Sunday, September 18, 2022

BRE 0 - 3 ARS (and bonus coverage!)

 First, I want to acknowledge the assured performance from Marquinhos in our game in Switzerland against FC Zurich.  He scored once, beautifully, and assisted Nketieh on the other goal, returning the favor.  It was a nice start to the Europa League campaign and a promising beginning to Marquinhos's tenure with us.  Matt Turner looked a bit shaky in goal; but he's getting valuable experience with Arsenal.  In his own words:

“My game has come a long way since I began at Arsenal,” Turner told MLS Soccer.

“Just the speed and the intensity of everything, every single day. Mikel [Arteta] doesn’t accept anything except full-gas at training sessions, so you have to bring it every single day, or else you get found out pretty quickly out there on the pitch.

“For me, it’s the consistency that I have to bring every day in training, being ready for moments where I’m going to be able to get to play and overall just the speed, technical execution of things, making saves against world-class players every day in training, sometimes getting found out by world-class players in training. But all the while learning.”

Turner also revealed how much emphasis the boss places on maintaining a positive attitude when things aren’t going to plan.

“We were playing a small possession game and it was really, really tight.  I tried to make a pass and I gave the ball away. I sort of visually got frustrated and upset and he [Arteta] just came up to me and shoved me. He was basically like, ‘I don’t want to see that. I don’t like seeing that reaction. I want to see you pick yourself up and keep going.’

“I think that really set the tone for my mentality within the club and just to keep going no matter what. If you fail, that’s alright. What matters is how you react and not about the failure in itself. That was a really nice moment.”


Three superb finishes were the margin of victory against the top half Bees, who'd beaten Man U 4-0 earlier this season.  It was another dominant performance against a team we should be beating.  Two minutes were given to 15 year old Ethan Nwaneri at the end, making him the youngest player to come into an EPL game--ever.  He got a touch too.

Odegaard was not in the roster, so Fabio Vieira filled in, and was very good.  Partey controlled the middle of the park, and our center backs had Brentford's forwards in their back pockets.  In fact, Saliba scored the winning goal with a fabulous glancing header off a corner.  A great assist from Xhaka gave Jesus the opportunity to bury a well-taken header for 2-0, and early in the second half Vieira fired in off the right upright from about 26 yards.  It was a very comfortable win.  We needed that before the international break, what with all the postponements.


I was pleased to see that Alex Iwobi had another fine game for Everton, getting the assist on the winning goal.  I was sorry we sold him, but it was a good move all around as it turned out.  He's a regular starter for them (he played every minute of their season so far) and at 26, he should have a great career in front of him.

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