There’s Music In The Air As Competent Gunners Complete The Italian Job
Mar 16th, 2018 by 'holic
“If they score first the game could turn into a very nerve-wracking affair.”
Having typed that in the preview it bore repetition in the pub pre-match and drew general agreement. The post-match gathering saw a wonderful mix of people from both sides of the pond looking forward to a juicy contest between two of Europe’s misfiring finest. This is too often the best part of a matchday experience these days and it was great to see so many friends under one roof yet again.
There was however to be an incredible surge of enthusiasm and joy as the match progressed. Not that we didn’t go through that nervous spell when the visitors opened the scoring on the night with a sumptuous Calhanoglu strike from thirty yards. We were right in line with the swerving shot and the moment it left his boot we knew it was in. To be honest it was no more then the Italians deserved at that point.
In the opening half an hour they had looked the more ambitious and aggressive of the combatants. People write them off as fallen giants, but in truth their biggest problem by far is the lack of a regular goalscorer. As last week they created many opportunities last night but either they fell to the wrong players or they don’t have the finisher that would complete them.
We would have to fight back quickly, and mercifully did, although in the most controversial of circumstances. A trademark exchange of quick incisive passes on the edge of the box put Danny Welbeck clear in the inside-right channel. From fifty yards away what happened next in real time looked like he got a clip on the heel and a helpful hand to ground. The referee awarded nothing immediately but then pointed to the spot apparently on the advice of his fifth official.
Cue mayhem and hysterical reaction from the bulk of the Milan team. To his credit the fascinating Gattuso implored his charges to calm down. He will understand better than most that indiscipline can cost a side dear. Once the decision was given they were putting only their continued participation at risk. It was only during the interval that those returning from their half-time break confirmed that any contact had been minimal and Welbeck had gone to ground far too easily.
I didn’t see any repeats of the incident until this morning. The first view from the normal cameras sighted above the centre of the pitch were a high level of the view we enjoyed in block 32 and showed what I thought I had seen. However, the video shot from behind the goal (the fifth official’s view almost) showed precious little contact and certainly insufficient to send a big strong fella to ground.
I’ve condemned the serial offenders who are encouraged by their respective managers to seek an advantage in such circumstances as “part of the game”, and the same applies to one who is I’m sure a first-time offender. I don’t want to see The Arsenal players doing it.
To read some of the most outrageous and absurd nonsense I have today about it affecting the outcome of the match and causing shame and embarrassment to English football is such a ludicrous over-reaction, especially when put in context of the lack of similar emotive language aimed at those we know are cheating on an industrial scale every week. It had echoes in the appalling hounding of Eduardo, who won a legitimate penalty against Celtic, but was subjected to the baying hounds of the click-baiting fourth estate. The Arsenal sell papers, full-stop.
Enough of that nonsense. Danny himself, recalled by England earlier in the day, took the spot-kick, and it is fair to say that not all in the ground were confident of him netting the equaliser. Oh ye of little faith. He sent Donnarumma the wrong way. We had a psychological lift but to be fair had reacted to the Milan goal with positivity and determination before drawing level.
We carried that intent into the second-half. The defence, notionally weakened when Laurent Koscielny hobbled out of the game to be replaced by Calum Chambers, were looking solid enough behind the improving Granit Xhaka. Milan fashioned a couple of half-chances and were defending superbly but with around twenty minutes remaining a Donnarumma howler put the Gunners out of reach. Xhaka’s long-range strike was decent enough but the young goalkeeper parried it across his own body at the foot of the near post and watched it spin just inside his far post.
That’s the ‘holic pound secured, thought this fool. The crowd settled into party mood. Then the most wonderful thing. The visiting support, three thousand strong and vociferous all game broke out with a chant that had a hypnotic chorus. It was the Italian pronunciation of AC Milan but tens of thousands of Gooners latched immediately onto it’s similarity to “Oooooospina!”. For a precious few minutes the entire stadium collectively embraced the amazing amotsphere spontaneously created. It was a magical few moments on the sort of European night we have enjoyed so seldom of late.
Welbeck, who else, snatched the correct score winnings from my grasp as the tie petered out. Donnarumma saved Aaron Ramsey’s point-blank header and the Mancunian headed the rebound home. It was a night that will have done much for his confidence on the pitch, if not off it.
So into the night we scurried to make the late homeward journeys but with that little ear worm niggling away at our senses.
“Oooospina, Oooospina. Oooospina, Oooospina.”
66 Responses to “There’s Music In The Air As Competent Gunners Complete The Italian Job”
Oooooooo….
…spina!
Oooooooo….
Spina!
Oooooo….
Top 4 finish plus psychy boast. Let’s drink to this fellas & forget what the whiners say.
…spina!
Ooooooooo..
Thanks for this report Holic.
I was following the game by text post Cheltenham . It helped that I got their goal and Welbeck’s equaliser together so we weren’t really down as far as I was concerned.
It’s interesting you reference the Eduardo penalty fiasco. I think it was the loathsome Daily Fail that went OTT on it . Interestingly they started the campaign for us to pull out of the World Cup. I have a maxim that if anything appears in a Mail editorial or front page I automatically disbelieve it and take the opposite stance . They are wind-up merchants with a Fascist , slightly nutty mindset. Watch them try to suggest we shouldn’t play CSKA on principle.
I’m sure they would have pitched into Welbeck because they hate Arsenal. The report I read was from the Times. Gary Jacob also hates Arsenal and takes the piss in his reports, it wouldn’t have happened when my Dad worked for them.
Anyway Holic’s report is better and pretty balanced.Now come on Swansea, Leicester and Brighton !
Great night indeed H
Dodgy penalty aside.
Need to be wary of CSKA.
Plenty thinking it is the easier of the 4 1/4 finals to win.
But having lost the home leg 1 nil,they put in a real shift away in France yesterday,and won 3 -2 and go through on away goals.
Not sure if playing the first leg at home helps our cause or hinders it.
Steve T from previous drinks,
If you really want us to be the best we can be going forward,then signing Jack up for big bucks and making him Captain,is not the way to do it.
I think you will find the new guys behind the scenes have already earmarked/tapped up new players to fill our problem area of midfield.
As to the idea that Arsenal must want him to stay,why else offer him a new contract theory,in my opinion the new contract offer looks like it is designed to encourage him to leave. !!
But maybe that’s my cynical side coming out.
Remember also that Arsene has form when he consistently says he wants a player to stay.
He said the same about the Ox and Wally,where are they now. ??
Remember also this is the same Jack,that rather than stay and fight for his place,he spat the dummy when Arsene wouldn’t guarantee him a first team place,and he pissed off to the seaside where he was seriously underwhelming,before he got injured again.
I repeat,i will be very surprised if he is here next season.
“We want you to stay so much, we’ve bought you this cracking going away present!”
That kind of thing.
Excellent report Guvna and here’s that ear-worm moment:
https://twitter.com/knowledgeipinge/status/974411344563920896
Good report ‘Holic. My impression of the Welbeck penalty was much the same as yours: a clip of the heel and an arm round the chest on first impression, but not the first and barely the second on seeing a replay.
I don’t think it’s a case of the media hating Arsenal. To me it’s more a case of let’s say something controversial because the Arsenal online/radio listening/TV watching public are the most vociferous and that gets the most clicks/calls
Tapera, previous drinks … I admit my support for Jack is partly driven by 1. His teenage form and promise, and 2. That he’s always threatened to be one of those rare birds, the one-club man, which I always admire.
But in addition what I see now is a player in transition, from injury-ridden and (in consequence) under-performing youngster, to a maturing player who adds much-needed dynamism to the midfield. Ozil makes intelligent passes with slide-rule precision while Jack creates forward movement, drawing tackles and making space for others. How the pair and Miki fit best together is work in progress, but I have seen enough to believe they could prove as formidable as any trio in the next few seasons.
So THAT’S what happened! I’ve been hanging on the edge of my seat. Enjoyed your report. Excellent night out by the sound of things.
It appears that till last year Wenger had the final say on all footballing matters and he decided whether a player got his contract renewed and on what terms. He looked after our injured players (Diaby, Van Persie, Walcott, Cazorla etc) interests by renewing their contracts routinely. This year things appear to have changed with Wilshere being offered a lower basic salary. Another pointer to Wenger’s waning powers?
So the Totts could win the FA Cup finish fourth and have gone out in the last sixteen of the CL . We’ve never had a season that good have we ??
That’s seen as a reason to fire
the manager at some clubs
I believe 🙂
Merson’s glasses being worn very much in the Morecambe style on Soccer Saturday
Clive and others
We beat Chelsea U23s 3-1 this morning and will win the league if we win our remaining matches. Nelson and Nketiah both scored. I’d like to see them given some league experience before the end of the season as I would like to see Mavropanos play.He also played this morning
Although letting the Spuds
play at our second home seems
a bit iffy in terms of “neutral
grounds” for semi finals.
Clive. For once, I couldn’t disagree with you more.
You asked….
“He said the same about the Ox and Wally,where are they now. ??”
Both are clearly elsewhere. As a result of their departure we have £60 million in the bank.
Apart from my view that I believe Jack could have a big future at the club, from a business perspective, it’s madness to let him walk away for nothing. If Jack signs an improved contract then he will either be a success, or we sell him for £30 million plus. If leaves for free then we lose a top player and then have to spend £50 million plus, in total, to replace him.
Mo Salah is undoubtedly the signing of the season. He scored four today against Watford and has scored 35 times for Liverpool this season. I can’t understand how Mourinho let go of Both Salah and De Bruyne when he was at Chelsea.
I can
Sanchez dropped by United. He’s not rotating as this is all they have to play for . It will give Pogba someone to sulk with
Steve @20
I agree with that. And if we did offer him a better contract he’d end up injured before we could use him or sell him for a cool £30m. Damned if we do…
@22 SSY.
Me too.
TTG
Great news about the under 23’s.
I think we do still have to play Pool away,which could decide the Title.
Agree some PL game time for some of the brighter prospects would be ideal for their progression.
As for Reiss- Nelson resisting signing a new contract,either he thinks he is better than he is,or his Advisors have got in his ear and whispered sweet nothings about lucrative deals elsewhere,as he does look to have the hump sitting on the bench in recent weeks.
Steve
In an ideal world your scenario re Jack sounds plausible,but i just don’t think it’s going to happen.
I guess we have to wait till the summer to find out.
just catching after working trip to hong kong
on the singing policemen it make we think of 4 memories of arsenal at highbury
alex morgan
the band throwing mace
smell of onions outside ground
‘peanuts get your peanuts here’
great days
60m for The Ox and Theo,
insanity really. If we could get
30m for Jack I’d take that too.
I liked all of them but none
were reliable. On the edges of
the worst England squad I can
remember. All could do better
with their talent but for
whatever reason, good or bad,
they haven’t. I’d let Aaron go
too, another one who’s
unreliable and injury prone.
What more do we need to
know about them? They don’t
stay fit and they don’t turn
up consistently enough as
Ned’s numbers showed.
It may well cost money to
replace but it’d be nice to
have some players that we can
rely on to turn up and play
every week. Get rid.
I wonder if my Sunday morning
hangover has made me
particularly harsh today.
But what I’d give for a Geordie
Armstrong now.
@15, TTG, so your not one of the great many who think the FA Cup isn’t worth winning; fourth in the PL isn’t a trophy; and elimination in the last 16 of the CL represents abject failure, regression, a manager who’s lost the dressing room, a club in decline, no coaching at the training ground you built for £28M and all the other horseshit that gets sprayed around?
If not, that makes three of us (I’m including Steve T in my list of merit).
Ah, but the Totts can’t win the Europa this year, can they? 🙂
the FA Cup isn’t worth winning It is unless Tottenham do it
fourth in the PL isn’t a trophy It isn’t.
elimination in the last 16 of the CL represents abject failure If it happens once and you learn from it, it’s not. If it happens eight or nine years (I forget which) running then it is.
regression, a manager who’s lost the dressing room, a club in decline, no coaching at the training ground you built for £28M
1. Look at the league table
2. Look at the performances from this team when we needed to fight, with the manager under the cosh and the leaks from the dressing room.
3. I simply listen to those former players, not all of whom can be bitter and twisted, who have said that he doesn’t do coaching and the way that formerly really good players have fallen off a cliff when they join us. Then I look at all the potential we’ve had in players who have no gone on to do what they promised, and ask … is it really the case that all of them were wasters?
Holic, a really excellent report and sorry I only just got to read it.
SSY and GSD @22 and 25,
I can too.
Mourinho has a way of limiting and strangling the creativity out of players. He wouldn’t appreciate the unpredictability of players like Salah and de Bruyne – just as he was ruining Mkhitaryan at Old Trafford.
With any luck, we will see his full powers restored in tandem with Aubameyang. The signs against Watford were really encouraging.
There are, by the way, rumours that Watford’s kit manufacturers have gone bust this week, due to the massively underestimated cost of material required to cover the arses of the first team. ?
Btm
?
I find the media guilty of double standards in that the Totts are at the zenith of their achievements in the last almost sixty years, and they are having the sort of season that has garnered massive criticism for Arsenal because it wasn’t good enough.
Tottenham haven’t gone past any of our regular achievements and while I ( say it in a whisper) rate Pochettino as a coach it seems unfair to laud him and denigrate Wenger for approximately the same level of achievement .
Same level of achievement, TTG ?
Damn, I must have missed Pochettino’s 3 FA Cups in the last four years, and we won’t even talk about Wenger’s first 10 years at the club.
And, yes, before anyone jumps, I do want managerial change asap and, no, the last 10 years have not been good enough but Tottenham would have killed even for them.
Oh Schmeichel! ?
looks like sparky’s up for the cup
you dog!
4 – 4 – 2
Mark knows
(?)
Trev
I was being a bit ironic assuming that Poch would win his first trophy. And they get to play the last two games at their home ground! Not sure if they will beat the Mancs in a one off game but if they do cue huge national delight as they take their rightful place at the top table of English football .
Since they last won the FA Cup we have won it EIGHT times
I hate Manflu.
Had the sharp headaches and temperature.
Had the hearing loss.
Had the tickly cough.
Now suffering the voice so deep it makes Barry White sound like Joe Pasquale.
On the plus side, I can now sing this note perfect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El9eCRisbDo
Marvin Lee!
too bad cloning was not fashionable…then
we need C-Backs
him & Nolte Nick
I had to smile when I read that Luis Enrique is delaying accepting management of the bus stop … until it becomes clear what is happening at the Grove.
…or whitmore james & hayden sterling
NO PASARAN!
c-BaCks?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi7MFZ84uSM
the great CB was thrown down…
the deceiver of the whole world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rK5Hm9BW0lI
deliver us from….
…and lead us to…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5vfw5f1CZo
…now let’s you just drop them pants
yeehaw!!
Enjoy the moment while we can I suppose. The Chilean will probably start scoring freely soon. Unless Mourinho challenges him to a duel first. 😉
http://7amkickoff.com/index.php/2018/03/19/my-favorite-moment-of-arsenals-season-so-far-selling-alexis-to-man-u/
Everyone on holiday?
Wake up and smell the espresso. Please.
A lot of drinkers here did express the thought that Alexis had seriously lost form. He is playing for United like he played for us for most of this season and some of last.
It was a huge miscalculation not to sell him in the summer. We got a pretty good deal with the swap for Mkhitaryan and the United Board are going to be looking at their ridiculous Sanchez deal, the problems with Pogba , the quality of football and the lack of challenge for the big trophies before sanctioning a big renewal for Mourinho .
D’ya know, that Ooooo…spinnnaaa chant is ridiculously hard to forget 🙂
Thank you, TTG. You and a few others may have identified the Alexis problems earlier than the rest of us. All the waving of his arms at refs and teammates did seem to increase with the number of his stray passes last season as I recall.
After we bought Alexis an Udinese
fan commented that Arsenal fans
will love Sanchez after 1 season,
maybe 2 but by the 3rd season
they won’t mind if he leaves.
I thought it a bit of sour grapes at
the time, maybe it is but I
understand much better now.
thanks for the article bt8,
if only Arsenal were that clever.
Manure just gave us more
than Shitty would – good deal
considering.
…or there’s an awful lot of people being wise after the event.
But whether by luck or judgement we appear to have come up trumps reconnecting Mkhitaryan with Aubameyang, so let’s be thankful for that.
A long wait for the next game
and then it’s Stoke. Like getting
a christmas present with no
batteries.
Like getting battered but no Christmas present, Matt?
Even if the season is a fail by most people’s calculations, the opportunity to stick it to Stoke and help put them where they truly deserve to be is certainly some compensation. They really are a crude, despicable bunch of oafish alehouse brawlers.
Well at least the odious Neanderthal
Charlie Adam won’t be despoiling the Ems with his presence having been sent of at the weekend for another potential leg breaker.
But it would be so much sweeter if Pulis was in charge
hahaha aptly put Bath. Yes,
like that.
And I wholeheartedly concur
with the next 3 posts too.
Be great to contribute to
their downfall. Hopefully,
a few choruses of relegation
to you will be heard.
Bath @58.
Trust a Scot to want a battered Christmas present.
Over ( a number of ) drinks last week during our visit to Cheltenham a few Gooners took to resdesigning the club for next season. There were four of us, one a chap who has coached at Hale End,one someone who deals with agents and one who schmooozes in Club Level. I was the only peasant.
I was the only one who thought Wenger will be there next season but nobody could agree on who would be in his place .
We had Low, Eddie Howe and Allegri, all confidently put forward. I guessed Jardim but there was no consensus.
We then decided who ought to be on their way next season and we got a bit radical but there was quite a lot of consensus if not unanimity.
Out we saw;
Ospina, Mustafi, Ramsey, Bellerin, Welbeck , Iwobi Bramall, Jenkinson with
Holding and Nelson out on loan
In we saw Nketiah , Mavropanos and Osei Tutu stepping up and us signing …..
Leno, Evans , another CB , Fekir and Forsberg or Malcom
AMN to be first choice RB
Frankly I didn’t know much about many of the signings but one of the guys said that a lot of the deals we do will be with German teams because of Sven’s contacts and that Leno and Evans were likely. Leno has been mentioned in the press quite often I notice. I hadn’t heard of him before last week.
Apparently Fekir is somewhere between Cazorla and Sanchez in terms of role and would be a great signing . Meyer is a DM and a free and Evans has an agreement to leave for £3m if WBA get relegated , which they will.
As we got increasingly wasted we calculated that our outlay might be about £130 m and we could get back £ 150 m.
All drunken speculation and I’m sure I forgot some but it would balance the books , add strength in key places and get rid of deadwood .
Maybe I will send it to Ivan ?
Evening TTG
I will pass on your missive @ 64.
To much speculation not good for the health.
On the subject of the Youth teams.
There was a cracking first leg semi final of the under 18 Youth Cup tonight at Blackpool.
We led twice but Pool pegged us back and the tie ended all suar
at 2 – 2.
2nd leg to be played next month.
Chelsea look like being our opposition in the Final if we get there.
As for the under 23’s,
We have 3 games left and if we win them all we will be Champions,but it won’t be easy.
Of the 3, 2 are away, at Liverpool who are 4th,and Swansea who are 3rd and still in with a shout of the Title themselves.
Our last game is away at the Hammers.
So it will come down to who is available of our better youngsters to play,given our concentration on the Europa league.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>