Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

  Arsenal 6 Lens 0     Champions League Matchday Five Wednesday 29th November 2023 8pm   Results elsewhere. The Sevilla v PSV game was a little crazy. Two goals up. Sevilla had a player sent off after 65 minutes. Cue a Dutch comeback which ended in a 3-2 away win. It meant Arsenal needed a win against Lens to secure top place before the visit to Eindhoven in a couple of weeks and give Mikel Arteta the option of resting his first team regulars. And how they delivered…   Havertz in, Trossard out. A switch from the starting eleven at Brentford saw the late goalscorer Havertz being given the nod for this game, as Declan Rice remained the holding midfielder. It proved a good decision with the German scoring with a poacher’s finish a couple of minutes after heading a Tomiyasu cross just wide. The man with the Shakira chant is beginning to deliver, at last. I’ll make a prediction here. If Havertz gets into double figures in the Premier League this season, Arsenal will win the title. He’s scor

Brentford 0 Arsenal 1    Premier League   Saturday 25th November 2023 5.30pm   So first up, just to explain that I spent the first half of this game watching on a feed on a smartphone in a bar in central Milan. I saw nothing of the second half as I was traveling on the metro to the San Siro to watch Milan play Fiorentina. This all in aid of a very belated 2022 Christmas present for my son, who I promised to take to a game abroad and he said he wanted to see a match in the San Siro before it was decommissioned, which is scheduled to happen at some point around 2026, although I’ve a feeling it might be a bit longer than that.  Whilst in Italy, we also caught Empoli v Sassuolo (3-4, cracking game) on Sunday at 3pm, and Bologna v Torino on Monday evening, where it rained a fair bit, but all the same it is a unique stadium and another due for the history books as there are plans to move and in fairness, the existing ground does seem to be crumbling a bit in places. So with that explanation

Arsenal 3 Burnley 1    Premier League   Saturday 11th November 2023 3pm   It was ultimately a comfortable enough win at home to Burnley yesterday, as it should be if Arsenal have serious ambitions about challenging Manchester City for the title again. Here’s a few thoughts from the game…   1 –  The atmosphere . There is a feeling that the atmosphere isn’t quite what it was last season, in terms of the home support being more vocal. One suggestion is that the introduction of a ballot for silver and red members, as opposed to the previous first come first served, has meant that less ‘hardcore’ regulars are attending. Maybe so. Personally, I feel that the buzz and backing for the team seems a little less this season. How this can be measured objectively is another question. Maybe people are more pumped up for the ‘bigger’ games, such as Spurs and Manchester City.   2 –  Credit to Burnley . Vincent Kompany’s side had a go. They weren’t a ten men behind the ball side as we sometimes see fro

Arsenal 2 Sevilla 0        Champions League Group Stage Matchday Four    Wednesday 8th November 2023 8pm     1 –  Injury hit Gunners . The list is getting longer. Timber and Partey go without saying. Jesus has joined them as another who needs time to recover. Odegaard has a hip injury, Smith Rowe also unavailable, and even the normally reliable (well, in terms of fitness) Eddie Nketiah had to sit this one out.    2 –  So, who plays centre forward?  The absence of Smith Rowe as potential cover for Odegaard meant Mikel Arteta had to pick two from Trossard, Havertz and Vieira. The Portuguese midfielder was the one to miss out. Havertz played in the club captain’s position, with Trossard as a nominal, but very mobile centre forward.    3 –  Sevilla weakened too.  It’s been a wretched season for the Spanish side, who as Europa League winners only last May, were expected to provide a stiffer challenge in this group. Mind you, they generally seem to struggle in the Champions League itself, a

  Newcastle 1 Arsenal 0    Premier League    Saturday 4th November 2023 5.30pm     I am away for a few days for work and the timing of my commitments / workload means I was unable to catch the game yesterday and will not have two hours to watch the replay in full until I am back in London on the day of the Sevilla game. So I watched nine minutes of highlights and will simply write briefly on a discussion point that came out of the match.   A friend messaged me with the following after the game - Maybe I’m paranoid but the “unlimited money” teams seem to benefit a lot from VAR. And I don’t mean just directly. Maybe coincidence. I’d like to see a study on it to (hopefully) assuage my paranoia.   A couple of articles worth reading in relation to this from firstly The Guardian   and then this from a Danish website   In terms of regulation in the Premier League, a quote from the Guardian article sums it up nicely… “And then there’s Rumayyan (Newcastle's chairman), a member of the Saudi

West Ham 3 Arsenal 1    League Cup 4th Round    Wednesday 1st November 2023 7.30pm       1 -  All change  – only four Arsenal players that started the weekend match against Sheffield United retained their places for this last 16 tie at West Ham. Their hosts themselves made five changes, although having lost at home to Everton the preceding weekend, there was an argument that David Moyes was looking at whether those who performed poorly in the league might be replaced by those who can only have played better last night. As for Mikel Arteta, the only real question was who he’d start from his first choice pool, so it was Ben White, Gabriel, Zinchenko and Nketiah who were selected. As expected, Ramsdale got his chance, Kiwior joined the back four, and the midfield trio were Jorginho, Vieira and Havertz. Nelson and Trossard played either side of Eddie. So on paper, it looked a strong enough eleven to progress, but on the pitch, the team didn’t really click.   2 -  Three poor goals to give a