Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

Bayern Munich 1 Arsenal 0    Champions League Quarter Final, 2nd leg   Wednesday 17th April 2024  9pm (local time)     If you’d said at the start of the season that Arsenal would make the last eight of the Champions League on their return to the competition, and remembering the last time they managed that was 14 years ago, you’d have thought, fair enough. As it is, Arsenal join a quartet featuring Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester City. So there is no disgrace in the exit to Bayern Munich, as these are exalted levels which the club have not really had any exposure to for longer than anyone could have foreseen in the days when Cesc Fabregas, Robin van Persie and Andrey Arshavin were still pulling on the red and white shirt.    However, some of the excellent football played since the turn of the year raised hopes that this could be a remarkable return to the top table, and with the final at Wembley, a place Arteta ha...

Arsenal 2 Bayern Munich 2    Champions League Quarter Final, 1st leg    Tuesday 9th April 2024  8pm     Although it’s been 14 years since Arsenal last experienced a Champions League quarter final, they’ve certainly met Bayern Munich a few times since then, normally in the last 16 of this competition, with subsequent elimination every time, often with a massive dose of humility. There was much greater hope that, given the respective form of the two teams, this time it would be different. Yet the sight of the German side scoring at the Emirates last night felt all too familiar.    There was no shortage of action at either end, and the complete absence of all but a handful of club picked Bayern supporters (who sat in the posh seats) meant that Arsenal’s home advantage had an extra edge. The crowd supported the team loudly, but in honestly, the opposition players didn’t seem intimidated in the slightest.    So y...

Arsenal 1 Porto 0 (AET, Arsenal win 4-2 on penalties)     Champions League Round of 16, 2nd leg    Tuesday 11th March 2024  8pm       Cup runs are about survival, just getting through. And ultimately, penalty shoot outs decide even who lifts the trophy itself. Arsenal know this all too well, having lost two European finals in this manner, and won an FA Cup. In the end, this tie went to the lottery of penalties, but it was the Gunners that held their nerve, as David Raya pulled off two saves to send his side through to the last eight of this competition. The Emirates crowd played their part too, and the celebrations when Porto’s fourth penalty was saved to end the contest were off the scale.    Porto tried to eat the clock in this leg as much as the first game, but there was less tolerance from the referee, especially in the second half and extra time. Even at 1-0 down, you felt the visitors would be happy to...

  Porto 1 Arsenal 0     Champions League Round of 16, 1st leg    Wednesday 21st February 2024  8pm     It’s 14 years since Arsenal were last in the quarter finals of the Champions League. A long time. We all remember the humiliating exits at the hands of Bayern Munich and Barcelona, as well as slightly lesser lights like Monaco. Might Porto join the list of teams that accounted for the Gunners in the round of 16? After last night, you wouldn’t back against it. Porto were long odds to win this match, which did a bit of discredit to them given their generally excellent record at home. And in the end, due to some poor work at the death of the game in Arsenal’s own half, they secured a one goal lead to take into the second leg. The way they nullified a great deal of the visitors’ attacking play, you wouldn’t be too surprised if they defended their way to a victory in the tie.   Arsenal were unchanged from the last tw...

  PSV Eindhoven 1 Arsenal 1    Champions League    Tuesday 13th December 2023 6.45pm (local time)    This one will be a fairly brief blog, for two reasons. 1 – The only significance of this match was prize money. Arsenal had already won the group; PSV had qualified in second place due to their head-to-head record against Lens. €2.8million, the pay-out for a win is a handy amount of spare change. 2 – It’s currently quarter to 9 in Amsterdam and as I am staying at a cheap hotel (relatively – this city is a bit costly), checkout is 10am, which just seems wrong, although as this is an EasyJet company place, it’s probably just a way of getting guests to pay more to get a couple more hours in bed.    Anyhow, back to the game and although Martinelli didn’t travel, the squad contained the names to put out a close to first choice eleven. Come the release of the line-ups, many of those that started last weekend at Villa were on the bench. Gab...

  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 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 provi...

Sevilla 1 Arsenal 2    Champions League Matchday 3  Tuesday 24th October 2023 8.45pm (local time)    Firstly to mention that I am on holiday in a time zone nine hours behind Spain, so as this game kicked off at 11.45am for me, I was out doing holiday stuff and watched the match in full the following day on the official website. So for the sake of completion, an entry for the game.   I am going to do this differently today and list some thoughts/reflections in a numbered fashion – I might continue doing this given I am not rushing to do the pieces and want to get away from reporting the facts of a match everyone’s watched. 1 – Gabriel Jesus’ ability to play a pass and take on players to create a chance was the difference in this game, with the two goals coming from his skill. There have been questions about his contribution in terms of goal tally, given he plays as the main striker, but if we can see more performances with this kind of brilliance, such ...

Lens 2  Arsenal 1     Champions League Matchday 2  Tuesday 3rd September 2023 8.45pm (local time)      There was some minor rotation by Mikel Arteta for Arsenal’s first Champions League away fixture since Monaco back in 2017. A lot has changed since then, although game management has often proven a challenge in Europe. Trossard and Tomiyasu came in for Nketiah and White. It didn’t feel like a downgrade given the relative abilities of the players concerned.   It was a busy opening spell, and although Arsenal did well to go one up after 13 minutes when Saka intercepted a back pass, teeing up Jesus for an excellent finish, Lens had already gone close to scoring twice. The lead only lasted about ten minutes as a crossfield Raya pass intended for Tomiyasu – the keeper well outside of his area – was intercepted. The resulting move – which did involve use of the arm missed by the officials – concluded with a top-drawer finish beating ...

Arsenal 4 PSV Eindhoven 0     Champions League Group B Matchday One    Wednesday 20th September 2023 8pm    It’s been a while. Arsenal last took part in the group stage of the Champions League in the final months of 2016, and seven years on, elite European competition returned to the Emirates in the shape of a group game against some familiar opposition – PSV Eindhoven. They’d played the Gunners in the group stage of the Europa League last season, defeating them 2-0 in Eindhoven. Arteta’s team had won 1-0 in a re-arranged fixture at home, but last night the margin of victory, and on-field supremacy, was significantly better.   The main talking point in the team selection was that David Raya started again, after making his debut against Everton last weekend. It was a clear indication that the number one spot is his to lose, there’s to be no policy of rotating between the Premier League and Europe, and it seems likely Aaron Ramsdale’s futu...