How are you all feeling today? Have you got that empty feeling in the pit of your stomach, you know the one you get when you can see a whole season’s work seemingly slipping through our fingers? It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s how you feel and I wouldn’t blame you either because that’s exactly how I feel.
But the overriding feeling is one of missed opportunities, a whole raft of chances to kill off Man City’s challenge and to actually make yesterday’s game quite redundant – other than on the day. Quite frankly a game that shouldn’t have really mattered had instead become seismic in it’s possible and probable effect on where the EPL resides next month. Man City really don’t deserve it, if they finish top, because they will not have earned it, they will have instead been kindly presented it by a team that has done its level best to sabotage itself.
The atmosphere at Eastlands was febrile, the referee Anthony Taylor was at his inconsistent best, but Arsenal, after the usual Raya brainfart began to warm to the task. Havertz leading the line was a major improvement given he wins high balls, stays on his feet and keeps possession when under intense pressure. Alongside him, Eze and Madueke looked sharp and Odegaard linked things together nicely.
The Arsenal defence though seemed less secure, City were able to penetrate the double pivot with ease and it led to some hairy moments and not much control from the back-four. But the Gunners had the City defence scurrying to close down threats as well with Hincapie getting forward to support the attack, allowing Eze to tuck inside. Gabriel and Raya combined to stop an almost certain goal and then Arsenal had a run of corners that looked dangerous but were comfortably dealt with by the Oilers defence.
City had been the first to settle but Arsenal were now finding their range then a poor clearance by Hincapie on 16 minutes and a half-hearted challenge by Eze saw the ball at the feet of Cherki and the man with little or no respect for opponents made Gabriel and Co look leaden footed as he gave the 115 charges cheats the lead. Two minutes later a throw in to Donnaruma was closed down by Havertz who diverted the lanky big nosed Italians clearance into the City net for a surprising equaliser.
From then on it was nip and tuck, Haarland finished poorly on 28 minutes showing that even a cyborg – and a very ugly cyborg at that – can mess it up. The next 10 minutes saw City get on top and threaten, leading to a great goal saving challenge by Hincapie to stop Semenyo. There were a few more nervy moments then Madueke got clear and looked as if he could really create something but unfortunately Noni had his Coco boots on and he just stumbled over his feet and presented possession to the opposition as is his habit. Half-Time 1-1
The Noni stumble saw him subbed off at the break and replaced by Martinelli whose first action was to give the ball away, no team it seems gives up possession with quite the same panache of this Arsenal team.
On 50 minutes Semenyo caught the Madueke loose control bug and gave away a great chance as the ball bobbled into the grateful arms of a slipping Raya. 54 minutes saw Anthony Taylor reminding us of how flawed his judgement of a foul is as Havertz, breaking clear on goal, was clearly fouled and brought down but the Manchester official just breezily waved play on – of course he did, the pillock.
With Taylor laughing and joking with the City players it seemed that this game was only going one way, then on 59 minutes the increasingly influential Eze found Odegaard who drove at the City box before squaring to Havertz but his low shot was saved by City’s goalkeeper, Havertz just couldn’t get his shot past Donnarumas nose! Two minutes later on 61 Odegaard found Eze who made some space for himself and got off a low left footed drive. Now if it’s your day it hits the post and rebounds into the net off of the sprawling goalkeeper, but it evaded Donnaruma and ran along the goal line to safety. You kinda began to feel that it wasn’t going to be your day, well I did.
Then O’Reilly, who else it seems, got away from Martinelli and helped create the winner which Erland old ‘rubber lips’ miskicked home for the eventual winner. On 73 an Odegaard free kick found Gabriel via a deflection but Big Nose deflected it onto the post and to safety. White and Trossard came on for Mosquera and Eze a minute later. Trossard isn’t fit and Eze can score out of nothing so I didn’t understand that substitution. Gyokeres came on at 85 for Zubimendi and was fairly absent from everything around him. There was still time for Havertz to miss a beautifully set up chance in added time. He met a perfect cross but he headed it over the bar, I mean he’s a German International and he has to be scoring that goal.
Anyway that was that, but we’re where we are because of draws with Brentford, Wolves, Forest, Liverpool and Palace, there’s 10 points there! And don’t get me started on home defeats to Man United and Bournemouth, another 6 points, that’s 16 points frittered away since December 23rd. The problem is goalscoring, Arsenal as a team are simply not clinical enough, the midfield hardly score and our wide attackers are just punchless and on top of that we’ve badly missed Mikel Merino’s goals.
But, we can still win it, as Declan Rice said to Martin Odegaard on the final whistle “It’s not over”…
We march on with Declan.
**By Kev**