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Photo From Freepik
Morning all.
If you was unfortunate enough to listen to that laughable excuse for a sports radio station Talk Sport this week, you’d have easily thought that you was actually listening to something like Aston Villa FM, such was their barely disguised one-eyed desire to see The Villains beat Arsenal. Now I know balanced, informative reporting has never been their thing and they most certainly would never let something like thought-provoking output get in the way of their low-brow content, after all they have total contempt for their listeners, but their reporting is almost reaching BBC levels of bias.
Anyway sod the lot of them, we all know that in general the sports media in this country are desperate to see Arsenal choke again, so they were happy at full-time. Despite the terrible Mosquera news from Friday to go with all the other chronic injuries we’ve suffered this season, Arteta still managed to field a top class squad to face the Villa threat. The Arsenal talent wasn’t in doubt only the energy levels.
Timber was retained as a centre-back alongside Hincapie, Rice dug deep into his energy levels – he really is an astonishing footballer – Odegaard kept his central spot and Eze replaced Martinelli. The Arsenal bench looked, attacking wise, super strong with Trossard joining Noni, Viktor and Gabby but the inclusion of Salmon showed clearly how injuries had eaten into the clubs defensive resources. It’s hard to take and that’s on the back of all the new recruits last summer!
The game started quite cagey with both teams feeling each other out but on 9 minutes Rodgers lost possession and the ball goes to Odegaard but he shot straight at Martinez. A minute later Watkins got free but fortunately remembered who he supports and his low shot was straight at Raya. Saka then had a shot on target but we weren’t finding the corners of the net. On 22 a nice move between Saka and Odegaard saw Eze sliding home but Saka was offside. Rice was digging deep into his reserves and he made a great block on Marty Cash on 29 but a few minutes later Cash found himself unmarked on the far post as Eze lost concentration and shot low and hard under Raya’s attempt to parry his shot, we looked a bit rattled.
The game became quite ragged but on 42 Saka skinned Maadsen and pulled a nice low cross in for Ben White but his shot was disappointing and Martinez collected it like a back pass. Two minutes later Rice shot but Martinez easily saved and the game drifted towards the break.
Half/time 1-0 to the home team.
Arteta made changes at half-time. Off went the ineffective Eze for Trossard and the tired looking Merino was replaced by Gyokeres and after 5 minutes Trossard fired narrowly wide of the far post after good work by Odegaard. Then on 52 a low Odegaard cross into the box was fired home by Trossard with Gyokeres attracting two Villa defenders to him and freeing up the space Leo utilised.
Arsenal were cooking then but we couldn’t follow it up despite some quite open play by both sides. Rice fired high over the bar after Gyokeres won a throw in and on 69 Saka combined with a Odegaard to create an opening but Martin’s drive was tipped over by Martinez. Saka came close from the resulting corner.
Fatigue was kicking in and Arteta made more changes with Madueke replacing the frustrated Saka on 79 minutes. Noni had a couple of dribbles but he didn’t really add much to the team which for me was disappointing. Villa now sensed Arsenal were tiring and a couple of defensive mix ups almost led to goals, one from a Timber deflection bobbled along the Arsenal goal line – phew!
On 86 it was a case of if you can’t win then don’t lose and Arteta replaced Calafiori with Myles and took off Trossard for Martinelli, neither sub had the required effect. Hincapie was getting pulled out of position, the legs must have been screaming and another penalty area scramble led to Villa scoring the winner. It was Anfield all over again.
Timber and Rice were amazing, to keep going as they do, Hincapie worked like a Trojan in the middle of our defence but the injuries beat Arsenal today so we now need to go away and regroup. The fixtures from here on won’t be as stressful and if we can get Saliba back and rest a few in midweek then we’ll hopefully be back on track next weekend. I believe that Jesus played for the U.21’s over the weekend so maybe he’ll make his long awaited come back over the next few days?
Arteta looked grim at full-time, he’s not had much luck recently so it’s understandable, I’m also looking grim as Sunderland do us a favour.
But….. we still march on.
**By Kev.**