All’s Well That Ends Well In Dubai
Mar 26th, 2019 by 'holic
The Arsenal, or at least those who aren’t on international duty, finally got some competitive action under their belt in Dubai this afternoon. In fact to begin with it was rather more competitive than imagined even for a blend of youth and experience in the Gunners starting line-up.
Bernd Leno, Shkodran Mustafi, Mesut Ozil, and Alexandre Lacazette provided the spine and provided the experience as well as Carl Jenkinson and Denis Suarez. The youth was in the shape of Konstantinos Mavropanos, Zech Medley, Charlie Gilmour, Ben Sheaf, and Xavier Amaechi.
What looked a well-balanced team started slowly, however. It is possible to make more of that than is warranted by a relatively low key friendly, but was a hark back to how we were starting some matches in the first half of the season.
Bernd Leno was the busier goalkeeper in the opening exchanges and was soon beaten by an excellent Fernandez strike as Mustafi floundered in front of him. It was a shock to the system that the tourists perhaps needed. A necessary drinks break after half an hour gave Unai Emery the chance to make his feelings known to his side.
We started to make inroads of our own with Denis Suarez and Mesut Ozil catching the eye. Just before half-time it was the former who teed up an unlikely scorer, the corporal. With a real strikers instinct Jenkinson smashed a right foot effort against the bar and reacted quickest to put the rebound in with his left foot. Impressive stuff.
Not surprisingly in the heat Unai Emery opted for five changes at the break. Petr Cech, Julio Pleguezuelo, Laurent Koscielny, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, and Dominic Thompson were all introduced. Our tempo from the whistle was markedly increased.
Just six minutes in a wonderful flowing phase of play ended with Maitland-Niles excellent ball to Ozil being transferred to Lacazette via a sublime flick. Lacazette applied the finish the move deserved.
James Olayinka, Jordi Osei-Tutu, and Tyreece John-Jules were sent on as a second raft of substitutions. It gave us more fresh legs and the lads some valuable experience in a first team environment. In fact John-Jules did his prospects no harm when extending our lead and it was all his own work. He won the ball on the edge of the box, rounded the goalkeeper, and calmly slotted the ball past two defenders on the goal-line. It was a fine way to open his senior account.
There remained enough time to present our hosts with a leaving gift. Pleguezuelo tripped Jashak in the box and Jalal sent Cech the wrong way from the spot. That will at least be something he can tell his grandchildren in years to come.
The head coach gave a now familiar sounding message, but not an unwelcome one, after the match. He made reference to the huge coming weeks.
“The adaptation for us first and for all the players in their work is getting better and we are keeping confidence. The players are also showing they wish to do something important this year. The key is now, this break is key for the next month and we are focused for this last month.”
Back to proper football on Monday, at last.
19 Responses to “All’s Well That Ends Well In Dubai”
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Resumption of drinks break.
Jashak and Jalal?
no Jah?
silly me
Odds on the colonel to score in Dubai would have been attractive, even in a friendly I would think.
Cheers H!
Whats the chances of making Palace game – Easter Sunday 21st?
Evening all.
Esso, that’s the plan for my return. I can’t walk that far at the moment but in another four weeks I’m hoping it’ll be all clear. Then a farewell to my seat day v Brighton.
It would be great to see you.
OK mate, I’m working on Palace, possibly with Silva in tow. Only 1 I can make, as Brighton game, I’m away that weekend – Sleaford Mods in Southampton!
I think you’ll like them. I hear they are quite good. ?
Silva? Excellent. Big ‘yin?
Doubt Ian will be down this season, definitely working on next, as will be 2 years in December he was last about.
Great read Dave, thanks a million.
Thank you Mark. I owe it all to my employer’s wifi! ?
thunder T
?
no disagreement here
jessie i am
and
weather permitting
jessie i’ll remain
.
.
.
UP THE ARSENAL
It seems somewhat unorthodox to hold a meaningless midseason friendly during an international break, wouldn’t you say? If This had been done during AW’s time he would have been crucified and probably with good reason. As it is, nobody is complaining, we had no injuries that we know of yet, the participating players got a few competitive minutes under their belts, and hopefully we raked in massive amounts of cash to justify it all. Nothing to criticize here then.
Well, not entirely worthless.
We’ve found our away form level.
Beaten in Bate, Ransacked in
Rennes but Dauntless in Dubai.
As long as we are not eviscerated at Everton, walloped at Watford, nobbled in Napoli, whipped at Wolves or licked at Leicester, OM.
?
though some folk do like a
good licking, even a walloping
or a whipping so I’ve heard….
Monumentally ridiculous floundering by Mustafi allowing the shot to be taken for their first goal:
http://www.soccer-blogger.com/2019/03/26/arsenal-vs-al-nasr-3-2-highlights-2019-friendly-dubai-jenkinson-lacazette-goals-mustafi-error-video/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YilYJsjvgxY
FouL pLaY!!!!!!!!!!!
Akahx Tinarg
I’ll have to take your word for that, OM.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>