In our best Drake and Future voices: “What a time to be alive”. This team man, I swear, is going to be the end of me, good or bad. This team’s belief in all their matches, the relentlessness, and the refusal to give in, is incredible. And they showed it again today with a comeback from 2-0 down to win 3-2 over Bournemouth at the Emirates. Just incredible scenes to fight back in a must-win game. I have been preaching all year you can’t lose your home games if you want to win the title and these guys did their best to fuck it all up to the league’s worst team. Can’t really explain how, can’t really explain why, they just did it again in 90+ plus minutes, the third time in the 2023 calendar year, Arsenal secured a winner in stoppage time to keep their 5 point lead at the top of the table.
THOUGHTS ON THE MATCH:
- The season for the ages: Whatever happens this season, we go on to win the league, we get nipped at the end by City, we choke it away, etc. For these Arsenal players to be on pace for 99 points (at least (90+) through 26 games is quite an achievement. At the beginning of the season, all Arsenal fans would have chopped your hand off, no question, for Top 4 and to be in the position we are now through 26 games, with the games we have won, with the games we have come back from, just an incredible season and job done by Arteta and his coaching staff. I hate bringing religion into sports but it’s a fair question to ask if the big man upstairs is having his say in the title race with the results we have gotten this season. Take it one game at a time, don’t get too high, don’t get too low, so much football left to play for, 12 more games, but let’s fucking gooooooo.
- Lapses in concentration almost killed us: Even in the banter Wenger era, we never went down 9 seconds into the match, I didn’t even get the chance to get my ass fully comforted into the couch before Bournemouth was celebrating in my face.
With us being down essentially when the game started, Arsenal played so damn high and aggressively. Outside of Ramsdale, Saliba, and Gabriel, the rest of the 8 players were camped in the Bournemouth box with over 80% possession looking to get goals. Just an unusual game to watch, with Arsenal amassing over 17 corners in the game (2 of our goals coming off corners). With us playing so high up, we left ourselves open to counters and Bournemouth almost caught us on one for sure.
And then on their second goal, Bournemouth took their sweet ass time to take their corner, Thomas Partey was caught falling asleep, and just like that down 2-0 at home to the bottom team in the league. Thankfully we made it out alive today but against better competition, most likely won’t be the case.
3. Arteta switched it up today: Now if you are a moron, you would say inserting Tomiyasu, ESR (coming on for an injured Trossard early), and Vieira was one of the reasons why we were behind. But a simple counterpoint is that none of the main starters played well too. Martinelli and Saka were glaringly poor, Ødegaard’s final ball was off all game. Admittedly, none of Tomiyasu, ESR and Vieira made huge impressions to Arteta to give them more playing time, but I wouldn’t come at the newly inserted players for today’s performance, our concentration was off from the start by everyone and Arteta needs to fix that shit.
4. Thomas Partey masterclass: Jorginho was great in his place, but there is nobody like Thomas Partey in our squad. The best CDM in the league for me this season and today just proved why. Outside of his man scoring their 2nd goal, Thomas Partey was as close to the sole reason we got back into this. With us playing so high, can’t tell you the amount of times he covered our ass on their counters, his angle and weight of passing was tremendous, it was his dribbling run that got us the 2nd goal and of course he scored our first goal. He is so complete and is at the top of his game, bless us for having him in our lives cause I don’t know where we’d be without him.
5. One of our own, Reiss Nelson saved our season: Reiss Nelson today was everything that ESR was not. He was active on the wing, got the assist for the 2nd goal, and scored a peach of a goal to secure the 3 points. Proud of our boy man. You only dream of hitting it that sweet every time and when you are able to do it, in the biggest of circumstances, just incredible. Happy for him, he more than deserves another contract with us, and with Champions League football next season, he will get the chance to play more for us cause he damn well deserves it.
6. SHOOT THE BALL: A growing concern I am getting with this Arsenal team is not shooting enough when we need them to. With our technical quality, it almost seems like at times we look for the perfect opportunity, the 10/10 chance where we just pass it in. Those chances don’t grow on trees, our quality allows us to have those opportunities more than other teams for sure, but when the game gets tight and we are chasing for goals. I’m going to need Saka, Martinelli, Xhaka, Ø, etc. to put their laces through the fucking ball and see what happens more often, we may get a lucky bounce, deflection, it goes in, we just need to take those chances cause no way a team that had 17 corners and had our possession percentage should only have 9 shots on goal today (which is a lot but for how much we had the ball, not enough). Just simple maths, we had 81% of possession, 90+ minute match, that means we had the ball for around 73 minutes give or take, I’m going to need more than 9 shots and it’s not just this game. Arsenal fans are screaming for them to shoot more, no point in all this possession if we can’t do the one thing we need to do to score goals.
PLAYER RATINGS:
RAMSDALE: 7/10 – Can’t do much for the two goals but made a save of the season to keep it at 1-0
TOMIYASU: 5/10 – This kills me but he was poor, he will get unfairly scapegoated but when your playing time comes few and far in between, we need you to do better.
SALIBA: 6/10 – Didn’t react well for their first goal
GABRIEL: 6/10 – Fine but a weird game. Better of the two for sure
ZINCHENKO: 6/10 – Passing needed to be a bit more incisive in the crucial moments
THOMAS PARTEY: 9/10 – I don’t have the words for this man, my man of the match
VIEIRA: 5/10 – Same as Tomiyasu, need to get him confidence, the skill is there, the execution isn’t.
SAKA: 5.5/10 – Not his best game
ØDEGAARD: 6.5/10 – Worked his ass off.
MARTINELLI: 5.5/10 – Not his best, clumsy attempts on goal, should have had one off the half chance ball Thomas fed him
TROSSARD: – No rating, came off injured, but need him back soon
BEN WHITE: 8/10 – Got his first goal for us
REISS NELSON: 10/10 – Perfection
XHAKA: 7/10 – Looked energized when he came on.
VAR: -10/10 – How can you be so freaking useless
The Tomiyasu Mepham (top left and bottom right) decision are so bad, you can’t make this shit up how we didn’t get pens called for those.
MY NEIGHBORS: 10/10 – for dealing with my constant screaming of support and disdain for this dumb sport.
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