of him soon. Meantime, Xhaka controlled the game and I can’t think of a single misplaced pass.
Cigarette was mildly effective. He provides shape and focus to our play. But I can’t understand how a striker decides to dummy the ball in the six yard areas when faced with a chance to shoot. He also missed a shot when we again penetrated down our left. He did win us a penalty after whiffing on the ball. And did pick himself up and put the ball in the net. But he was not overly committed to closing them down and chasing after the ball. Even at the end MO was still running around whereas Cigarette was hovering around the ½ way line. Maybe though this game suited him better than Aubameyang.
Saka was quiet again by his high standards. I worry that he went off at ½ time. But at least we saw Pepe and not William. Pepe was pretty good but was helped by having Cedric behind him. It’s hard to think of a player who underperformed today. We even saw Leno launch the ball up field multiple times today; it seemed like we did not force ourselves to play it out the back every time. Which is kinda ironic given that Sp*rs refused to apply any pressure when we did. Have they not seen what we’ve done lately? How could they not apply any pressure? But then I was baffled by their lack of tactics the entire game. Why play Bale and then not get him the ball? Why play so defensively? I know they are a counter-attacking team but right from the start they were completely passive. They played more like Bolton or Burnley than a time aspiring to qualify for Europe. It made no sense. It was only in the last 10 minutes – down by one goal and down by one sad penis – did they apply pressure. Imagine what they could have done if they actually played like that for the entire game. And that surely lands at the feet of Darth Vader. It feels like he remains stuck in the first decade of this century. That’s fine with me. But what a waste of money. I’m sure they will grind out a few more 1-0 victories. But without Son they will suffer. And how I’ll enjoy that. They truly got what they deserved today. At least when we lose we do it in style. We can be assured to conjure up yet more preposterous ways to give up goals and points. We lose with class; they lose through pure boredom.
So, stressful and nerve-racking as it was, this was 3 well earned points. The better team won. The better youngsters with with us. The future remains bright. Not bright enough to help us this yer but surely for the next few years. We have an upward trajectory. And we’ll be passing that lot in our ascent. We have the right manager and a core group of young players that can act as our spine. And they have the right manager. One destined to take them on a deep dark journey to hell. Where they have a special spot reserved for them.
Man, it’s good to be back
-LB7