Following the “news” that apart from White and Saka being unavailable, and Tomiyasu, Zinchenko and Sterling were refusing to relinquish their beds in the treatment room, Kai Havertz had reported sick – possibly no surprise remembering how he sniffled and snuffled in his post match interview after the Ipswich game.
The starting eleven selected was:
Raya
Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori
Ødegaard, Partey, Merino
Nwaneri, Jesús, Martinelli
The experience of Calafiori was preferred at left back to try to contain the very impressive Mbeumo, and Ethan Nwaneri earned his first start on the right wing in the absence of Bukayo Saka. Declan Rice was on the bench – presumably being rested after his tough summer and start to this season.
The weather forecast for the game, and the coming days – or weeks depending on what you read – was horrible with news of imminent Atlantic and Arctic storms about to converge on the UK. To try to capture the true atmosphere of the game from the sofa, I had someone open the front door and hurl a bowl of cold water at me every 15 minutes.
Arsenal started with a better tempo to their passing than in recent games and had the majority of the ball in the initial exchanges but David Raya had to make a very smart stop to cut out a cross from Brentford’s first fast attack down our right hand side. Timber, Ødegaard and Nwaneri were combining and rotating positions well on the right before Ødegaard fired his first long shot into Row 21 behind the Brentford goal.
With their second attack Brentford scored on 12 minutes. Damsgaard passed to Mbeumo on our left, Calafiori allowed him far too much time and space as he moved into the area and beat Raya at his near post. In fairness to Raya he was probably trying to cover his far post as well, often the target of Mbeumo’s curlers.
Timber was booked for a lunge that missed the ball on 17 minutes, a mistake that will see him miss the next game. On the other side of the pitch something was not right. Martinelli was having to attack almost on his own and was also called on to make several defensive clearances as Calafiori and Merino tried to build an understanding in yet another unfamiliar pairing.
After another swift Brentford break Raya fumbled a shot but made immediate amends by clawing the ball off the goal line as it threatened to spin into the net. Arsenal broke away in turn and pummelled the Brentford defence. Partey shot from distance, Gabriel Jesús was first to react to the keeper’s parry and dived to head the ball home for his sixth goal in four games. VAR tried inevitably and in vain to find a handball – the useless spoilsports – but the goal stood.
After being caught in the face by Damsgaard, Jesús was booed by the Brentford fans at every touch for allowing his top lip to bleed. They really have managed to create a very Stoke – Burnley type atmosphere in that small Gtech stadium which is widely recognised to have contributed to their very impressive home record. Fair play to them for that but it does generate a lot of pressure on the referee who, in fairness, had a pretty even handed first half. To put their lauded home record into context, they have played sides almost exclusively from the bottom half of the table except Nottingham Forest, to whom they lost 0 – 2.
Half time: Brentford 1 – 1 Arsenal
Brentford began the second half by swiping Gabriel in the face and subsequently not being carded for a prolonged delaying of the restart. Oh well, some things never change. On 49 minutes Nwaneri took the second of two successive corners and delivered a very Saka like ball into the danger area. A shot and rebound from Jesús was slammed into the net by Mikel Merino to complete the turnaround and put the Gunners 2-1 up.
Three minutes later another great ball into the goalmouth by Nwaneri was pushed out to Martinelli who steadied himself, kept his head over the ball and fired into the far corner for 3-1. Good on him for another hard working, determined display. Mr Peter Banks carded Calafiori for a nothing tackle on 57 minutes before Martinelli, now on fire, slid the ball to Jesús who shot narrowly wide of the near post. At this point Brentford, who already had Norgaard and Damsgaard, could have added a Fireguard and most of the Home Guard but they still wouldn’t have contained the Arsenal.
On 74 minutes Brentford made a triple substitution, followed by Arsenal on 77 minutes who brought on Lewis-Skelly, Trossard and Rice in place of Calafiori, Nwaneri and Merino. Jorginho joined the fray for Ødegaard on 86 to shore up a game that was already won. The travelling faithful had also won the verbal battle on the terraces – ok, the seats! – and then on 91 minutes something quite extraordinary happened. Oleksandr Zinchenko ran onto the pitch to play football as the Man of the Match, Gabriel Jesús, went off. One of the Brentford players had clearly tried to collect Jesús’ shirt as a souvenir before the Brazilian was prepared to take it off. Ripped apart at the neck, a job for the club seamstress back at N5.
The final whistle sounded after 4 minutes of added time with Arsenal in complete control and Zinchenko still walking unaided. Arsenal manager Nicolas Jover and his assistant Mikel Arteta walked smiling across the pitch to applaud the fans who could see that Jesús really had risen again, and they could see that it was good.
The Arsenal were masterful today. They look better and play better when they move the ball more quickly like this. Their quick, skilful interplay leaves defenders floundering and our players today looked confident, imposing and reinvigorated. Arteta was rightly delighted with Nwaneri’s first start and said that we have seen “only a tiny snippet of what he can do”. A fantastic prospect who, along with Miles Lewis-Skelly, is a credit to the club’s youth development programme. Of the title chase, Arteta said that we can only do what we can do and then see what happens.
Today we did it superbly. Happy New Year, Holics everywhere!
Detailed and comprehensive match report, thanks Trev!
It’s a bit sad to see that Tomiyasu and Zinchenko are rapidly becoming easy targets of sarcasms for their recent unfortunate injury records. They both are excellent professionals, and their injuries aren’t consequences of any action if their own choice. At their respective best they are both very good players and both have made their contributions to this team. And while it feels like their time in the club is likely running out, Thomas Partey’s form and consistency this season is a reminder (last year or so he was mostly written off because of his unavailability for extended periods of times) that things can change quickly in football.
I thought Partey was excellent today and my man of the match. Even the first goal came from his trademark right-footer from the edge of the box which Jesus — also quite excellent today, once again — intelligently followed through to head into the net after the keeper punched it away.
The controlled ease with which we finished the game after going 3-1 up was impressive. And even though Brentford moved the ball well through our press a few times, our defensive organization and the individual excellence of Saliba-Gabriel meant that they never could create any genuine goalscoring opportunity after falling behind.
Martin is not yet quite back to his best, though he was typically influential today. Their goal came from a fast counter attack after he misplaced a short pass through the middle, the kind of mistakes he almost never makes.
“ To try to capture the true atmosphere of the game from the sofa, I had someone open the front door and hurl a bowl of cold water at me every 15 minutes.”
Above and beyond the call of duty, I must say. 🤣🤣🤣
Now to read the rest and comment more later.
HNY to everyone in and out of the Bar.
I deliberately waited to post that till after the Brentford game, as i didn’t want to jinx us.
I have been tied up for months trying to make sense of the Estate of an elderly member of the inner family circle, who passed away early in October.
Property and multiple bank accounts we didn’t know they had, plus various other issues being discovered the more i investigate.
It’s all been a bit of a nightmare.
I do hope to be back posting in the bar in the near future.
The boys are doing us proud despite plenty of adversity in the first half of the season.
They say one players injury is another ones opportunity, and such is the case for young Ethan and Miles who both seem to me to be made of the right stuff.
Little to ad to Trev’s report from the couch, [ have you had your knee op yet ? ] a good battling start in adversity to the NY ahead of a very very tough January.
By the time i get to post again, hopefully next month, fingers crossed we are still fighting on all 4 fronts for Trophies.
Keep up the good work everyone, light years ahead of the rest,
[ well most of them anyway ]
Cheers
Clive
Great report Trev, many thanks as I guess it must have difficult to hit the keys what with all the shivering in the wee small hours. Hope you had a decent 🥃 to help you through.
Just like you I was very impressed with the performance, I watched bits of the Forest win there and Brentford were always in that game with a shout. They certainly weren’t dismissed with the same ease anyway and it was a top class performance.
Shout to TP5, the CBs, and Gabi J., we had a very solid centre as they all played well. Pleased for Gabigol too, fine finish.
Timber’s booking was the only real minus as I guess MA will choose to move TP5 to right
back for the Brighton game and like many I feel we lose some fluency when that happens.
Still, the injury situation is what it is and many clubs are struggling, we will just have to grind it out and hope Leo remains keen to stick it to his old club.
Hello Clive and Happy New Year 🥳
Nice to hear from you.
A honey of a report, Trev. I’ll get my coat…
Clive, good to see you in. You make your late relative’s estate sound most mysterious and a tad nefarious: hidden property and secret bank accounts. Were they a member of the House of Lords or Middle Eastern royalty, perchance?
For those who missed the announcement in the previous drinks, the latest leaderboard for the GHF Predictathon has been posted. As they say in the best click-bait circles, you won’t believe who dropped into the relegation zone. Plus two bonus charts to ring in the New Year. You know where to find it…
You
Thanks Ned, I had Forest down for 18th 🙂
You and six others, OM.
Thanks Ned, that does make me feel just a little better…..
After Brighton, we have 5 games in a row at home in 4
different competitions. Obviously I want to win them all
but regardless it’s so good to be a contender again.
Actually I hadn’t realized the Newcastle semifinal is less
than a week away.
Excellent report of the game, Trev. I thought Odegaard was way off, possibly still easing back after his injury and maybe a slight sniffle sufferer too. For me no blame attached either to Calafiori or Raya for the goal – an excellent finish from a break which should never have happened. The fact that yet again we conceded to what was the opposition’s first shot on goal is concerning and has to be stamped out before it becomes a recurrent feature as it was during the last 6 or 7 years of the Wenger reign. Given that we have far better defenders now and on the whole a far better midfield, I am confident that will happen. Most impressive to my mind was that without a physical presence up front to hold up the ball against their army of Stokeian (?) Orcs, we managed to dominate. I was also disappointed in Orcfords manager commenting post-match that they “created some good opportunities and got out of the pressure quite easy”. The man’s a fantasist.
On to Brighton, and another odious manager. The one who quite brazenly declared in the autumn, after we were robbed of victory in the home game by PGMOL shenanigans, that while Rice’s booking and subsequent sending off for “delaying a restart” was correct, so too was the lack of a booking for their player for the same, if not worse and certainly more obvious offence. An odious pipsqueak, to whom I hope we administer some true N1 justice on Saturday. Unfortunately we will be without Timber, whom it seemed to me the referee was more than keen to book. I’m just surprised he didn’t find a way to book Jesus for being clouted in the face twice. Their recent record of 4 points and no wins from their last 6 games gives me considerable hope that we will add to their woes. Hopefully the bug seemingly ripping through the training ground will have abated by the weekend and we’ll have Havertz back.
COYG
Between Mbuemo’s goal and Raya’s slip-n-save there was a concerning phase in which Brentford played through our ranks a little too easily. Other than that there was only one team ever going to win that game. I thought TP5 was superb, Nwaneri’s debut a delight and was encouraged by the Brazilian brace and Merino’s punt from three feet. Absent the young maestro, contributions from every other quarter and the two Gabi’s will hopefully be prime contributors.
You buzzed through those 90 minutes beautifully, Trev and combed out the nectar in a style guaranteed to keep uswarm. Great job.
@3, Sweeper, sounds like you’re living the life there. Great to hear from you, good luck with putting the rest of the estate to bed.
Cheers Trev. Excellent report and definitely the game I saw.
When we went 1-0 down I think it was a big test. We’ve been very unlucky with ridiculous refereeing decisions, which don’tbget given against any other team, and have cost us at least 7 points. Without these ridiculous decisions we would be right next to Pool, making a mockery of all the hyperbole about how good they are. However, the circumstances are what they are. And last night the team was tired, ill, without its best player and knowing that every point dropped makes the task so much harder.
In that context, we’ve seen a lot of past teams that would have worked hard but just not found a way to win the game. Not this team. They played good football and they ended up making the 3 points look comfortable.
I think that’s a really big result for the psychology and mentality of the team. Let’s hope we keep building on it.
Great report Trev. I’m often consigned to cold and inhospitable places watching football by the missus but I do stay dry . I initially found TNT Sports hard to access because of ‘ atmospheric conditions’ so watched the start on my I Pad.
I liked the team attitude yesterday and I was particularly impressed by Timber, Partey , Saliba and Nwaneri who did a very good Saka impression. The sort of performance that wins titles . Here’s hoping !
Clive
Lovely to see you back and Happy New Year to you
Don’t be a stranger !
Thanks for an excellent report on an excellent performance to inaugurate the new year, Trev. Very much the game I saw but with much added hilarity. However I regaard your open door and duckings policy as excessive commitment to experiencing the full atmosphere (where was the noisy west London yob bellowing “Same old Arsenal…” in your ear?). At this time of year you have to gaard against infection. And don’t let this praise go to your head, along with the virus, either – you must gaard against complacency. You’ll never achieve the dizzy height of Gaardanista journalist without maintaining yourstandard, though your common sense on non-football issues probably prevents that anyway. Regaards!
Good to see you in, Clive and to see DG in the last Drinks. Don’t be strangers.
We have made our first move in the January transfer window, selling Josh Robinson, the Academy defender, to League One Wigan for an undisclosed sum.
CER@10: You make a fair point about Ødegaard’s form. I think he must have misplayed more balls in the past couple of matches than he has in his entire career. Arteta said something about the illness in the squad contributing to our slow start. It was noticeable that Ødegaard uncharacteristically didn’t chase back on the break that led to Brentford’s first goal, so perhaps he was one of those not feeling 100%.
I must also partially disagree with you about that goal, however. Calafiori could have done more to shepherd Mbeumo wide to slow the breakaway and then not given him so much space to drive across the penalty area to set up a shot. It is then that Raya moves a couple of paces away from his near post. I will agree that it took an excellent finish from Mbeumo to make the most of it. It still strikes me as curious, though, that at the top level, so many goals are scored through the legs of defenders.
Ned
I agree re our defending for the goal
In fact though he is a very imposing player I much prefer Timber to Calafiori as a defender. I think Calafiori had to show Mbeumo down the outside because he is so strong off his left foot ( like Saka or Salah). I also thought Raya left too big a gap at his near
post . The later mistake he made off the shot by Lewis-Potter suggested to me that he was a little on edge going back to Brentford . But he was very confident on the second half My current feeling is that with everyone fit our two best full-backs are White and Timber MLS may well be our second best LB!
TTG @19, I agree 100% with your top 3 FB hierarchy there. Hopefully BW4 will return to his previous form soon.
Thanks all for the kind ones – much appreciated.
Ned @18 – it is indeed a fact that a surprising number of top level defenders struggle with balls between their legs. 😉
Clive – good to see you again ! May you in the new year have problems only with your probate and not your prostate ! 😉. Seriously, the best of health and happiness to you, Sir !
TTG@19: Calafiori can get his body shape and positioning a bit wrong on occasion. It is something that defenders learn with experience. We tend to forget that he is still only 22, and even though he is an Italian international, he has just 10 PL games and barely 50 in Serie A under his belt.
Trev@21: Cheeky, you!
So after 19 games we have 39 points and plus 21 goal difference. Last season we had 40 points and plus 19 GD. The season before we had 50 points and plus 29. If we win 16, draw 1 and lose 2 (as we did last season) we end up on 88 points. Some might say we have already played most of the difficult away games so why not. We need Liverpool to lose 5 and draw 3 to make it worthwhile. Not sure that’s looking likely at present but if we can keep up the pressure they might buckle.
Sancho – interesting numbers. Why not indeed ?!
From Arsenal.com:
“The two matches against the Magpies will see the use of the video assistant referee for the first time during our run in this season’s competition, which is the usual policy for cup semi-finals and finals where all the two teams already have the technology in place for Premier League matches.
However, there will be a twist starting with our home leg at Emirates Stadium on Wednesday, January 7 as the EFL are trialling a new system of allowing the officials to explain their decisions over the stadium’s PA system.
Referees will announce the final decision following a visit to the pitchside monitor, or upon the conclusion of factual matters such as accidental handball by a goalscorer or offside judgements. Only the final decision will be announced in the stadium, not the full conversation between the on-field referee and VAR.”
I saw them do this in a women’s comp and it is rubbish. No-one gets any more explanation of the decisions. The decisions themselves are equally as bad. All that changes is that the referee is micced up and announces whatever decision they’ve made. It does nothing bar push the referee further to centre stage (exactly where they shouldn’t be).
It’s a typically farcical travesty of rugby’s excellent system whereby fans can hear and understand ref’s decisions and how they are made. The Football version keeps all of the secrecy and obfuscation decisions are usually made with and borrows only the bit where a ref steps forwards to be the star of the show in announcing the decision. It’s pointless. An utter waste of time. It should be unilaterally derided by everyone in football. It offers no benefit to anyone. I could not be more unimpressed.
Arsenal.com don’t escape criticism, as they say “the EFL are trialling a new system of allowing the officials to explain their decisions over the stadium’s PA system.”
No. That’s not true. There will be no explanation of the decisions. (As the next paragraph states, contradicting this extremely curious sentence.)
Get. In. The. Bin.
Trev,
Great review. Watching from Mexico (28 degrees); couldn’t really understand the cool comments😜
Maybe I’m imagining it, but seems to me the team was under instructions NOT to pass
to Ethan in first half- but completely opposite in second – with obvious great results.
That kid has a future!
Thanks Trev, an excellent review matching the excellent result at a difficult ground. The team performance was not one of brilliant football but one where they were fully enthused
in a sheer determination to win. This attitude will go a long way to securing some silverware at the end of the season ( PGMOL & injury gods permitting ).
GSD @ 26. Fully agree with your sentiments. This is a disaster waiting to happen. The PGMOL have writ large their incompetence and the verbally showing off their ineptitude will only further enrage the supporters at the ground resulting in a febrile reaction to every subsequent decision they make.
Excellent report, Trev now that I have read it to the finish, complete with excellent photo of Gabi Jesus going for his diving header. What an injection he has provided these two weeks!
Dino @26 – couldn’t agree more. Yet more gaslighting by the PL and PGMOL. We have all seen the excellent use of technology both for decision making and communication thereof applied in both Rugby Union and Cricket. Both games with far more fragile finances than football. And yet continual tinkering around the edges is all we get. Does the mind not rebel at any scenario in which referees who have proven to be poor decision makers, and at best poor users of technology now get the opportunity to appear to be explaining their decisions while not actually doing so?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>