Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

  Arsenal 4 Newcastle 1     Premier League   Saturday 24th February 2024  8pm     Arsenal had unfinished business with Newcastle after their controversial defeat at St James’s park earlier in the season, and didn’t waste time in addressing that injustice in a totally dominant first half which really should have delivered even more than the pair of goals that they did score.   Arsenal have become the corner kings – not only in scoring from them, but winning them in the first place. In this game they won nine to Newcastle’s none. They opened their account when a Saka corner was met by Gabriel and throught a combination of contact with desperate defendeds crossed the line. The referee signalled the goal, awarded as an own goal and the Emirates erupted. It was an engaged and vocal crowd for this game, and they had plenty to shout about with the quality of the football their team were creating. Kai Havertz doubled the lead...

  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...

Burnley 0 Arsenal 5     Premier League    Saturday 17th February 2024  3pm     Mikel Arteta’s side did what they needed to at Burnley by securing the three points, but the manner of the victory continued to bring back memories of the scintillating football we saw last season. It’s something we haven’t seen too much of in this campaign until the turn of the year. The last three matches especially have seen plenty of brilliant attacking play, as well as defensive solidity, with a total of two shots on target against David Raya. That is always going to help a team win games.   Sure, it helped that Burnley are competing with Sheffield United to be the worst team in the division, emphasising the gulf between Championship football and the top flight. And their conceding an early goal set the tone for the afternoon. Credit to Vincent Kompany for not trying to get his side to play defensive football to secure points, but the ...

West Ham 0 Arsenal 6     Premier League    Sunday 11th February 2024  2pm     Against Palace, Arsenal won 5-0 without having to play that well. At West Ham yesterday, once again the opposition were poor, but on the back of an excellent performance against Liverpool, Mikel Arteta’s team were in top form and might have scored more than the six they did. Once Declan Rice had scored the final goal of the game, the Gunners’ manager took off the scorer, Saka and Trossard and no further damage was done to distress the Hammers’ fans that did remain in the stadium until the final whistle.   Jorginho and Zinchenko were the players replaced from the win a week before, the latter injured. Trossard and Kiwior came in, the Belgian as the central striker with Havertz playing deeper. Trossard had two of his side’s best chances before the scoring opened after half an hour had been played. It was one way traffic with Arsenal creating a...

  Arsenal 3 Liverpool 1     Premier League    Sunday 4th February 2024  4.30pm     I am in bulletpoint mood with my take on yesterday’s dramatic win over Liverpool * Team selection  – Jesus was injured, so other than something completely unexpected like moving Martinelli into the centre, it was a straight choice between Eddie Nketiah and Kai Havertz to lead the line. Arteta had played Havertz up front for the cup game a month ago, and went with the German again. And if you are paying £65m for an attacker – you’d think he can play in front of the goal. In fact, the only changes from the Cup tie were Raya for Ramsdale, Zinchenko for Kiwior (the Ukrainian was injured at the start of the year) and Martinelli for Reiss Nelson. Significantly, that meant Jorginho partnering Declan Rice in midfield, which turned out to be a masterstroke. * Gunners’ first half domination  – Much like the FA Cup tie, Arsenal dominated...

Nottingham Forest 1 Arsenal 2     Premier League    Tuesday 31st January 2024  7.30pm     What can be said of the first half? At the conclusion, the burning question for me was… I wonder if Bobby Pires brought his boots? Emile Smith Rowe was given a welcome start but Forest’s tactics frustrated all of Arsenal’s attacking players. It’s one thing to have teams visiting the Emirates shutting up shop and content to play for a point. But away?    So much as Arsenal dominated both territory and possession, a tendency to overplay, and a seeming lack of urgency when Forest were caught out of position on their rare forays forward limited the number of chances. When they came they were generally blocked by a red shirt.    In boxing parlance, Forest might have been on the ropes, but Arsenal weren’t actually landing any punches. A lack of willingness to get a shot in immediately when the opportunity arose did not m...

  Arsenal 5 Crystal Palace 0     Premier League    Saturday 20th January 2024  12.30pm     After dropping eleven points from their previous five matches, Arsenal simply needed to take three points after their mid-winter break and Crystal Palace at home proved the perfect game to get things back on track. The form of Roy Hodgson’s team had been even worse than their hosts, so an element of confidence was justified.   Arsenal had not played badly in the two of the three league defeats recently (Fulham the exception), but putting the ball in the net had become a problem area. They worked on their set pieces whilst away on their training camp in Dubai and it paid off handsomely. Their corners all proved dangerous and both first half goals came from two of the four they were awarded. It was good to see Declan Rice take a decent corner for the opener, as with Trossard starting in place of Martinelli, we’ve seen a lot o...