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Photo from Freepik
Morning all.
Arsenal did their job well last night. A mix and match team from start to end but with a few surprises thrown in. Not as far as personnel goes but how they played. Zinchenko had an excellent game in midfield and Sterling played really well too ending with two assists. He should have scored when Zinchenko fed a great ball through the middle for him to run onto but instead, fired straight at the keeper. For all the good he did, his challenge at the end of the game was stupid and reckless and I was surprised when the referee didn’t pull a red card out of his pocket rather than the yellow he showed him, especially having seen both Kiwior and Rice pick up bookings for their soft “tackles”.
A wonderful strike from Zinchenko and a rare header from Rice helped cement our journey into the quarterfinals of the Champions League where we’ll play Real Madrid. I felt sorry for Atletico when Julian Alvarez had his penalty disallowed after slipping and allegedly touching the ball twice, especially as replays showed, the ‘double touch’ was not definite. Apparently it was Courtois who raised the issue with the referee who then called upon VAR to check. Honours were even when Real missed a spot kick of their own but Llorente then struck his against the woodwork leaving Rudiger to tuck his home for the victory.
As far as style of football goes, it’s probably better for Arsenal to be facing Real Madrid than Atletico because the latter would be so so hard to break down. We struggle against a low block in the league so I’m pretty sure we’d find things even more difficult against a Simeone team who are masters at defending. They’re like the factor 100 in a sun block world.
The first leg of the Real Madrid tie is on the Tuesday 8th April at The Emirates.
When one considers our domestic struggles this season, I think the players have done really well to reach this stage of the competition. It’s not like every fixture in the group stage was easy and PSV, whilst not the strongest of opposition, still had to be beaten with the same group of players who have been part of our domestic struggle. To defeat a fellow Champions League club 7-1 on their own pitch is something to be really proud of I think and such a scoreline allowed Mikel Arteta to rest a few players last night. Not only resting players is good but seeing both Sterling and Zinchenko come into the team and play really well can only be positive. Sterling needed a confidence boost so perhaps last night will prove to be it. I think we all know the quality of Zinchenko but he’s just not good as a left back. Yesterday we saw some of the best of him from further up the pitch.
I cant end without a word on Gabriel. What a player he is and what a challenge that was! Just brilliant…
Catch up in the comments..