Kevin Whitcher
Ed’s note – I am abroad currently with no guarantees of catching any Arsenal matches due to uncertainty of access to either a TV broadcast or internet signal. So until the League Cup game v Norwich, I’ll be covered by some Gooner contributors for the match editorials. My thanks to David Oudot for writing up yesterday’s game in Belgrade. By the way, I won’t be able to fulfil any orders via the Gooner store until Wednesday 25th October – so by all means feel free to order, but please bear with me.
Another Giroud overhead kick winner has all but got us through to the knockout stages of the Europa League, but to call this Thursday night 90 minutes of standard Wengerball over the last seven years is an understatement. Possession the ultimate aim of the game, nobody shooting at goal unless they feel they really have to, all eleven players in second gear all the way through, and dull, dull, dull. We may have won the game and look set to have further Thursday night football post-Xmas, but with third place Champions League teams joining at that point our chances of continental silverware may be slim.
The team selection was interesting, the back five in particular. Seeing Mathieu Debuchy getting his first call in nearly a year was a refreshing boost, and a promising Lazarus debut may help us out in getting some cover in place for the very out-of-form Bellerin. But with Wenger being himself it was only natural to ‘Monreal’ him and play an international full back at centre half. Even more interesting was the pick of Elneny at the heart of the defence which serves to prove that Mertesacker has been reinstated in the first eleven for the time being at least and Elneny is nothing more than a utility man (who Wenger tried to flog in the summer as soon as we received a bid from Leicester). Also, cup ‘keeper Ospina was missing and Cech played instead - the choice of Matt Macey on the bench does suggest that we really do only have two at the moment. If only we could have had Gianluigi Buffon’s successor as an option.
The game itself did see Arsenal look to get a goal ahead and Wilshere in particular looked very, very good. In the first ten minutes he created two great chances - the first a killer through ball to Walcott who didn’t shoot when he obviously should have done, and the second playing Giroud in. For the second, Walcott was in a far better position to pass to, goal-wise, but if you had a choice of passing to those two players I think we’d all choose Olivier (albeit on a ‘best of a bad bunch’ basis). When Walcott had an open goal two minutes later he managed to perform a mini miracle in finding the goalkeeper’s foot rather than any part of the goal which was wide-open.
As per standard Wengerball the team relaxed after our initial efforts and could well have gone in two goals behind at half-time with some further terrible lazy defending. Red Star hit the post from a corner despite the striker being surrounded by Arsenal markers but being the only person to jump for the ball. Shortly after we nearly had a repeat of Cleverley’s goal from Saturday in that the Serbian side surged forward, overtaking the midfielders and wing-backs who casually watched them venture into the box, and we only relied on our three defenders to cope with it all - in the end a good save from Cech and a last minute defensive block from Debuchy saved us but again raised questions as to who actually coaches defending on our coaching team, if indeed anyone actually does. Bould? Primorac? Banfield? Lehmann? I really don’t know and as we see more and more of this every week I’m starting to care less and less.
The second half started similarly to the first in that we came out wanting a win, and Wilshere again seemed to orchestrate it all. At one point he danced into the penalty area on his own and it looked delicious, but then each of our lot proceeded to play pass the parcel rather than taking a shot in classic “after you, Claude” style before Walcott’s ‘shot’ goes horizontally across goal.
Aside from Elneny casually passing the ball back to Cech and it being intercepted by a Belgrade forward who was denied by another good save from Petr, the rest of the second half was more classic Wengerball. We must have had 75% possession in the second half as the opposition were happy for us to have the ball. And as long as they had 10 of their own behind it they knew we wouldn’t be able to dance through and didn’t. We had to rely on Giroud’s brilliantly improvised overhead kick in the last five minutes to get a win out of this.
With us five points clear and three games to go, we’re all but there into the next round of the Europa League and receiving the trophy of being able to finish fifth or sixth in the Premier League this season but making it back into the Champions League. Sadly, I can’t take that as something to celebrate as the days of winning the Fairs Cup have been and gone. This competition has become nothing more than an inconvenient hindrance that serves only to rob us of 3pm kick-offs on a Saturday afternoon, and see our reserves getting a run out. I would like to have thought that getting a result in Eastern Europe after the disaster at Vicarage Road would serve to get us going again on Sunday against the struggling Everton. But with only a maximum of three of tonight’s team featuring against them, the internal politics surrounding our two best players, and Wenger only having ever beaten Ronald Koeman twice in his career, I am waiting with baited breath.
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