We are top of the league. We are top of the league. I know. I said that last week. But I want to enjoy while it’s lasts. Because it won’t. And it nearly didn’t today. But we had a little luck, and we showed some resilience. And we deserved it. Arguably, we scored all three goals – if not created all three that’s for sure.
It’s funny how our center-backs have each given goals away and then made up for it and the other end by scoring. Gabriel though can’t be put in the same league as our Big Willy (I know, but I enjoyed the reference last week so I thought I’d double down on it – so to speak).
So, somehow, we remain undefeated with maximum points from 4 games. That’s unheard of. I believe the last time we achieved this was back in 1856 when we beat Collective United National Trade Society 5-0 with three goals from Fred Oracle the 3rd. But I digress.
Now I’m just saying, you know, if a meteorite just happened to crash into the earth and destroy all football stadiums and all available football pitches and then the season would have to be cancelled then not only would we qualify for the Champions League for next year but we’d also win the Premier League for the first time in this modern era. Please note no people were injured during the making of this stupid hypothetical; it was a very specific alien engineered meteorite. Anyway, the point remains. We are top of the league.
This was all part of the grand plan when we acquired Ramsdale. Put Leno in goal at the other end and then pepper him with corners. He managed to save a few of our shots but it was inevitable that he’d go all Fabianski on a corner. Karma when you only pay us £10m for him.
It was good to see though that Zinny was not too injured so that he was able to participate in the Gabriel celebrations. When he scored that is – not when he set them up for their goal and their celebrations. We missed Zinny today. And Partey. Our Elneny worked reasonably hard but he’s a Mini compared to the Partey Range Rover. You could see the lack of creativity down our left. Tesco Tierney defends better but tends to pass sideways and lacks to the imagination of our Ukrainian hero.
Thankfully though we still have Jesus and Odegaard. Jesus is like an electric eel whereas Odegaard was majestic today. Making Ozil-like passes but with a real workrate. Some of his passes today were out of this world. He was the link up player today. Without that Zinny creativity we were entirely dependent on our Captain. He teed up Jesus a few times who, on another day, will score. Instead it was left to Odegaard to open our scoring. Quite a nice habit he’s developing. Eventually teams will kick him off the pitch or just have someone follow him right out of the dressing room.
Saliba was outstanding yet again. He is like a Rolls Royce at the back. His distribution is everything that Gabriels isn’t. He was able to feed White and Odegaard whereas Gabriel was still too slow and rarely got the ball out to Tierney. As a consequence Zhaka was more isolated and had to come back a little further to get involved. As for Gabriel, I suppose the only good news was that he did not foul their Serb and get a red card. I hope he learned from that but towards the end of the game he nearly got caught again. Saka should never have played that pass to him. It was careless and very high risk. But Saka could not know that Gabriel would go full-on Mustafa. But, unfortunately, Gabriel has that in his locker.
Saka still has not found his groove yet. I would have thought ESR would have come on for him at some point. Saka had a few chances but still needs to sharpen his finishing. He has plenty of time to get back his mojo.
Arteta deserves credit for his changes once we went one down. Though we lost a little when Jesus was moved to create space for Eddie to zip around we made up for it in the increased intensity. Eddie should have scored. But this was not like last season at Everton. Eddie has developed and is more threatening now. But he should have scored at least once. But Arteta made the right moves. And this team showed some backbone today. Last season I don’t think we’d have won this game – we might have done enough to get a point. But to come back from one down against such a dour team as Fulham should give us confidence.
But we saw today what happens when we lose Partey. In addition to the cover for the defense we lose someone who can pick up the ball from the defense and propel us forward. So, with the transfer window still open that’s where the focus should be. Sure another attacking player – like the high priced Neto – would be good but there’s no way we’ll get 30+ games out of Partey.
There were times today where I was convinced it was one of those games where we’d have all the chances in the world but luck would conspire against us to score. We certainly deserved to win it was just not clear that we’d get the breaks necessary. That we’d actually take one or two of the chances we’d gotten. Because we had so many and seem in capable of shooting or scoring. So I’m relived that we got the goals and points we deserved. And that we back at the pinnacle of the league. Enjoy it while it lasts. The more distance we can put between us and the other teams that will be competing for 3rd, 4th and 5th so much the better.
But we’ll need Partey for Old Trafford that’s for sure. Tierney’s defense will help there but we’ll want Zinny on Wednesday. And let’s hope another returning goalie can help us out as well. Hopefully the ego that is Martinez can also emulate Fabianski. It’s nice that we’ve populated some many teams goalkeepers; maybe they will be our secret weapon this year.
So, enjoy another few days at the top and pray for the good health of Zinny and Partey because they were missed today. But get used to it. And remember, this team was not built for this year but for next.
-LB7