And From That Moment On - Arsenal Knew They Were In a Game
I’ve gone into every home game that we played
against Arsenal in the last few years thinking that we had a really good chance
as far as games against the Super league clubs go. In that time, Arsenal could
be best described as being flaky. Yes they had some good players in the
attacking positions but the central midfield would usually quite weak and the
defence was always likely to give you something. They arrive at St Mary‘s
today, four points clear at the top of the Premier League and I have a feeling
that this might be slightly more tricky than a trip to Bournemouth. Instead of
Solanke, Tavernier, Billing and Christie, read Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel
Martinelli, Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka. And that’s just attacking
players…. but it gives you an indication that the clean sheet achieved at
Bournemouth is going to be quite difficult to replicate today.
Also, we’re going to be trying to keep a clean sheet and we’re not
going to have the services of KWP, who picked up a hamstring injury which
probably means that his admittedly outside chance of going to the World Cup in
November have gone. With injuries to Reece James, Kyle Walker and Southgate
realising that he doesn’t want to take Trent Alexander Arnold,, his outside
chance was becoming more of a good chance, so it really is sods law that he’s
picked up an injury as well. His normal replacement at right back would
probably be Ainsley Maitland-Niles but of course he is on loan from Arsenal so
is ineligible for today’s game, giving Ralph a probable choice between Moussa
Djenepo and the left footed Juan Larios for the right back role, be that as
part of a back four or more likely, a back five.
Arsenal of course have one of the more insufferable fanbases when it comes to
social media. They have Arsenal Fan TV and Piers Morgan, who spent years
campaigning against Arsène Wenger before turning his guns on Unai Emery and
then Mikel Arteta, but he’s now declared that he’s happy with the way things
are going, so that’s alright then. The rank and file Arsenal fans on social
media have been making lots of noise this week about the amount of them who
have tickets in the home end so it’ll be interesting to see if there are any
incidents in the crowd today especially given the clubs heavy-handed stance at
closing block one and therefore blaming home fans for any unrest in the ground.
Team news and it looks like Ralph is going with a back five with what looks
like Elyounoussi at right wing back. Lyanco is in the team, I assume as the
third centre back but as I sit in the ground half an hour before the game, I’m
looking at the crossing drill that we do now and the two full backs who are
putting crosses in are Perraud and Lyanco which maybe suggests we are going
four at the back to start with with the lunatic at right back. One thing that
is definite is that Che Adams is not in the team and is apparently only fit for
the bench after having tight hamstrings after the Bournemouth game. As a result
it looks like Joe Aribo is going to be pushed up front with Stuart Armstrong
coming into the team. AMN’s place in midfield has predictably been taken by
Ibrahima Diallo, who has another chance to prove that he’s not just the player
you bring on to help close the game down with 10 minutes to go. There are
places on the bench for youngsters Jake Finnegan and Lewis Payne. Arsenal are at full strength aside from there is no Zinchenko at left back
where they have put Tomiyasu who I thought was right footed. Seems a bit odd
given that Kieran Tierney is on the bench
Well the game didn’t start well with Perraud clearly thinking that Saka was
right footed and he showed him on his left and he whipped over a cross which
was narrowly in front of Gabriel running in.
Saints first effort comes from an unlikely source as the ball gets played out
wide by Stuart Armstrong to Lyanco at right back and he just keeps on going and
gets to about 35 yards out and with images of Carlos Alberto Brazil 1970 World
Cup Final in his mind, smashes the ball in with his right foot …. which is
gathered easily enough by Ramsdale.
In general play, Saints are not getting anywhere near Arsenal, who are just
playing the way through midfield and Gabriel Jesus is about to pull the trigger
before Salisu dives in but the ball bounces out to Xhaka who from a narrow
angle, tries to drill a hole through Bazunu but Baz stands strong and blocks it
away with his knees
We don’t appear to be waking up to the problem however and Arsenal continue
pissing through us. Ødegaard side foots narrowly wide from the edge of the
box.. Basically, if we don’t start getting close to them in midfield and push
higher at the pitch, we are going to get completely smashed.
With 10 minutes gone, Ben White has the ball in the right hand side and plays
it into Saka who back heels it via a deflection back to White and his cross is
dispatched easily by Granit Xhaka. Not really a surprise and it has certainly
been coming. Good goal but Stuart Armstrong has totally failed to go with White
as he burst forward and no one has picked up Xhaka on the edge of our box
The game is nearly dead on its arse straight away afterwards as JWP gives away
cheap ball in midfield and Ødegaard puts Gabriel Jesus in behind Caleta-Car and
he fortunately hits the side netting.
Lyanco is clearly had enough of this passive shit and goes up for a header with
Martinelli and his eyes must have lit up as he headed the ball and smashed into
the Arsenal player as well. A few minutes of treatment for the Arsenal man and
then Lyanco goes one better and does the wrong postcode trick, arriving in SO14
with ball is already in SO15. Granit Xhaka is the player in the way.
The chances keep coming for Arsenal as an unlucky deflection between Caleta-Car
and Diallo sees the ball sit up for Jesus to smash it goalwards but Baz makes a
decent block and we breathe again. Ben White, having seen Saka get booked for a
dive earlier, decides to dive as well and it’s even more blatant but the
referee ignores this one.
We have made it to half-time just the one goal down. The last 15 minutes or so
have been better but it’s all about the next goal. If Arsenal get it then we
are completely screwed. If we have our usual lacklustre opening 15 of the
second half, then we are also screwed. Away
we go and we seem to have switched full time now to a back three with
Elyounoussi pressed into service as a right wing back.
We are also pressing higher and force Arsenal into a mistake as Saliba passes
it straight to Adam Armstrong who just has Gabriel inbetween himself and
Ramsdale. He then picks an unfortunate
time to be possessed by the ghost of Shane Long and the worst touch ever absolutely
fucks it up.
The tide seems to have turned a bit though as Stuart Armstrong gets in a cross
from the left and Elyounoussi arrives at exactly the right time in the middle
but plays in airshot and Arsenal get it clear. Elyounoussi shows the better side of his game
when Diallo coughs up possession in midfield and Ødegaard puts Gabriel Jesus
right through but the makeshift right wing-back appears from nowhere and makes
one of those tackles that prevent a certain goal.
Bearing in mind that we have been a long ball team for a while now, what happens next is beautiful. Salisu gets the ball from Bazunu in the left back area and passes it in to the feet of Aribo on the halfway line he steps over it and Perroud gets clear. A ball out to Elyounoussi on the right hand side he runs at Tomiyasu before slipping a ball in for Stuart Armstrong to score. Brilliant goal. Arsenal keyboard warriors crying.
There is no immediate reaction from the league leaders and Saints are definitely having more of the game now in a decent build up at the right through Elyounoussi and Edozie eventually sees JWP swing over across which ends up with Perraud who tries a volley which unfortunately, for his ‘goal of the season’ ambitions, goes quite comfortably wide. The point is that we look as much like scoring now as they do.
Saints win a succession of corner and JWP whips them all in to be cleared away. One of them goes back to him however and his back-heel puts Stuart Armstrong in on the left and his pull back finds Aribo who kind of has to fetch it from behind him but still gets the shot away and straight at Ramsdale.
Arsenal are still a dangerous of course from their admittedly less frequent attacks. Tierney gets down the left-hand side but the ball is clearly out as he hooks it back into the middle for Odegaard to score. When I say ‘clearly out’. I can’t see that from at the other end so just assumed that we are conceded. It’s an almighty relief when I see it’s been chalked off.
The one remaining piece of entertainment is Nketiah testing Lyanco’s patience with a bit of pushing and getting three times back in return. Yellow card for the Lyanco. When the ref asked for his name he replied ‘Lyanco Evangelista Silveira Neves Lunatic Brazilian Serb Overhead-Kicking Fuckin Have It Mad Bastard Vojnovic’
Full time and what a decent result that is. With that, we become only the
second team this season to not get beaten by this new improved Arsenal side.
The second half performance in particular was absolutely excellent from us when
we stopped giving them as much respect as we did in the first half.
The opening 20 minutes was as passive and as shit as it can possibly get, as we
stood off and just allowed Arsenal to play through us at will, which of course
they did about three times before they actually scored. Maybe the turning point
was Lyanco steaming through the back of Martinelli to win that header. It’s
certainly put Martinelli off for the rest of the game. Saka’s dive also came
just after that and that seemed to put him off for the rest of the game as
well.
The goal we scored was absolutely superb, starting with the keeper, all along
the ground and ending with Elyounoussi finally releasing the pass at the right
moment for Stuart Armstrong to score. Stuart Armstrong’s diagonal run to meet
Elyounoussi’s pass is a classic example of what we do not do very often. In the
first half all of our movement ahead of the ball was just in straight lines,
people coming short and that is so easy to play against and you’re not making
defenders think. By moving across the pitch
left and right, you are making defenders either make a decision to track you or
communicate with the other defenders to pass players over to them. It makes
defenders work so much harder if the forwards move across the pitch.
Caleta-Car was again rock solid at the back and apart from a couple of ropey
passes in the first half, Salisu had another good game. Roman Perraud is
getting better every game at the moment and now looks fit enough to play 90
minutes which he hasn’t always done before. There were still problems in
midfield, especially in the first half with Diallo and JWP just being present
and not actually doing anything to influence the game. They got it sorted in the second half a bit
with Diallo becoming much more dynamic and allowing JWP to get involved further
up the pitch.
Adam Armstrong was Adam Armstrong in that he worked very hard upfront with no
prospect of a goal. The one time he had the last defender one-on-one he fell
over the ball and that kind of sums it up. That opportunity came because we put
pressure on the Arsenal central defenders who coughed up possession. Who knew
but putting teams under pressure rather than letting them just do what they
want as a good thing? I thought Joe
Aribo did okay as a makeshift striker in the absence of Che Adams. His control
in tight areas is ridiculous at times but he doesn’t have the pace to play that
role with any regularity. Stuart Armstrong scored a great goal but the weaker
side of his game was highlighted in the Arsenal goal as Ben White joined in the
attack and Perraud was left with both White and Saka to deal with as Stu had
nodded off.
As regular readers will know I am not a fan of Elyounoussi because of his slowness at realising situations and releasing a ball. Well today, he got it absolutely spot-on for the goal we scored. I’ve never doubt it is defensive work for the team and the tackle he made on Gabriel Jesus running back towards his own goal won us the point as much as the equaliser did.
We have to talk about Lyanco though. It's his planet and the rest of us just live on it.
The guy is an absolute fucking nutcase and there are definite liability tendencies, however, he changed the game when he steamed through Martinelli man and ball, who didn’t wanna know after that. He also sent Xhaka running for the hills as well when he clattered into him. It was an absolute beast of a performance in a good way. He changes the perception of the team – the opposition won’t think it’s a men against boys challenged when Lyanco is out there. It’s a cliché that people of my age (50+) tend to come out with – “there are no characters these days”. Lyanco proves that you need them. If he hadn’t have played today, we’d have lost and the atmosphere in the second half would have been flat. He brought everyone else, players and fans with him. Saints have been too 'nice' for a while now... not today. We need players that opposition fans hate and Arsenal fans on social media since the game have certainly proved that point.
Ralph got it pretty much spot on today given the cards he was dealt with the injuries and having to rest Che Adams. We went from a flat back four with Lyanco it right back to 3 at the back with Elyounoussi at right wing back and it seemed to change fairly regularly in the first half. The second half was the best we have looked with a three at the back formation. The substitutions were all done at the right time and it’s been a very good week for Ralph overall with five points from three games.
Crystal Palace away is next up and it’s a real good chance to put behind us the poor results that we had against other middling teams in the recent past, combined with the poor limp performances that we put in against Wolves, Villa and Everton. This cannot be repeated next Saturday with a trip to Selhurst Park to face Wilfried Zaha and his tantrums. Lyanco versus Zaha has the potential to be the stuff of legend so unlike Martinelli, we know that Zaha won’t shrink from the challenge. Looking forward to it.
Bring it on and up the fucking Saints.
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