World Cup Rambling

 FIFA tries and tries to ruin this tournament, but the football always bails them out.  Ad breaks, expansion to 48 teams (another 40 games in which to sell ads that run in those breaks), ticket pricing nonsense, etc. are annoying and make a mockery of all the records being set.  We've got top teams playing the #83 nation, and an extra game for all the good teams; of course scoring records will fall.  But once past the mostly boring group stage (little was at stake for any of the teams with a shot at winning the cup), the round of 32 has served up some really good games, most of which were real nailbiters.  

The Arsenal players in the tournament have done their part.  I was very impressed with Trossard taking charge for Belgium, and even more impressed with Odegaard's running the show for Norway.  Martinelli got Brazil's winning goal against Japan, and Gabriel Magalhaes assisted the equalizer.  Declan Rice is England's most important player.  Madueke does not look great to me even if he is energetic; Saka is obviously injured.  Eze is a bit player but a useful sub.  Gyok never really hit top gear for Sweden.  Saliba is his usual magnificent self.  Our Spanish players may get a shot later.  Havertz has scored for Germany but he missed a pen that helped Paraguay oust them.  Hincapie covered his mouth instead of uncovering his butt, and the ref gave him a red card out of disappointment.  Former Gunners abound--Kolasinac shared a postgame chat with Flo Balogun after the USA's 2-0 win over Bosnia today.  I love our players and want them to be happy, but I also would like them to get some time off from crunching tackles, so I'm conflicted.

England-Mexico looks like a good game in the next round.  I like the USA's chances against Belgium.  But France will probably win it all.  Argentina is the only squad that might stop them.

Close But No ECL Trophy

 You know what happened.  Neither team created much, and the 1-1 score after extra time was a fair reflection of the game.  Arsenal had very little of the ball, but PSG's 77% possession did not result in an open play goal.  The relentless pressure did give us plenty of chances to concede a penalty, either through a foul or handball, and Mosquera (who had an excellent game) was the victim.  Raya saved a penalty in the shootout, but Safonov was spared having to make any saves due to two awful misses from Eze and Gabriel Magalhaes.

We lost, but I couldn't be prouder of the players.  The fans were magnificent this season.  Arteta has improved each season and has become a better tactician in the process.  He's always been a consummate man manager, and he communicates extremely well to the public.  I don't care that he's excitable on the touchline.  He's no worse than Klopp and is better behaved than Simeone or Mourinho.  What I love about Arteta is that he never criticizes his players, whatever the situation.  He praised them when they were finishing 8th.  If he doesn't think a player is going to help the team, that player will not get on the field.  It hurts, but it seems they all understand and have the proper professional attitude.  Norgaard played about 100 minutes in the league but never complained, for instance.

The stupid World Cup worries me.  The expanded format means more games (i.e. more money for FIFA) and our players who are participating may go deep into this thing.  Rice has played an insane amount of minutes and will surely start every England game.  Saka is just recovering from whatever was keeping him out.  I read that Saliba has a back problem.  I hope Timber can get through without getting hurt again.  At least Calafiori gets the summer off.  Here's an SI article on the Arsenal players in the Cup.

Will Hincapie do this on the world stage?  It went over big a few weeks ago.

Conference Final Tomorrow

 This is interesting.

Mismatch?

Random Comments

 Lewis Ambrose on Arseblog has a good article on how Arsenal won the league.  It's worth a look.

Speaking of winning the league, Celtic has done it again, but in very controversial fashion.  I'm a Celtic fan in the SPL, but calls the Scottish FA agreed were incorrect were pivotal in their doing it.  Hearts had led the league all season, but were beaten to the title on the final day by Celtic, who deserved their 3-1 victory.  However, Hearts lost two points when not awarded a pen against Motherwell, and then Celtic gained two points when they were awarded a penalty against Motherwell that even this Hoops fan thought was wrongly decided after VAR intervention.  Celtic won the Scottish Cup today for the domestic double.

In the aftermath of Arsenal's league championship, it's nearly forgotten that City won a domestic cup double.  For any other club, that would have been a rare, towering achievement.  But such has been their recent history that Pep is disappointed.  Whatever one thinks of their nation-state money and 115 violations of FA rules, they won all that silverware on the pitch, and looked stylish doing it.

Palace and the USMNT suffered a big blow last match day when Chris Richards had a serious knee injury.  Arsenal is the healthiest it's been since January, but Ben White, Jurrien Timber, and Mikel Merino are unavailable.  Both clubs will probably dial back the physicality to prepare for their European final the following week.

Champions!

 

City's draw with an excellent Bournemouth handed Arsenal the title. The scenes in the area around Emirates Stadium reflected the joy of the Arsenal fan base.  It's been twenty two years since the last time we won the top division (the Invincibles) and after three straight second place finishes (we also finished second to Leicester in 2017) it seemed as though this day would never come.  But the owners kept faith with Arteta's project, funded it well, and he delivered.  This is a squad built to withstand injury crises.  There's quality backup for every position.  It's unusual for a team to win the league without a big scorer (or two), but Gyokeres was our top scorer with 14 PL goals (tied for 5th on the list with 14--Haaland had 27) and or second highest were Saka and Eze with seven each, tied for 34th.  Our strength was defense.  Raya was superb all season, winning the gold glove for the third straight year, and he had Saliba, Gabriel, and Rice in front of him.  We allowed 26 goals so far, seven fewer than the next meanest defense (City's).  I think we've had eight 1-0 wins.

On Sunday, we play a meaningless game against Palace, another team with a European final in their immediate future, and it will be interesting to see how the managers deal with it.  The trophy will be hoisted there, and Palace fans will see their former star Eze holding it.  He won the FA Cup for them last season, which earned them a shot at the Conference League, and if they win that final they'll be in Europa League, so they owe him a lot--and they made about 60M pounds by selling him to the Gunners.  I expect they'll show him a lot of love at Selhurst.

The following Saturday is the Champions' League final in Budapest vs PSG.  I really don't know what to expect.  It will be very difficult to shut out the Parisians, but if any team can, it's us.

ARS 1-0 BUR: Just Enough to Win

 Although Burnley did not have a shot on target, it was impossible to remain calm through this game.  The Gunners had a good first half but were flat after the interval, and it would have taken very little--a handball or foul in the area, for instance--to create disaster.  But the job was done thanks to a firm defensive foundation.

WHU 0-1 ARS: Too Much Drama, Not Enough Goals

 This game is a good illustration of why we are not going to get a better goal difference than City (so let's hope it doesn't come to that).  We just find it absurdly difficult to put the ball in the net.  I figured this would be a tough game, at their place and with them desperate to get points to avoid relegation.  I was still confident we'd win, but that confidence ebbed as the clock wound down.  But the breakthrough came, it held up (the Hammers had a stoppage time goal disallowed for mugging Raya), and we're still in control of the race.

The Everton-City game handed us control of our destiny.  We have to beat Burnley at the Emirates and Palace at Selhurst.  If City drops points against Palace, Bournemouth, or Villa, the task becomes easier for us.  City has the FA Cup final vs Chelsea to play next Saturday as well.