Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

Arsenal 1 Wolves 2 Premier League Sunday 29th November 2020, 7.15pm There was a moment of tribute to the late Diego Maradona before this match. And towards the end of the 90 minutes that followed, I reflected how Arsenal need an injection of something (an unfortunate metaphor, but I’ll stick with it) akin to that Maradona gave Napoli in the 1980s and his national team at the World Cup Finals in Mexico. Because things are going downhill very badly. Let’s look at the cold hard facts in the Premier League. Three consecutive home defeats (strangely all to Midlands teams). Four points from the last 18 available. One performance that passed muster with the away win at Old Trafford.   Where is the hope? The return of Thomas Partey? The comeback of the long-term absentee Gabriel Martinelli? The continued development of Bukayo Saka? The fact the club does seem to have bought an excellent leader at centre-back in the form of Gabriel? Please don’t tell me it’s the re-integration of Mesut Ozil...

  Molde 0 Arsenal 3 Europa League Matchday Four Thursday 26th November 2020, 6.55pm (local time) Mikel Arteta fielded a very attacking team for this away match in Scandinavia. Four forwards (although Lacazette played behind Eddie Nketiah in an Ozil-style role) with Joe Willock one of the two central midfielders. Arteta seems to be favouring a back four now that defensively things have - for the most part - tightened a little.     There was a socially distanced smattering of supporters, who made plenty of noise in the echo of a sparsely populated stadium, and even one attendee in an Arsenal shirt. There are probably a good number of Molde fans who have the Gunners as their English team. None of this attending in bubbles though – everyone had two empty seats either side of them. It should be different at the Emirates next Thursday, with pre-registered groups of up to four season ticket holders allowed to sit next to one another.   The pitch was plastic, although things...

  Leeds United 0 Arsenal 0 Premier League Sunday 22nd November 2020, 4.30pm The Premier League seems to be a far more open competition this season, the combination of no home support and VAR seeming to have leveled things up significantly. So we had a situation where Arsenal kicked off at Elland Road yesterday with the noisy neighbours at the top of the table. People are seriously worried that the unthinkable might happen with Jose Mourinho guiding the players, and after what happened in 2016, you can’t rule anything out, but there is still a long way to go before any medals are handed out, and things still relatively tight at the top end of the table. Having said that, on the basis of the two matches since Old Trafford, one does not expect Arsenal to be competing any time soon. The rebuild job that Mikel Arteta seemed to be making decent strides with four Premier League matches into the current season has gone off the rails. Since then, four points from five matches, the club in t...

Arsenal 0 Aston Villa 3 Premier League Sunday 8th  November 2020  7.15p m Unlike the narrow defeats to Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester, yesterday evening’s trouncing at home to Villa was a horrorshow. I’d say it couldn’t have been much worse, but the honest truth is that Dean Smith’s team could have won by more. They came to the Emirates without fear, played with purpose, aggression and intelligence, and exposed a very below par Arsenal eleven. Mikel Arteta stuck with the same eleven that started at Old Trafford and that seemed the right decision. However the performances in the two games were like chalk and cheese.   Arsenal had a very early warning with a disallowed McGinn goal for offside, which at least evened out feelings about the Lacazette header against Leicester that was chalked off for Xhaka’s supposed interference with the keeper. They were fortunate though – as with Casper Schmeichel two weekends ago, Leno would not have stopped the rocket of an effor...

  Arsenal 4 Molde 1 Europa League Matchday Three Thursday 5th November 2020  8pm After playing Manchester United in their previous game, Arsenal faced Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's old team Molde. A dank November Thursday evening, instead of playing to the traditional half empty stands that such fixtures normally produce, a 4-1 victory was played out in front of the now familiar completely empty stands, except for players, club staff and a limited amount of media representation.   Molde certainly approached matters in a more adventurous manner than last weeks’ visitors Dundalk, and provided plenty of genuine threat on Bernd Leno’s goal over the 90 minutes. Selection-wise, only Willian and Bernd Leno were retained from the starting eleven at Old Trafford. It was a minor surprise that Leno did not step down for Alex Runarsson, who played against Dundalk. Maybe Arteta was not keen on the back-up keeper's passing? One imagines that were Reiss Nelson fit, Willian would have...

  Manchester United 0 Arsenal 1 Premier League Sunday 1st November 2020  4.30pm There was a key tactical masterstroke in the minutes before this match kicked off. A decision that led to an Arsenal victory – their first away against one of the fellow (so-called) top six clubs since the visit to Manchester City back in January 2015. Notified by a friend that Mike Dean would be taking charge of proceedings, your author stuck £20 on a home win. A surefire banker. Thank me later. Mikel Arteta also made some big calls ahead of this fixture. In 2015 at the Etihad, one suspects more by accident that design, Arsene Wenger combined Santi Cazorla and Francis Coquelin in central midfield and found an unlikely winning combination. It served the team well, although Cazorla’s injury in the autumn of 2015 ultimately put paid to what might have been a first league title since 2004.   Fast forward to November 2020, and who could have foreseen it would have been such a long wait to take thr...