Arsenal snatch all the points with Burnley fuming

Arsenal secured the win today thanks to an injury-time penalty, and Burnley will be aggrieved after a hard-fought display.

The Gunners started the game as second-best, Enduring a tough opening 15 minutes in which we could easily have found ourselves 2-0 down, but we rode our luck and managed to get ourselves into the game.

Johann Gudmundssen had the best opportunity in the first-half, forcing Petr Cech to push his shot onto the post, and alarm bells were ringing from this point onwards.

Aaron Ramsey had the best of our chances before the interval, with Alexandre Lacazette finding him with a curling cross only for the Welshman to fail to steer the ball on goal.

At half-time you could feel that it wasn’t going to be our day, with our rivals forcing us to take many shots from outside the box, but thankfully we many to come through at the end.

Aaron Ramsey was brought down inside the box in the dying moments of the game, and referee Lee Mason didn’t let us down for the second time in the match, and Alexis Sanchez didn’t need to be told twice. The Chilean slotted the ball away to the keepers right hand side, and with keeping the ball low made the save all too difficult.

The referee should have granted us another penalty earlier in the second-half also, and would no doubt have been the talking point had we not come away with the victory, as Hector Bellerin had his legs taken away from him well inside the box.

The 1-0 win pushes up inside the top four for the first time this season, leapfrogging Tottenham and Liverpool in the race to secure Champions League football.

Did Burnley deserve more out of the match considering their performance? Have Arsenal now turned the corner with only their second away win of the season?

Pat J

33 Comments

  1. Again, like last season, Arsenal won because of a controversial decision. They don’t seem able to win against Burnley with open play goals.

    If the three attackers are lacklustre in th 3-4-2-1 formation, the deep central midfielders cannot do much, as they are not supposed to have creative role in the formation. The defenders, goalkeeper and wingbacks did well to defend, but there was almost no penetration from both wings.

    I wonder what happened with the squad that faced Everton at the Goodison Park and Tottenham at the Emirates. This squad looked jaded and did not dare to take risks.

    A new manager with new ideas would be needed in the next season, because Arsenal looked monotonous in their strategy. But I am happy with this ugly and dirty win, because Arsenal went up to the 4th position in the league table.

    1. This decision was not controversial.I’m don’t like mediocrity but Burnley are very strong at home.
      There was also a time where Bellerin was brought down and a penalty should have been given.It made no sense to not give as the player did not even get the ball.I side with you on some things you said but in truth Everton were poor and Spurs were asleep.
      We also have some average players who start week in week out.The midfield combo especially is at fault.
      Someone here even said Ramsey is better than Wilshere when clearly Wilshere has always been better as a youngster but more injury prone.I don’t know how people watch football at times.
      Another observation is that our our formation is funny and bogus.Why is Wenger so rigid and poor tactically.He hardly varies his setups which costs us many matches.When he also gets something going he becomes so rigid with it and doesn’t want to change it.

  2. All i wanted was three points, considering burnleys stats, arsenal really did not disappoint. Onwards and upwards eh. ?????

  3. Important win for the gunners…Now let us not lose the momentum and continue to move forward…Huddersfield next and utd after that…Never mind the performance and the manner of the win,a win is a win. Come on you gunners

  4. Always a difficult place to come but like before, we won dirty. Again, it always gives a feel-good sensation to leave it late against these stubborn teams. It drains all their energy in defending and makes their defending efforts futile. How I wish we can leave it late for all these stubborn teams. I love the frustrated look on their faces when we steal all three points despite their defending. Hehehe

  5. 1-0 to Arsenal.
    It doesn’t bother me how. All I wanted was 3 points and upward we go on the table.
    This match wasn’t going to be an easy one going by our usual manner of not taking advantage when our rivals drop points. Here we are taking advantage in what ever form.
    I thought a win suppose to make a fan happy. If you are disappointed that we didn’t lose, sorry about that. You need your doctor close by as we are also winning next match.

  6. Moan away moaners. We got this win, and that is all that matters. ‘Soft penalty’ my foot…

    Well done boys. On to the next three points. To the moaners, enjoy the win if you can, or go play with yourself.

    1. Why does everone keep saying ”we miss Ozil” then when he comes and puts in average performance then people will be like ”sell him as he’s useless”.Ozil has been in general very poor and I can’t wait for him to be sold with the likes of Xhaka and co.It’s like we fans can’t really see the problems.They are just two:the manager and some of the players.Once Wenger is gone and some of the average players leave we’ll start excelling again.This dilly dally results are just a way of convergence to a fruitless season.

  7. Happy for Arsenal funs “Luck” was in our side this time
    FOR SECOND TIME against Burnley .
    Sometimes in this kind of games we need a positive
    tactical move from Wenger but we will never are going to see it.
    Then our trust will be on the players from now on.

  8. The lack of urgency would be my biggest gripe. Burnley are a difficult side to play against when you don’t get the breaks. All that matters in the end is the result, as if I need to tell anyone in here. Alexis was marked throughout the game so without Ozil the final ball was always going to be a tough one because of how Burnley are set up. I expected a tough game, and it was, in the end we won it the hard way which for most people is a job well done.

  9. Am just happy to have the win. Controversial or not! Let everyone who has complaints bring back Watford! Well done boys!

  10. The media can’t understand how we got a decision in our favour by a referee who lives five minutes from Burnley, to be honest, nor can I

  11. I was happy in the end. It was a tough one. I felt we tried to be patient with Burnley and it eventually paid off, luckily though. Even though the penalty was fair, we were lucky they conceded a penalty.
    How Sean Dyche gets those Burnley guys to play like that is quite amazing. They gave us a really hard time.
    I am glad we won, hoping for another 3points on Wednesday.

  12. And then folks give out reasons why they want ozil out. That’s what we were missing today creativity. The whole midfield is full of mediocrity and why is iwobi playing ahead of Wilshere that’s just out of my mind.

  13. I am very happy we won, Burnley parked d bus, even if ozil play nothing special ll happen, always difficult to play defensive game like that. I think Giroud should play game like this. Anyway, win is a win, am happy

  14. consensus is that …the league standings do not lie – the current positioning is very close reflection of the epl and the present day [*financial power base of english football] imo. anything more from this in terms of us ascending up the league is a matter of us punching above our weight and there is no good reason why we cannot consolidate our position although that said we are reliant now upon those above us capitulating and hopefully losing their form.

  15. I realize Burnley and Sean Dyche are flavour of the month, but the commentators were making it to sound like they were playing like Barcelona.

    On Burnley; at least the way I saw it, they were very well organized, didn’t allow us to create too much but didn’t create all that much themselves (despite what the “pundits” said) and they went in hard! Have to give them credit for how well organized they remained.

    On Arsenal; I thought we defended very well, kept fighting as a team and kept trying to play our game and even though we lacked a bit of cutting edge, we deserved the 3 points. Was a bit surprised by the decision to bring on Welbeck instead of Giroud when we needed a late goal.

    Overall very happy with the 3 points, clean sheet and zero injuries.

    Just a few basic stats to counter how the commentators made it to sound like Burnley out-played us and were unlucky to concede a late penalty:

    Possession – Arsenal 64%, Burnley 36%
    Shots – Arsenal 17, Burnley 8

    On the point of the media’s love-in with Sp*rs / Pochettino & Liverpool / Klopp, we are now ahead of both of them in the table, and deservedly so.

    On Wenger’s alleged tactical short-comings, I’m not an AKB, but the old fox has out-smarted the likes of media darlings and tactical revolutionaries, Pochettino and Antonio Conte (more than once) in recent months.

    Great to get this win on the back of the NLD and despite the negatives (Kroenke, Wenger, Sachnez & Ozil’s contract situations) – I remain excited about this club, especially some of the changes going on in the backroom staff. Also looking forward to getting one of the big names we are being linked with for the Director of Football position.

  16. good we needed to avoid losing more points against non top six members. right now if we win the remaining games against non top six teams(19 wins) and lose every match against top six(6 defeats), we finish with more than 80 pts which is a minimum for a team like arsenal.

    now any combination of the above which gets us 19 wins is good for me.
    >85 pts is a strong contender
    >80 pts is a title challenger
    7079 pts is a top 4 contender
    its been a decade since we got at least 80 pts in a season which is unacceptable for a club of arsenal stature.

  17. one of the better matches they played all season, difficult away conditions, excellent defense, every player played effective, no motm in my opinion, team effort. czechs save was phenominal, adjustments at half led to control of the match, very pleased. bellerin was also fouled in the box, 6 pts in 2 weekends, perfect!

  18. Can’t understannd why the penalty has been described as controversial by some of the media. It was an obvious foul and just because it came in the 90th minute doesn’t make it controversial. The way Burnley play at home it was always going to be a tight game and I thought it was a well deserved win.

    1. the definition of controversial is if it goes in Arsenals favor and we win…. This was a Sir Alex type win, and then it was considered genious

  19. I said a couple of days ago that we’ll miss Ozil more than Sanchez, and got a ton of thumbs down. Still think our little Chilean Le Sulk is more important to the team? Penalty aside (I actually want someone else to take them), it was another underwhelming performance from Alexis with numerous misplaced passes, and really not offering much up front. As for creativity without Ozil – Iwobi, Wilshere, Xhaka, and Ramsey have less talent combined than our German maestro. And it’s a fact.

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