On the tube tonight on the way to this match I encountered a group of Neanderthals who soon outed themselves as Chelsea fans. I will censor their comments but their expectations for the game were either that they would get crushed 5-0 or it would be a classic. Their main hope was that Kai Havertz would not score against them. It was to be an evening when their worst imaginings came to pass.
Arsenal made a few changes from Saturday’s starting eleven. Tomayisu was chosen at left back and Partey started in midfield with Rice for the first time this season. Our esteemed friend Btm has been suggesting Partey should come into the side for some weeks and the quality of his performance tonight underlined why.
Although profoundly outclassed Chelsea squandered a series of opportunities in the first half but ended with only one shot on target. Their team was missing some key players, including the exciting Cole Palmer, but still cost a fortune and one can say with confidence that their outlay on Nicolas Jackson was money appallingly spent. They suffered a first defeat in nine league games, and degenerated into a sad rabble long before the end.
Arsenal began brightly and led inside four minutes.
Declan Rice was given time and space to advance deep into the Chelsea half before slipping in Trossard to run outside Gilchrist and fire home a low, left-footed shot which was allowed to squirm home by Petrovic.
Arsenal 1 Chelsea 0 – Trossard
Chelsea’s suffered a very lucky reprieve when Jackson avoided a potential eighth-minute red card after raking Tomiyasu’s ankle with his studs.
Rice then fired narrowly over from the edge of the box following a delightful piece of control, before the visitors almost snatched a strange leveller.
Jackson outpaced William Saliba down the left wing, and his attempted cut back deflected off Gabriel and struck the outside of the near post.
Petrovic then saved well from Havertz and, moments later, made a fine reaction save to keep out Trossard’s effort which took a touch off Disasi.
Ben White produced a crucial block to deny Marc Cucurella after good work from Madueke, and Fernandez side-footed the rebound just wide. One felt Arsenal were vulnerable to the quick break and I particularly hoped Mudryk would not harm us.
Jackson then mystifyingly handled a terrific headed chance from Conor Gallagher’s cross as the first half finished with a number of yellow cards, including one for Arteta. It seemed he felt that the referee was inconsistent in booking Trossard having excused Jackson’s reckless challenge. I think he had a point.
Half-time – Arsenal 1 Chelsea 0
At the interval the game was in the balance as we had not been clinical in our finishing and Chelsea had the pace if not the composure to catch Arsenal on the break.
Arteta must have got into his side at the break and they came out with much more purpose after the interval.
Petrovic saved well from Rice and Havertz following lovely work by Ødegaard, who was in quite sublime form. Then from a corner Rice thrashed in a shot which was deflected to White who finished well.
Arsenal 2 Chelsea 0 – White
Havertz was then superbly released by Ødegaard and held off Cucurella to loft the ball over Petrovic. The goal was scrutinised by VAR after a heavy challenge by Gabriel on Madueke but was allowed to stand. Perhaps VAR were reluctant to chalk off a goal created by such brilliance from the Norwegian.
Arsenal 3 Chelsea 0 – Havertz
Jackson’s erratic game continued as he hit the side-netting with only David Raya to beat before Arsenal ploughed further ahead. Havertz doubled his tally in the 65th minute by firing home via the right post after receiving a short pass from Saka.
Arsenal 4 Chelsea 0 – Havertz
White got his second five minutes later when he chipped a volley across goal from Ødegaard’s dinked pass and it flew into the top left hand corner. It looked fortuitous but was a fair reflection of the gulf between the sides.
Arsenal 5 Chelsea 0 – White
In the 72nd minute Arsenal made a quadruple substitution bringing on Martinelli, Zinchenko, Jesús, and Jorginho, and ten minutes later brought on Vieira for Saka. The Portuguese laced a fierce drive just wide showing commendable confidence and ambition.
Full-time – Arsenal 5 Chelsea 0
This was not only an emphatic win but showcased some of the very best aspects of this Arsenal side. Ødegaard was mesmeric. I rate him extraordinarily highly and it was the best game I have seen him play. Rice was also brilliant, full of running and creativity, freed possibly by Partey’s elegant presence beside him. I thought the blend in midfield was excellent tonight.
Defensively we were troubled by Chelsea’s pace on the first half but overwhelmed their flaky attack in the second. Havertz had a slightly wasteful first half but an excellent second helped by the penetrative running of Saka and Trossard.
It is always nice to win local derbies and a 5-0 win is especially pleasing. As Trev’s excellent preview underlined Chelsea are a club in the midst of a financial crisis and they seem to lack character and structure on the pitch. Their capitulation in the second half came mainly through Arsenal’s excellence but I ran into those morons on the tube again after the match suggesting that we might win f*** all and then encountered them being apprehended by the police on Arsenal station. They and their underachieving team deserve each other.
We march on with a healthily increased goal difference and THE big derby to come. We were excellent tonight and seem in good shape to take our title challenge deep into the season’s finale – come on Everton and Brighton!
There’s a lot about Chelsea in this preview but rather than apologise for that, I will invite you to revel in the details of the complete mess into which they have gotten themselves. Fortunately, I started researching all this some time ago as it turned out to be a rats’ nest of huge proportions. I haven’t had time to work too many jokes into this preview but the whole thing is really quite funny, and just deserts for a fake club and a Russian owner intent on buying success with the ill-gotten gains of a rotten regime which has murdered untold numbers of civilians in an independent country who do not want to be beholden to it. Abramovich and Chelsea initiated the hyper-inflation which has ruined football for so many clubs and supporters, and I hate them for it.
The summer transfer window has long been a time of great turmoil and excitement at Stamford Bridge – at least for Chelsea fans. Regardless of whether the previous season had been one of success or failure, the Chelsea squad could likely face big changes in the space of the next month or so. If there was a rising star on the market or an established one with enough trophies under their belt, Roman Abramovich just had to have him for Chelsea – or his own ego.
Ballack, Shevchenko, Essien, Hazard, and our own Kai Havertz were all big names on the market at some stage during Abramovich’s 19 years at the club, and all were lured to Chelsea with no regard to cost or even the manager’s plans. To hell with the finances or the rules, £900,000-a-week losses were the cost of doing business for the Russian whose club was a mirror for his own reflected glory.
We all eagerly anticipated and then cheered the day when sanctions from the British government forced Abramovich to put the club up for sale in 2022. Surely, Chelsea could not find another Abramovich, willing to buy his way to silverware on the same scale? Even if they did, most Premier League owners did not want to compete with sovereign wealth funds or corrupt private individuals whose aim in football terms is world domination. And so a new era of restrictions on uncontrolled spending and losses began with the introduction of the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR). Relatively suddenly, clubs like Everton and Nottingham Forest have discovered that these rules can bite, and while we all wait for Manchester City to be put to the sword, Chelsea will be fretting more than most.
Their current owners may not be ploughing their own personal wealth into a vanity project, but they have been spending like people who do, with over a billion pounds spent on mostly young players on ultra long-term contracts. Had those gambles resulted in Premier League contention and regular qualification for the Champions League, Chelsea’s owners might have been celebrated for establishing a new recruitment model for the industry. Instead, the club is set to miss out on the revenue from top tier European club football for a second successive season while its cost base has been inflated by the amortisation of its transfer binge.
As this summer looms on the horizon, supporters are not dreaming of who might arrive at Stamford Bridge, but who the owners may feel compelled to sell. Such deals may well have to be agreed before the June 30th soft deadline, as those provisions will inform the Premier League’s 2023-24 PSR calculations.
Why Chelsea’s 2024 summer looks bleak
As football finance expert Kieran Maguire puts it, “2024 is probably looking like a bit of a car crash.” According to analysis carried out for CBS Sports, prior to any summer sales, Chelsea are on course for a second year out of three where their pre-tax losses are in excess of £100 million. This puts Todd Boehly, Behdad Eghbali and the rest of the ownership group in an extremely difficult position. The Premier League allows exceptions for PSR calculations that include spending on academy football, the women’s game and community investment.
Even with generous allowances for those, CBS Sports calculations estimate that Chelsea’s losses, post-mitigations for a three-year window, would be around £210 million, double the Premier League’s top limit. Chelsea, for their part, maintain they are not concerned and that they are confident they can comply with all Financial Fair Play and PSR requirements, avoiding any league imposed penalties. We’ll see!
Across the league, those penalties have become realities for teams already. Everton and Nottingham Forest have been hit by points deductions for breaches some way short of what Chelsea’s might be. Everton exceeded their £105 million limit by £19.5 million and Forest’s breach was £34.5 million over their threshold of £61 million (a lower amount as they had only just been promoted to the Premier League). Both were judged to be significant breaches by independent commissions. The only apparent path to compliance for next season for Chelsea is sell, sell, sell.
“I don’t know how you can view the financial situation for Chelsea in 2023-24 and reach a conclusion that they won’t be forced to sell before June 30, or at least try their best given the Nottingham Forest decision,” says a leading analyst who spoke to CBS Sports on condition of anonymity. “When it is suggested that Chelsea need to get £100 million from player trading in that two-week window when the Euros is going on, that seems right to me.” CBS’s analysis of Chelsea’s finances suggests that there is no imminent prospect of the picture improving. A projection for their 2024-25 accounts predicts another operating loss, this one in the region of £130 million. This far out, certain assumptions have to be made. One is that commercial revenue will remain static, given that they will be out of the Champions League again. Soon after Clearlake Capital bought Chelsea, part owner Jose E. Feliciano spoke of his belief that the club could register a billion in revenue during their ownership. That’s a far cry from these assumptions. “My suspicion is that when Feliciano said that he was looking at Chelsea’s commercial revenue relative to the traditional big six,” says the analyst. “It was an underperformer there and so there was a sense that Chelsea had low hanging fruit. The challenge with those assumptions is that they are conditioned on a certain legacy performance that’s quickly moving away.”In the absence of sporting improvement, it’s not clear how they would get to those numbers.”
The second set of assumptions is based around involvement in competition outside Europe. Given the state of the Premier League table, the Champions League looks beyond Mauricio Pochettino’s side, who would have to make up a 17 point gap in 10 games just to make the fifth spot that might, dependent on English club’s performances in Europe this season, unlock another seat at the top table. The Europa League and Europa Conference League are possibilities, although now only through league finish as they lost in the FA Cup at the weekend when Manchester City beat them in the semi-finals. The likelihood is that they will not even qualify for a spot in the Conference League. One of their main sources of increased revenue then would appear to be ticket price rises – surely an unpopular option for fans who are already unimpressed by the club’s decline.
Amortisation
And this is where Chelsea’s great veil of amortisation gets drawn back. They were able to spend more than £1 billion in the transfer market since the takeover by spreading the cost of big money signings such as Mykhailo Mudryk, Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez over contracts significantly longer than the usual four to five years that might normally be handed out. When it comes to reflecting those transfers in their accounts, the cost is spread over the life of a player’s contract. Mudryk’s £100 million deal might look staggering on paper, but spread over the cost of a seven and a half-year contract it is rather less of a burden in any one year.
That Chelsea managed to secure these deals before UEFA and the Premier League moved to limit the number of years a fee could be amortised over, made some see a whiff of genius from the ownership. Few appreciated that governing bodies might have a point when they said they were acting to discourage clubs from locking themselves into squads over the extreme long-term when the side effects could be profound.
Chelsea’s annual amortisation costs are not that out of sync with the rest of the Premier League, according to finance writer Swiss Ramble. The £160 million they have on their books is not even the highest in England, trailing Manchester United at £170 million. A key difference, however, aside from the revenue gulf between those two clubs, is the speed at which United could bring theirs down.
United have 11 first-team players on their books, with three or four years left on their contracts come the end of the season, and 20 who would be out of contract in two years. At Chelsea, there are 23 players who are tied to the club to 2028 and beyond. Many of their most expensive acquisitions – Mudryk, Fernandez, Caicedo, Nicolas Jackson and Romeo Lavia among them – are contracted until 2030.
If the plan had clicked, Chelsea might just be in dream land now, a squad of bright young things achieving greatness while tied to contracts that are relatively cheap by Premier League big-six standards. Instead, they seem to have found themselves in the downside scenario. Amortising the value over seven or eight years means that every year the book value of Chelsea’s squad is cut by a far smaller fraction. For it to make any financial sense for Mudryk to be sold, for instance, it would have to be at a price which is higher than the asset is worth to Chelsea. That almost certainly will not happen when his paper value remains so high, and potential buyers are now very aware of their own spending limits.
The latest ruse
The following explanation is from Jacob Steinberg in the Guardian on how Chelsea are trying to escape punishment under the PSR rules by selling themselves two hotels:—————————— “Premier League clubs reacted with exasperation after seeing that Chelsea eased their financial position with the £76.5m sale of two hotels to a sister company, in a deal that appears to have helped the club avoid a breach of profitability and sustainability rules. Chelsea’s accounts, published last weekend, revealed the club made a loss of £89.9m in the last financial year. That figure would have been £166.4m without the hotels sale from Chelsea FC Holdings Ltd to Blueco 22 Properties Ltd. Both companies are subsidiaries of Chelsea’s holding company, Blueco 22 Ltd.
The move to sell the Millenium and Copthorne hotels, and their car parking, was not blocked by the league. But Chelsea’s ability to exploit a loophole in the rules has not gone down well with everyone. An executive at one top-flight club was incredulous after learning of the deal, and another club were left with “raised eyebrows” and were said to have read the accounts “with interest”. There was a sense of resignation at another club, where a figure said that the deal came as “little – surprise”.
The hotel sales were yet to be assessed as “fair market value” under the league’s associated-party transactions rules, according to Chelsea’s accounts. Any decrease in the £76.5m valuation could place Chelsea’s finances under renewed pressure. The accounts were signed off in December 2023, six months after the hotels deal took place. Chelsea and the league have not confirmed whether a fair-market assessment has been concluded. It has been pointed out by Chelsea that they appointed two independent valuers to assess the club’s valuation of the hotels and that no issues were raised.
The last week has revealed that the hand of Roman Abramovich reached far beyond West London. It seems the tanks the Russian famously parked on the front lawn at Highbury were also firing £50 notes in the direction of Holland and Eredivisie club Vitesse Arnhem. Following an investigation into allegations that the club was secretly controlled by Abramovich and received illegal payments from him, they have been deducted 18 points, ensuring their relegation. It seems to me that other clubs, fans and indeed the Premier League know exactly what is going on, and it is all flying totally in the face of the spirit and intentions of the league’s stipulations. The one thing I can’t find much opinion on is why the League are so slow to do anything about it. Unless, of course, you are “lowly” Nottingham Forest or hard up Everton. Or maybe that’s a clue.Given how close Chelsea appear to be to the PSR line, there does not appear to be much room for creativity. The Premier League has a big fish to catch here, hopefully as a warm up for the biggest of all, Manchester C115y. Fingers crossed.
The teams
Fofana, Lavia, Ugochukwu, James, Nkunku and Colwill are all out for Chelsea, so they’ll have to dip into their 137 strong squad. Pochettino will doubtless be whining regardless of who does and doesn’t play because whining is what he does most of. And, frankly, who cares? Their only other doubt is keeper Edouard Mendy but he is a worry for quite different reasons – a building in Chelsea was going up in flames. A distressed woman, tightly clutching her baby, was spotted screaming for her life and for someone to save her baby. No one responded until Edouard Mendy arrived at the scene. He shouted up, “Lady, I’m Edouard Mendy! I’m Chelsea’s No. 1 goalkeeper! I’ll save your baby for sure, it’s my job!” The woman responded doubtfully, “I’m 15 stories up! Surely you won’t be able to save my child!” Confidently, Mendy responded, “Don’t worry! Have faith in me. I will save your baby, just as I have performed time and time again important saves for Chelsea.” Persuaded, the woman put her faith in Mendy and dropped her baby for him. Down the baby went, 15 stories, 150 feet. Perfectly positioned, with great confidence, and true to character, Mendy clutched the baby in mid-air, bounced it on the ground a few times, and punted it out of bounds.
The Arsenal
Definitely still unavailable for this game is Jurrien Timber, with this from Mikel Arteta at the weekend: “He’s going to play a game with the under-21s against Blackburn on Monday and after that we will see better where he is, how he felt. He looks really good in training but it’s that last step now. We need to have the certainty that he’s ready to go.” Takehiro Tomiyasu is the only other injury worry but is expected to be available according to Sports Mole.
I’m guessing Arteta will go with his policy of making changes only where necessary, but I would like to see us really go at them from the start, so my stab at the team is: Raya; White, Saliba, Gabriel, Kiwior; Ødegaard, Jorginho, Rice; Saka, Havertz, Martinelli;
The Holic Pound As something a bit different to the usual match odds, if you are mad enough to bet on this title race with 5 games to go, Paddy Power are offering 3/1 for us to win the league. (C115y are offered at 6/10 and Liverpool at 9/2 – just for information, mind!) For this match, we are priced around 8/15 to win, the draw is 4/1 and a Chelsea win is 5/1. Bet365 have Martinelli at 2/1 to score at any time, or Kai Havertz at 7/4 – got to be, hasn’t it ?
The Officials Referee: Simon Hooper; 4th Official: Graham Scott; VAR: Peter Bankes. Kick-off is on Tuesday 23rd April, at 20.00 UK. TV coverage on TNT Sport. Enjoy the game if you can ….. any win … any win … any win …
I must admit I was tempted to submit only the headline and a picture of a relieved looking Arsenal fan at 05:30 of an Osaka morn as my review of our latest must-win game. However, here at GHF such gimmickry is frowned upon by the stern, serious guardians of the flame and so without further blithering here is my report of the goings on at Molineux yesterday evening.
Successive defeats had, understandably, left the atmosphere around The Arsenal camp somewhat fraught in the lead-up to a tricky away fixture. In the charming olden days, Mikel could, bestudded cudgel in hand, have strolled amongst the shaded groves of the faithful delivering savage thrashings at the first signs of defeatist bleating from the less resolute in the flock, however, in the enlightened modern era motivation is fashionably preferred to fear as an approach. Admirable no doubt, but several degrees more complicated and I was curious to see the results on the field, as well as the XI that Mikel would entrust front and centre. Although there were three changes from the starting XI in Munich (Jorginho, Tomi, Gabi out and Leo, Jesus and Jakub in) there was, more tellingly I feel, only one change from the XI that started against Villa – Jakub for Zin, a natural enough precaution away from home. The message was simple enough, I trust you, now trust yourselves and go win the game.
Wolves vs The Arsenal 1st Half
Would it be a nervous, hesitant start? No, not really was the first question answered. We started well, dominating the first quarter of the game and Wolves barely got a kick in our half let alone a shot. Would we score early to settle the nerves? No was the answer to this question too. Not for want of trying as we had 6 shots in the first 15 minutes and could have scored in the first minute when a good effort from Kai was unfortunately straight at the keeper. In the second minute Toti went through Saka to “let him know he was there” as they say in the commentary box. Or in other words, one player ran up to another player and deliberately kicked him. To my annoyance, but not surprise, the referee did not book him. I am trying to remember a saying about evil flourishing when the mediocre Tierney does nothing but the exact wording escapes me. Anyway, as the 1st half progressed Wolves did finally start to gain a toehold in midfield, managing their first shot in the 23rd minute before coming far closer when Raya parried a fierce drive from Gomes onto the post. Shortly afterwards, William Saliba had uncharacteristically passed straight to Bueno on the edge of our area giving him a free shot, fortunately Bueno’s shot did not live up to his name and he skewed it well wide. In hindsight that was probably the golden age of this game for Wolves. As half-time approached normal service had started to resume but I must admit to some concern. Our intent had been good, we’d gotten plenty of shots in and mostly controlled the game, but the usual litany of “not quites” were starting to accumulate in my notes – final pass just astray, slightly poor contact, couldn’t get enough power on the shot, ball hadn’t dropped kindly, misunderstanding between xx and xx player etc etc. Given that my in-depth pre-match analysis had clearly shown that not booting the ball in the net was fatal to our chances of winning the game I was starting to notice a worrying similarity to our previous two games. O me of little faith.
Wolves 0 The Arsenal 1
The goal when it did arrive, at a very opportune moment just before half-time, was excellent. Kai swung a nicely weighted cross from the right-hand edge of the box to Gabi J slightly to the left of the penalty spot. Jesus held it well under pressure and laid a short ball off to Leo who calmly placed it into the top right corner. Another one for Leo’s increasingly big Book of Important Arsenal Goals. Wolves complained, personally I couldn’t see why at the time, unless they were telling the ref “it’s not fair they have better players than we do”. However, later I read it was because Doherty fell over. I also read some nonsense about the goal being somewhat fortuitous – sheer jealousy and as Leo himself said afterwards “obviously top bins, so it’s really a great goal”. Spot on Mr. Trossard.
Wolves vs The Arsenal 2nd Half
The 2nd half began much as the first half had with The Arsenal well on top and pressing hard for a goal. Actually, to my eye, we were more confident having taken the lead and I saw an increased assertiveness as we strove to kill off our weaker opponent. You’d have thought Wolves, given their name, would have understood the sentiment but in fact they just started kicking us more. The ref did nothing. Unfortunately, though we created several more chances, our efforts did not bring a deserved second goal and as in the first half Wolves started to come more into the game for a while without ever really threatening. We were starting to look somewhat leggy when Mikel made his first sub – Gabi M for Leo – after about 70 minutes. The game meandered along after that with Wolves huffing and puffing ineffectually (they had 1 shot second half) until the introduction of Partey for Jesus on 80 minutes. What I had thought of as a slightly defensive substitution in fact made for an entertaining final 15 minutes. Freed from his defensive duties Declan started to run more at a tiring Wolves side and basically ensured we finished off the match well on top. His energy seems boundless and we could have scored 4 more goals in added time alone! First, he won the ball in midfield, fed a short ball to Bukayo who ran past a couple before blasting over the bar, next a dangerous Declan cross from the right byline was cleared for a corner, another shot from Bukayo followed and then we finally got the second we had been chasing all half.
Wolves 0 The Arsenal 2
As Declan piled forward once more Wolves defenders had to commit and the ball was laid off to Martin at the back post, his attempted cut back was blocked but came back to him and this time the captain made no mistake as he passed the ball into the net from an acute angle. There was still just time for Gabi M to miss a one on one with the keeper before the referee brought the proceedings to a highly satisfactory end, or least highly satisfactory to the travelling faithful whom I could hear singing away lustily in the background.
A few thoughts
It was, in truth, a good time to play Wolves as they had several players out, notably in attack and had not been in good form. In other words, when their few chances did come, they lacked the quality to punish us, which made for a more comfortable game and a record 6th consecutive clean sheet away from home. I would give a lot for a lucky 7th at the Spuds.
Just my opinion but Wolves should have finished with 9 men. Kilman (straight red) and Toti (2 yellows) should both have gone.
We showed huge character in adversity again and I love this side.
We (including myself) have talked about a lack of energy especially 2nd half in the last two defeats but actually at the end of this game Declan, Bukayo and Martin were happily piling forward and running back. There have been some fair points made about under-utilization of the squad but is the issue more mental than physical? The old chestnut of the difference a goal makes.
The final thought to Mikel “I didn’t think it was our best performance. Today was all about the 3 points and we got them.”
And so to Molineux, where Wolves await. That sound you hear is not howling but the clacking of loose wheels after the Villa and Bayern defeats. A weary team has to ensure that they do not come off in the Black Country on Saturday evening to avoid bringing this season’s journey of hope, ambition and advancement to an early end. This will be a game played in the mind as much as on the pitch.
Molineux memories
Somewhere in the bowels of Castle Ned lies a dogeared copy of a Charles Buchan’s Football Annual with evocative black and white photos of European club football under the lights at Molineux in the 1950s when Stan Cullis’s Wolverhampton Wanderers were a power in the land.
The story goes that Gabriel Hanot, editor of the French sports newspaper L’Equipe and acknowledged by UEFA as a founding father of the European Cup, was inspired by watching Wolves and the Hungarian Army side Honved play a friendly at Molineux in December 1954. Two down after 14 minutes, Wolves overpowered the tiring Honved of Puskas, Kocsis and Czibor in the Molineux mud to win 3-2. Following victory over Spartak Moscow the previous month and England’s 6-3 humiliation by the Hungarian national side at Wembley the previous year, the Daily Mail, ever the chest-thumper for Vainglorious Albion, declared Wolves ‘the Champions of the World’.
Even being champions of Europe was beyond them. Mixing with Johnny Foreigner was still regarded in the isolationist halls of the FA as being too demeaning for Englishmen. Chelsea pulled out of the inaugural European Cup in 1955-56 after being ‘advised’ by the FA to withdraw. However, in 1958, Cullis, who had been one of the England players who had refused to make a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938, raised two fingers to the FA, and Wolves became the second English club to play in the European Cup.
Wolves received a first-round bye but were knocked out by Schalke 04 4-3 on aggregate in the second round. The following season, Cullis’s team, back-to-back Division One champions in 1957-58 and 1958-59, reached the quarter-finals. There, they lost to Barcelona 9-2 on aggregate — 4-0 in the Nou Camp and 5-2 at Molineux. Fitness, power and direct attacking won Wolves titles in the Football League, but its muscular long-ball game fell short against more skilful European teams.
Regardless, this was the most successful period of Wolves’ history. Cullis guided them to nine top-three finishes in his 16 seasons as manager, winning three league titles and two FA Cups with a team built around the half-back line of Bill Slater, Ron Flowers and England captain Billy Wright, later to manage at Highbury for four years in the 1960s with little distinction.
Wolves’ stadium takes its iconic name from the Molineux Pleasure Grounds, on part of which it was built in 1889. The Pleasure Grounds had once been the grounds of Molineux House, a property the eponymous ironmonger and banker Benjamin Molineux had acquired in 1744 from the estate of John Rotton in settlement of a £700 debt. The Rotton would not have the same exotic ring as Molineux, although there is still a Rotton Park district in Birmingham just 15 miles away that derives its name from the same family. Wolves changed their instantly recognisable colours from black and old gold to black and gold after Molineux became one of the first grounds in Britain to install floodlights in September 1953. Cullis thought the brighter shirts would show up better under the lights. The colours come from Wolverhampton’s civic motto, Out of darkness cometh light or E tenebris oritur lux for the classicists in the bar.
The opposition
As GHF Predictathon players know well, Gary O’Neill’s team has exceeded expectations this season; Wolves sit in eleventh rather than the predicted bottom three. O’Neill played over 200 Premier League games for Portsmouth, Middlesborough, West Ham and Norwich as an old-school, workhorse midfielder. Yet the second youngest manager in the Premier League after Vincent Kompany — O’Neill turns 41 next month — is developing a reputation as a leading light of a new generation of progressive English coaches.
Last season, he took over at Bournemouth after the Cherries 9-0 thrashing by Liverpool and steered an apparently relegation-doomed side to the safety of 15th. He was thanked with the sack at the end of the season. Wolves picked him up after Julen Lopetegui walked out in a huff just before this season started, with the club having sold four of his best players to make ends meet.
O’Neill has developed a knack for giving top sides grief. Last season, his Bournemouth team was two up at the Emirates in the game Reiss Nelson rescued with his famous last-gasp winner. His Wolves’ scalps have included Manchester City and doubles over Chelsea and the neighbours. His injury-depleted side lost only narrowly 2-1 at the Emirates in December, in the game in which Bukayo Sako scored his 100th Arsenal goal.
O’Neill likes to set up a 3-4-2-1. He has Arteta-like attention to detail, customising match-day tactics to Wolves’ opponents and seeking the marginal gains that add up to significant improvement. Against us, I would expect him to play something akin to a 3-5-2 to create the mid-block against which we struggle. Wolves will look to keep things compact when out of possession, make it difficult for us to play through the middle and, in possession, stretch us wide and get the ball to their assist king, the much-admired winger Pedro Neto to play in their leading scorers South Korean international Hee-chan Hwang (10 goals ) and Brazilian international Matheus Cunha (11), whose loan from Atletico Madrid was made permanent in the summer in return for a 50 million euros fee.
The return last weekend of Hwang and talisman Cunha from injury will encourage Wolves’ belief that they can end a mini-slump that has put their season at risk of petering out. They are winless in five in all competitions, including last Saturday’s draw at Nottingham Forest. Their small squad lacks the depth to cover their lengthy injury list, which now also includes centre-back Craig Dawson and Algerian international left-back Rayan Ait-Nouri, who has reportedly attracted the interest of ourselves and the Scousers.
Wolves can be tricky but not impossible to beat at Molineux. They have lost five of 15 home league games. Our recent form there has been up and down, with three wins and two losses in the past five visits, although we had not previously lost there since 1978, a 1-0 defeat in which Kevin Stead made the first of his only two appearances for us.
The Arsenal
Which team Arteta fields is guesswork. He says everyone except Timber is available. Plenty of tired legs and minds were in evidence in the second halves of the Villa and Bayern games. In his pre-match press conference, Arteta again pointed a finger at the playing load on his players, but he has rotated only lightly.
Some of the team look to be carrying knocks, while others have started running on fumes. For Saturday, Arteta must strike a balance between refreshing spirits and recharging legs, plus keep one eye on Tuesday’s game against the mob from the Bus Stop. I would like to see Partey start to give the skipper or Rice a deserved and much-needed break and to provide more vertical passes from midfield, but I doubt the Ghanaian is fit enough or that any of the leaders in the team will want to stand down. This could be a game for ESR’s direct running, though. Thus:
Raya
White Saliba Gabriel Tomiyasu
Ødegaard Rice ESR
Saka Havertz Trossard
It goes without saying that this is a must-win. If we can revert to eliminating the mistakes that have crept into our defending in the past two or three games and start taking our first-half chances, we should be able to achieve the victory we need. City plays Chelsea in an FA Cup semi-final on Saturday, and Liverpool does not visit Craven Cottage in the league until Sunday. We can go back to the top at least overnight. A calm and controlled 3-1 under the lights at Molineux would do it.
The Arsenal lost a tight European tie by a single goal to the mighty Bayern Munich. The opposition played well and used all the experience that they had in such abundance compared to our young team to get the result they needed with a well-judged performance.
We lost fair and square, and have little time to lick our wounds before we are thrown to the Wolves, so to speak.
I watched the game in the pub with my old man and I should say at the outset of this report that my experience of the match was coloured by the three young lads sitting behind me, who notionally supported Arsenal but spent the entire game abusing our players, the manager and swearing vociferously at pretty much every on-field action.
Against such a backdrop I found myself even calmer and more measured than usual, if only as a reaction against the petulance, entitlement and, frankly, idiocy going on behind me. No-one has a God-given right to win football matches, and if you hate watching the team and lose your shit when we lose, then you might wanna do something else with your time.
Personally, I reckon there is a clue in the word ‘supporter’, but I’m younger than many in the bar and I was still twice the age of these lads, so perhaps the younger generations show their allegiances in ways I just don’t recognise.
So, to the match itself. The first half was excellent, at least from my perspective. We had a little more of the ball, stroked it around well and applied some pressure, without committing enough men to attacks that we created many clear chances. This also meant that we were rarely caught out at the back. We went in 0-0 and George Graham would have been chuffed.
One long ball went over Tomi’s head to Sane, but Gabriel blocked his cross from the byline. Apart from that, we kept him fairly quiet all game. I assume most of those in the bar, who had been advocating the Japan international’s selection at left-back in the first game as well as this one, were fairly happy with what they saw. Arteta knows his players’ fitness better than we do, but it was a shame he wasn’t deemed ready to start at the Emirates too.
Rice began at left 8, but gradually drifted more centrally. With Tomi inverting too, they did a decent job swapping about to fill the midfield and cover the left flank between them. Jorginho was a calm and classy presence on the ball, but Bayern pressured him enough that he couldn’t find a telling moment. Rice is quality and we all love him, but tonight we needed the vertical passing of a Partey. Our number 41 does not find spaces between the lines at this level, and he can’t always drive past men either. Going forwards, we need him to find Odegaard quicker and let the captain do his stuff.
We pressed sensibly and in waves, sometimes dropping back and sometimes going for them. We won a couple of possessions this way, but a few times our final ball was a bit off. Neuer is also very good with his feet, which helped Bayern out of a couple of tight spots.
Bayern forced some corners and we had to be switched on to defend them, which our centre backs did well, although Raya was not commanding his box the way Neuer was. He did make a couple of good saves though, even if they were ones he would expect to make. We had some half chances, Odegaard having a couple of shots blocked or skied over the bar – he was little hesitant to shoot from the edge of the box with the half yard of space which was all a switched on Bayern would allow him. Our best chance fell to Martinelli who hit it with his left insole straight at Neuer. Would he have been better served to sweep it with his right? We will never know.
The ref was good. He made a couple of marginal calls I disagreed with and seemed to give Kane more than his share of decisions against our CBs. Late in the second half he failed to give us a corner we really needed despite Odegaard’s shot both deflecting of a defender and then being palmed behind by Neuer. But he was generally excellent, using his cards sensibly and avoiding any major talking points. I’d be very happy if we were reffed this well every week.
We got a warning right after half-time as the Germans immediately upped their tempo and the dangerous Goretzka headed the ball against the bar. The follow up also drilled into the outside of the post. We would have to watch their aerial threat, as Gabriel and Saliba could not mark all of the men who began making runs into the space.
The game began to open up and Bayern were slightly on top, Musiala getting more involved, but Kane was quiet and I was perfectly happy when the clock passed the hour mark and there was still no score. As I said to my dad, just don’t concede and take the game as deep as possible.
Except three minutes later we conceded. They got to the byline and crossed high. Raya got a hand to it but it stayed in and they picked it up on our left. The ball came in (from memory, between our CBs) and Martinelli had let Kimmich go at the last moment to power in an excellent header. I thought Raya showed again tonight that he is not a keeper anyone will win the Champions League with, even if he is a good keeper. However, there was nothing he could do about the header once we’d let Kimmich free to connect to the cross. It was a moment of quality that went on to decide the tie.
Arteta immediately brought on Trossard and Jesus for Martinelli and Jorginho. Good subs, but they didn’t make enough difference. A fit Partey would have been huge for us tonight, we needed his skillset badly.
We had a few freekicks and a couple of corners. Nicholas Jover gets a lot of plaudits for his routines in the league, but in the CL we rarely get near the ball before the ref blows his whistle for a foul. I do think a lot of these are soft, but they keep getting given and we don’t change our tactics and that is on us. A series of genuinely threatening set-pieces would have put Bayern under pressure, but as it was, they got off with a free kick of their own every time. Towards the end, Rice sprayed a free kick out to Trossard who controlled it poorly and gave away a foul without getting a cross in, even though everyone was up for it. Again, it is the sort of fine margin that a more experienced side (like Bayern) would be on the right side of.
We brought on Eddie for Tomi, and I doubt any of us felt it was likely to lead to a goal. Still, hope springs eternal, and the swapping of Sane for Upamecano showed that Tuchel was willing to sit deep and see it out.
I had felt, with fifteen minutes to go, that there would be one more chance in the game for us, but we didn’t manage to fashion it. In the dying seconds we had a freekick in a great position that we chose to take quickly. It could have been a masterstroke. As it was, we were lucky to get a corner, which we were given time to take. But, personally, I’d have preferred to take our time with the freekick. It is all moot now as Saka, who was well marshalled all game, failed to beat the first man with a disappointing last Arsenal kick of the tie.
The ref blew up. We were out.
As the dust settles, I am sure we will all have our own opinions on how bad a loss this was, or how good a chance we missed.
For me, I think we have progressed so rapidly in the league that our European expectations are far higher than they really should be. We have so little experience in the Champions League, and that was the one quality where Bayern really had us beat tonight. We still came mighty close and gave a good account of ourselves in a tie we will learn a lot from. I think the quarterfinals were about par for us this year, so I’m not too disappointed to go out at this stage, especially as I trust us to be wilier and tougher next year.
Not everyone agreed, but I thought we were denied a nailed-on penalty in the first leg, and that might have changed the dynamics of the tie significantly. It is tight when you get to this stage, and everyone needs a little luck, no matter how good they are. We didn’t seem to get much this year.
We will be back next year and in a far better position to put in a challenge. For now, we focus on the league, and we make sure our boys know how much we support them. They are having a magnificent season, the league is still to play for, and the club needs all cannons pointing outwards for six more huge matches.
