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