Arsenal Come Good in Prague

Slavia Prague 0 Arsenal 4
Europa League Quarter Final 2nd Leg
Thursday 15th April 2021 9pm local time

Well, well, well. The Jekyll and Hyde nature of Arsenal showed us the sanity of Doctor Jekyll in Prague last night with 250 actual fans in attendance. I’ll cut straight to another fictitious MD here and get the good Doktor Scheide’s message to me at the conclusion of the game in early…
Fair dues. Well done Arsenal. Great result and how good to see some return of what we all want to see in a football ground: fan presence in the stands and Willian sat firmly on the bench.

After a decent performance at Sheffield United last weekend, Mikel Arteta made a solitary change, with Emile Smith Rowe starting the game as Gabriel Martinelli made way. The backline of Chambers, Holding, Mari and Xhaka was a surprise in spite of their clean sheet at Bramall Lane, and it has to be said that going forward, Chambers looks as effective as either Bellerin or Cedric, and defensively, his improvement in this position on the player torn apart by Montero when Arsene Wenger was still in charge at Swansea is marked. It should be remembered that the squad needs a quota of domestically developed players over the age of 21, so the likes of Holding and Chambers are going to be in the squads whether used or not – and on recent games, there looks good reason to play them. 

Xhaka at left back is an interesting one. People doubt his defensive ability, although in Arteta’s system, the full back will often drift into central midfield anyway. What his positioning allows though, is the inclusion of a more forward thinking midfield player – Ceballos last night – to partner Thomas Partey and give the team greater drive going forwards. More dynamic, less crab-like, even if in the past, on occasion Ceballos himself has been guilty of passing backwards himself. Mari and Holding do look good on the ball and the errors have lessened, perhaps as a consequence of slightly less obsession with playing it out from the back combined with more regular gametime. Slavia rarely threatened last night, a surprise given their home record, although maybe deep down they knew that Arsenal can play so much better than they did in the first leg and hoped for a 0-0 to take them through, a plan blown to smithereens by the visitors’ first half performance. 

The return to action of Emile Smith Rowe was key, with he and Saka being the main reasons that Slavia’s defenders simply could not cope. Smith Rowe’s chalked-off offside goal meant that all four of Arsenal’s goals were scored by black players. Given what happened in the Czech team’s tie with Rangers, and their decision not to take the knee pre-kick off (which captain Lacazette made his own non-verbal statement about), it was kind of fitting. If anything, it may have fired up the away side. 

The football played was aggressive and enjoyable, as Arsenal forwards took on players and beat them to create chances. Lacazette benefits from having pace around him, and Aubameyang might not get back into the team too easily unless Pepe has a dip in form. Lacazette’s ability to get on the scoresheet more regularly poses an interesting dilemma this summer. Folarin Balogun has extended his contract for another four seasons, and you can’t imagine that was cheap, although if anything, it probably means the exit door for Eddie Nketiah over a more established professional. With a year on Lacazette’s deal, Arsenal need to sell or extend. At least he is doing his value no harm if he does have to go. 

It was delightful to see the goals rain in over a six minute spell that killed the tie stone dead. Where this hunger came from is an interesting question – the first tie had Willian starting instead of Pepe, Xhaka in central midfield, with Bellerin and Holding at full back. Gabriel played instead of Mari. Pepe may be something of a boo boy, or even a boo buy, but you can’t say that Willian adds more to the team’s attacking threat. 

There was drive, movement, intelligent runs into space, some gambles taken in the final third which made Arsenal less predictable and decent finishing. It showed what the team are capable of and in a sense shames them at the same time, given how poor a season they have experienced in the Premier League.

It would be refreshing if they could maintain the form of the last two matches for the rest of the campaign. With seven Premier League matches left, and only Chelsea to play amongst the genuine top four contenders (and that at home), perhaps it is not too big a stretch to foresee Arsenal scramble into seventh place, which would at least grant them European football next season unless Spurs win the Carabao Cup or Southampton the FA Cup. It’s difficult to see past another Manchester City domestic treble at present, although Dortmund did give them something to think about last night.

As for Arsenal, once the game was in the bag they showed far better game management than in the first leg and Alex Lacazette added to his tally with a nice finish in the second half. Arguably, given the circumstances, this was the best performance of the season from Arteta’s team, and a sign of how good they can be when the right combination is found. So hope once again, but of course, we have been here many a time before. To avoid another false dawn, we need to be seeing symbolic bright sunshine in Gdansk in May. Unai Emery will have something to say about that…

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