Arsenal smash spurs in dominating fashion by Konstantin Mitov
Beat spurs – check. Beat Jose Mourinho – check. Win by a controversial penalty – check. Come from behind – check. Do it after dropping Aubameyang for disciplinary reasons – check. Nullify the best ever attacking trio in English football – check. Listening to Mourinho complain after the game – priceless.
Well lovely Arsenal people, we beat Spurs and I couldn’t care less if we got lucky with a penalty. I enjoyed this, I really did. We dominated them. We had 10 shots in the first half compared to the only one they had.
True they scored a spectacular goal, but we were just a joy to watch in the first half. We didn’t let heads drop, despite things going unlucky for us and we got rewarded.
After hitting the bar twice Tierney took Doherty out, slipped it to Odegaard and with a deflection it went in. No more than we deserved! I must admit I was sceptical of the Norwegian at first, but he’s grown into the side and he was fabulous again today.
Not only his goal, but in the end of the game when we were under pressure he was still pressing and looked like the one player who knew what we had to do to control the game.
But back to the second half, they improved a little bit, which wasn’t too hard based on their first half display, but we again took control of the game and a slicing pass from Pepe found Lacazette who fluffed his shot, but was taken down by Sanchez and we were awarded a penalty.
Was it a penalty? Was the chance gone? Probably, but you know what? I couldn’t care less, as Lacazette slipped it in the corner! But before anyone goes all Mourinho-like on the ref, PSG were awarded a penalty against Barca when Icardi was nowhere near the ball with no chance to score and in our case Laca was taken out, so that’s that for me.
Few minutes later, Lamela finally got what he deserved and was sent off. The guy made like 4 rough fouls before slapping Tierney in the face. Not to mention Kane taking out one of our players with no intention to play the ball and escaping with no card at all.
Funnily enough, we played our worst football while we were man up. We put on Willian and he was really poor. There was this one time where I see him jogging around when he’s come just 5 minutes before and we’re under pressure…
I know he’s been better lately, but sometimes I just don’t get why he is picked. Maybe it was to pour more misery on Aubeyang for missing the bus or whatever the disciplinary issue was, but anyway we finished the game without a striker against 10 men.
We had to survive Harry Kane hitting the woodwork and an unbelievable clearance from Gabriel saved the day, but we held on and this is a massive win for us.
Our passion and desire today were right where they should be for the NLD. Smith Rowe was superb. Another one like Saka, an Arsenal academy player, knowing what this game means and delivering.
The young players ran the show once more with Tierney proving again to be a sublime piece of business. The energy from him and the desire to take people on is electric. He can also pick a man with his cross.
Our midfield looks so much better with Thomas Partey in it. The guy is not 100% fit, and you could see it at the end when he started making more mistakes when fatigue hit him, but when he is fit and on his game, oh my god! He drives with the ball, shields it well, has a wide range of passing, tackles. Hell, he even makes Xhaka look good next to him!
The defense was on it today, except for the last 10-15 minutes. Luiz and Gabriel were solid. No nonsence, clearing the ball if we have to, although to be fair, they didn’t put us under much pressure for most of the game.
In the end we showed that we don’t know how to put the game to bed. We were in control, had an extra man, yet mistakes started creeping in, and I put them down to not knowing how to control the game and an over-eagerness to show we can do it.
I’m happy we didn’t shoot ourselves in the foot today. The league is mostly gone, but that win paired with the Olympiacos is a massive lift. What a week can do for you in football hey?
And best thing is, our result on Thursday was solid this time and our squad is big, so we can even rotate a bit with one eye on West Ham. We’ve bombed the league, we all know that, but beating Spurs always means something.
And there’s still pride in those games. Fourth best team in London? We’re playing West Ham and Chelsea soon enough. Let’s put that to bed. We’ve conceded 15 goals this calendar year and 7 have been from our own mistakes. If we cut that out we’re talking top 4 contenders straight away. We’ve too often been the engineers of our own downfall. This game was probably the first time this season we actually finished the game a man up, when I can remember at least 4 occasions where we finished a man down and didn’t win any of these games.
Today we dominated the game and even though we were unlucky to go down, we won the game. I’ve been crying long and hard for this. If you play well, results are bound to follow.
Kudos to Arteta today. I’ve been his critic, but his line up choice was excellent, we were positive, played enjoyable football and won the game. Can’t ask for much more.
Hopefully this will springboard us. In this league if you go on a little run, you can quickly climb up the table. We are just 2 points off of Champions Liverpool and only 4 off Spurs. I know the Europa is where the priority lies, but if we can repeat this performance against the likes of West Ham, Liverpool and Chelsea than maybe, just maybe, there could be a European route through the league.
Konstantin
Partey is starting to make me nervous.
He does not seem to have that sharp self awareness of his surroundings m. He is easily dispossessed. Gives the ball away very cheaply. Sometimes his passing is very poor.
He seems to be very slow on the ball. Turns like a truck, not acknowledging that the EPL is very high intensity league. Players in the EPL play at 100mph and you hardly get a second on the ball before you are tackled.
I hope I am just overreacting but ever since his first game here this pattern keeps showing up with him. Struggles when pressed..
it’s making me nervous.
Partey likes to take high risk by dribbling frequently. His pace, aerial ability and dribbling skill set him apart from the other DMs, but he has to work on his passing and shooting
gotanidea, If Party had 12 shots at John Lennon he would still be alive today
Very bad taste! Cheap, so called “humour” at this childish level only shows up the writer as immature.
👍
Poor and cheap attempt at humour.
That’s always been his style of play, a ball carrier. I do agree he needs to be faster. If he improves his tempo then we’ll see a solid player, plus lets put into consideration he’s hardly had any run of games because of injury and fitness issue and adapting to life in England.
I don’t agree with the article hat he’s the one who makes Xhaka looks better though, that’s a bogus lie as the agenda against Xhaka continues.
People suddenly forget Xhaka has been solid since last season Arteta became coach, forgot Xhaka was the reason Saka was explosive as a left back and he was the one protecting that left back. Like it or not though, Xhaka has impove massively under Arteta, I can’t recall any player yet too improve. Our midfield strength is a case of two good players playing together, add the understanding they have then you can see they compliment each other. Not the faux that Partey makes Xhaka look better. I was never a Xhaka fan, but he has won me over. Any player willing to work hard and improve his game while delivering will definitely win me over.
I’m just glad we have Partey, a fully fit Partey will be instrumental for the rest of this seaspn
You’re obviously overreacting, my friend 🙄
Partey is a very good player. He’s only come back from serious injury and still adapting. You haven’t seen the best yet.
Imo, he played very well yesterday. Stabilised the defence and offered a lot to help our attackers.
I’m happy we have him at Arsenal 😊
Him and Xhaka are the reasons why our attackers have the liberty to do whatever they do on the front foot.
Know your football , mate!
I thought I was alone in feeling nervous when he has the ball. He tends to waste an unnecessary amount of time before releasing to a teammate, and either gets dispossessed or injured when challenged. Well I don’t get too angry with him though, since this is his first season in the EPL.
One more thing I don’t like about him though; his shots are closer to the orbit than the goal post.
I’m more concerned with our lack consistency in performances than results at the moment. We won’t win every game which is fine but I’d love it if we used the rest of this season to build some structure in our play in time for the start of next season.
At the moment we can look like world beaters one game and then look completely flat the next, we need to start being more consistent and play to a game plan every game.
We have 10 games left. All games are tough in EPL but there are 4 difficult games to look out for
West Ham (maybe)
Liverpool
Everton
Chelsea
If we can get 5 wins from our last 10 games and at least 2 draws I think we’ll be set up nicely for next season.
If you look at West Ham’s games against ‘top 6 clubs’, you can see that they are easy to boss around but hard to break. So we need to capitalize immediately on our first chance.
Yes consistency and more quality players at depth to keep our key men more durable.
Also finishing instinct need to improve. We need to really upgrade our strikers goal finishing chances. A goal poacher will be awesome.
It was a foul and a yellow card anywhere on the pitch. That Lacca fluffed his shot before the reckless challenge only meant it was not a denial of a goal scoring opportunity, therefore not a penalty and a red card
“We’ve conceded 15 goals this calendar year and 7 have been from our own mistakes. If we cut that out we’re talking top 4 contenders straight away. We’ve too often been the engineers of our own downfall.”
You don’t say, I thought we’ve been terrible to watch, play terrible football with no style or identity? So what do you mean if we just cut out our mistakes we’ll be challenging for top four.
Some of us knew this already because we watched games to support the team not to pick prisoners. When some of us say we’ve not been terrible or we play well, we’re accused of being biased or sentimental because we like the manager, when the actual truth is that since December we’ve literally outplayed nearly every team we’ve faced and in games we dropped point. All down to silly errors from players lack of concentration.
When Pep was bold enough to say he watched our games and we were better than our opponents in most of the games we lost, people say he was gaslighting Arteta and fans.
Anybody who watches without bias would know that since Dec we’ve actually turned it around and we play well with an identity on the pitch while we’ve been let down by some of our player errors, and it’s why some of us re willing to give the manager time to either see to it that we stop these errors or he brings in better players to execute his plans.
Cut out errors and add consistency and you’ll see we’d be top four material. I can’t recall the last time i went into a game against the top 6 teams with fear because the don’t even bully us anymore and we’ll only keep getting better.
We’ll definitely be more stronger if we sign smart again. Also one thing though, apart from the Willian signing, all Arteta seemed cheap and poor buy at first but bar Willian, all his signings actually improved us in their positions. I’m definitely looking forward to see the players he’ll add this summer
Yes.
Am pretty more excited about next season than this season.
One can only look forward at the moment.
Yes it was a lucky penalty because Lacazette can’t even shoot the ball lmao
And that’s how it goes sometimes you’re lucky sometimes you’re not. This was for the Burnley game
It was a foul and a yellow card anywhere on the pitch. That Lacca fluffed his shot before the reckless challenge only meant it was not a denial of a goal scoring opportunity, therefore not a penalty and a red card. The only thing lucky about the penalty is Sanches deciding to wipe him after he fluffed his shot
Completely biased
That us no panelty if we are been honest
Yes arsenal deserved to win the game but in a million time that is no panelty
Even lacazette said he was lucky that he was given a panelty
Sanchez only attempted to block the shout lacazette kicked into Sanchez outstretched leg because he misses kicked the ball
If that was given against us we all will be fussed…
Meanwhile what a performance that was
It was a joy to watch up until before the red when spurs looked like they had 15men to our 11
it is a penalty. 100 times out of 100. just saying if the player plays the ball and then the opposition slide in and fouled the player is it not considered a foul. the play was gone but the opposition still fouled the player. remember that xhaka challenge when he took out the player when the player had released the ball long before xhaka slid in and fouled him. was that not a foul?
Congratulations to us on reaching the 40PTS mark, WE’RE SAFE FOR THE SEASON!!!
Another 15 years under MA and we’ll actually attempt an assault on the title.
I thought VAR won’t award the Pk judging by their records with arsenal. Well, sometimes you have to make your own luck and we were the better side for 80plus mins. We just didn’t handle the last 10 mins well after lemela was off. It could easily end in a draw but overall we were the better side and good to win against Mourinho. He even said some of his big players were hiding lol
I almost wish I still worked so I could go into the office singing to the spurs fans, and there were a few: We beat the scum, we beat the scum 2-1, oh yeah!
Indeed, we deserve the win, we were best team on pitch by far, and many occasions, hit post & bar.
We and world can see it was no penalty but Laca missing ball hiting defender instead, possibly a foul against us.
We deserve win but let’s be realistic, without this penalty, result is a draw.
And, actually got lucky to not with 15 last minutes we saw.
We must defenetly enjoy this win, but quickly reflect on huge panic that almost sink our ship in last quarter.
It was unreal, pounded non stop, could have conceid 2 or 3 in last quarter, Kane hiting post and scary situations or this last chance given away, right outside the box.
This last quarter must be watch over and over,
i disagree with ratings i saw for that Luiz is just a hype, expect 2 or 3 situations, he is passive, xhaka and partey forced to cover all game long.
Lamela goal: he is right there, not moving, some player cant see ball but he is right there blocking Leno’s view and watching ball go right by..
He has no more reflexes, has hability to settle back 4 with experience like, , but in majority, it is scary anytime he touches or come near ball.
That winning feeling 🥰 On cloud 9!!
*Pat.. I hope you’re reading and I hope you gave Pat hell at full time!! Lots of love*
There is no lucky pen.foul z foul.IF WE CAN WIN 7/10 THEN GOOD
Not sure about how word massive word is used, but yes we deserved it.
Massive as it is key to stand a chance to make it to EL, indeed.
Must hope other teams gives more points away than we do, and for us to not drop any.
Unfortunatly, we can not be fully reassured with constant up & down and issues, Auba disciplinary should not happen at such a key time in season nor at all; he is team’s captain & one of most experimented players.
Hope it is not more to it, Auba can’t be happy on that left wing, he can’t be himself; a goal machine, golden boot countender…Can’t be Auba.
Rowe starting on Left instead, does look as Auba was supposed to be played there again.
Saka is best LW in EPL, why Arteta keeps switching him up instead to play Auba on RW where he scored many of his goals and played a lot, familiar with, playing close to and rushing to box
We were lucky to not draw or.lose against 10 in last quarter….
I am happy, we deserved win but we unfortunatly almost ruin it all instead to add at least 2.
That is what we must correct and fix.
Stop playing Luiz will end this shaky and scary land…
A really positive post Konstantin and what a pleasure it is on a Monday morning to have nothing to ‘really’ moan about. Let’s hope the positivity from yesterday persists to Thursday and beyond
We’re really starting to look good. Agree with others that consistency (and clinical finishing) is needed but there’s a lot to be positive about moving forward!
The line up yesterday was top notch..
Loads of ball players in the team, reason why we had massive possession and spurs couldn’t have the ball to even try a counter..
Laca, saka, ESR, odegaard,xhaka,partey…Cedric Tierney luiz Gabriel…..can hold possession comfortably…. That team would be difficult any opposition to dominate, only stupid errors and redcards can undo the team..
Bellerin, William, auba more suited to counter attacking styles with quick transitions..
I feel a blend of the two styles is what arteta is tryin to achieve… Quick ballers like mancity for possession/transition
The debryne,Fernande’s, harrykane,grealish,Madison even henderson are the best at this in the EPL then saint maxime,traore are quick but lack the final pass…
That’s why ESR is a massive find for us…..hope odegaard stays too
Benfica W
Leicester W
Burnley D
Olympiakos W
Tottenham W
Four wins, 1 draw in our last 5 games. Which is very pleasant.
How can our next 5 games be like?
Olympiacos D
West Ham W
Liverpool D
Sheffield W
Fulham W
This is my prediction for our next 5 games which will not be bad if it turns out that way.
We gave Mourinho the good flogging he deserved for his sentiments before and during the game. Him and his players and assistants were constantly taunting our players and the match officials. It is not a Lucky penalty as the author is ‘trying’ to put it . That was a deadly and dangerous challenge that could have led to a leg break or a season ending injury if laca had taken his shot well. The team went for it and its a well deserved win for us…
As for top 4 its next to impossible but top six is archievable if we take 4 points from liv and Chelsea and win maybe 5-6 of the rest of the games.
Sanchez never challenged lacazette
He only stretched out his leg to block a shot which any defender would have done
lacazette mis kicked the ball kicking sanchez outstretched legs as a result..
Lacazette after the game admitted he was lucky he got a panalty…
Who cares after seeing many discisions going against us this season but that doesn’t mean that we should all be biased because it profited us..
That is no where a pen.
If the refree had gone to the monitor i can almost certainly tell you he will change his discision
But he didn’t have to go to the monitor because VAR backed his decision – what is difficult about accepting that?
Var only said it wasn’t clear and obvious that the infield decision should be kept….
If var had told the infield referee to have a look of the incident in the mornitor it’s a different thing all together…
Var is very inconsistent
VAR is not used and applied correctly by the FA at the insistence of Mike Riley.