ARS 2 - 0 BAY (2-1 agg), Women's Champions League

 We may be trailing in the league, but Arsenal Women have won the Conti Cup and are in the semis of the Champions' League.  Arsenal lost the first leg 1-0 in Munich, but played well and had confidence they could turn it around at home.  They did exactly that, in style.  Look at this fabulous goal.  Coming in the 19th minute, it set the stage for what was to come.  Just six minutes later, after sustained pressure, this goal put us in the driver's seat.  There could have been more, but we shut up shop in the second half and closed this one out.  Next up is the winner of PSG/Wolfsburg.

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There's some concern about Thomas Partey, who did not play in Angola because of a possible injury.  And Tierney took a knock from Rodri, the same Spain/Man City player who viciously tackled Odegaard in the last game (hmmm).  But everyone else seems to be coming back unscathed.  It won't be an easy run-in.  City's is not as challenging, but they will have to deal with cup competitions too and that's a major distraction for them.  Guardiola has spoken of how he needs to win the ECL for his legacy, so here's hoping he prioritizes that.

Balogun to USMNT? Please, yes!

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2023/03/23/folarin-balogun-usmnt-soccer-arsenal/ 

Balogun needs no introduction here.  He's a very hot academy product who will either play for Arsenal up front in quite a few games in the near and long term future or will be sold for a lot of money, I'd say about $50M, this summer or next.  The USMNT just can't score enough goals, and Balogun can fix that.  If he stays at Arsenal, he will have to compete with Eddie and Jesus as striker and that could be a roadblock for him.  I'd like to try it, but it might be awkward.  Arsenal would sell a lot of Balogun shirts if Flo is as successful with the USMNT as I think he will be.

ARS 4 - 1 CP: A Record Ninth London Derby Win* Keeps Us on Track

 I guess you don't get a new manager bounce with a caretaker.  Palace showed signs of life, but they had little of the ball and could not cope with our offense under sustained pressure.  Ramsdale was clearly enraged that his defenders allowed a corner to drop in front of his goal for Schlupp to poke in.  He'd done some good work to keep a clean sheet up 'til then.  But the outcome was sealed in the first half after two fine team goals from our wingers.  As in the Fulham game, every Arsenal player performed very well.  This is what we will have to do the next ten games.  Zaha might have given Holding a torrid time, but Rob did enough to keep Zaha's opportunities limited.  He still had two great chances and almost cashed in, but luck was on Ramsdale's side.  If Holding can keep playing this well, Saliba's injury won't necessarily be a disaster.

Watch the highlights here.  Arseblog's "By the Numbers" column on this game.

The Gunners now have an eight point lead on City, which has a game in hand and a game to play against us.  Palace is still in 12th but only three points from the drop zone.  Amazing.  They should be fine, but you never know.

The season resumes in two weeks after the international break, which I think comes at a good time for us.  Saliba may be fit to play in three weeks, and Jesus and ESR look at about 80%.  Maybe Eddie can get healed as well.  Tomi looks to be out for the season.

* This is the first time any team has won nine London derbies in one season.  Of course, there are seven London teams this go-round:  Arsenal, Spuds, Chelsea, West Ham, Fulham, Palace, and Brentford.  There usually aren't more than six, often five.  We'll have the opportunity to extend that record against Chelsea and West Ham too.

ARS 1 - 1 SPO* (3-3): Not Good Enough

 Sporting deserved to win this game.  They managed it better, they played aggressively, and they made all their PKs.  The conditions were not good (pouring rain) and neither was our passing.  There were too many cheap giveaways.  The Portuguese side was smart and played longer balls; we'd make fifteen passes and then miscue on one/  They shot when they had a chance: we were too cute and opportunities were wasted.  Their GK made all the plays; ours was caught out on a shot from the center circle.

Some might say that we're better off for concentrating on the league, but I say that losing breeds losing and this was a tie we should have walked away with.  Arteta rotated too much (though I bet Turner would have stopped that 50 yd rocket) and paid the price.  Saliba and Tomiyasu came off early with injuries.  The former would be a huge loss if it's a serious one.  Jesus played one half and looked good.  I thought Vieira for one was wasteful, and Zinchenko was not as sharp as he has been.  Maybe this game would have suited Tierney.

Anyway, a crap day and I'm going to try to forget this as soon as possible.

Fulham 0 - 3 Arsenal: A Dominant Performance

 I thought the Cottagers played pretty well for the most part, but it was nowhere near enough to stay in the game with a rampant Arsenal.  After a period of rough equality, with lots of pressing by both sides, we turned on the jets and blew them away.  Passing was crisp and we played at a fast pace.  Had the finishing been better, we could easily have had six goals.  Trossard had three first half assists, the first time a Premier League player has done that in an away match.  He looked fit.  Jesus even rose from the bench to play fifteen creditable minutes.  When we play like this we will beat anybody.

City won but Man U was held by bottom dwellers Southampton after Casemiro picked up another red card.  I guess they get the bad with the good with that guy.  It looks like a two-horse race for the title now.  City is so stacked that you can't rule out an 11 game win streak, and they have an easier schedule than the Gunners.  So every game is a must win for both teams, especially the game between them at the Etihad.  They beat us twice already, but there is reason to think that we can play with them and win.  It should be a good one.

At the other end of the table, a mere five points separate 12th place Palace (27) from last place Southampton (22).  It's going to be a mad scramble.  None of those teams are safe--two bad games can see any one of them in the relegation slots.  Wins will be precious. Goal difference could be crucial.  Palace ought to be in a good place now with their talent, but whatever Vieira is trying to do is not working.  I'd like to see him succeed, but how long will the owners give him?

Speaking of dominant performances, Arsenal Women crushed Reading 4-0 today.  They probably won't win the league this year, but they are lurking just behind the leaders and have to take care of business and hope for some help.  They also have a Champions' League game against Bayern Munich mid week.

Sporting 2 - 2 Arsenal

 Pregame:

I am not one of those supporters who thinks of cup competitions as a distraction from progress in the league.  The Gunners have underperformed in Europe for a very long time and it would be unseemly to tank in Europa League.  Barring a complete collapse, we'll be in Champions' League next year, so winning EL is its own reward, and I think a worthy goal.  There are challenges with this game.  Several players are sick, including Tierney, who must be desperate to show his worth in a meaningful contest.  He's been a victim of Arteta's system, which relies on our left back to drift into midfield.  That's not Tierney's game.  He's a better defender than Zinchenko and is faster, able to overlap and put in crosses and shots.  But Arteta wants someone who can combine with the other offensive players in sustained assaults on goal.  It's odd that just when we'd found that elusive dependable left back, we changed to a system in which he did not figure.

Eddie, Jesus, Trossard are all unavailable, I think, meaning Smith Rowe and Reiss Nelson should start.  Saka needs a rest; he can sub in if we fall behind.  It's going to be a tough game.  It may be all we can do to keep it close so that we can win by enough at the Emirates to progress.

Postgame:

It was a wild one.  I could only listen to a play-by-play, but the participants were satisfied that the result was a fair reflection of the play.  Turner was iffy on Sporting's first goal and play was disjointed.  Surely our first eleven, or nearly all, will be playing the return match at the Emirates.  I think we ought to be able to get the job done at home.

ARS 3 - 1 CHE (Women, Conti Cup Final)

 Arsenal Women's first trophy in four years was won today at Selhurst Park.  All the goals were in the first half, and Chelsea's was first.  Congratulations to them.

ARS 3 - 2 BOU (FT): Disaster Averted

 Eddie had an ankle injury, and Trossard had to leave the game with what looked like a serious injury. Oh, yes--and we coughed up a goal after nine seconds.  The Cherries could have had two more on counters, too.  They packed it in and don't look like conceding any easy goals.  The Gunners have 45 minutes to turn this one around, but they look like a pale version of the City squad that brushed Newcastle aside in the early game.  Win or lose, this is a reality check on the league leaders.  Their bench is thin and they are not looking like a team that is going to have an easy time of it against anybody.

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Partey, White, and Nelson were the unlikely goalscorers in a(nother) wildly improbable last-minutes victory for Arteta's men.  The Cherries actually had at least three good chances to score more goals, and defended pretty well, but in the end it proved impossible to keep us out.  There were a half-dozen reasonable penalty shouts for Arsenal too; I've seen the penalty given for less than a couple of the handballs anyway.  (Bournemouth handled four times and committed two borderline fouls in the box.  None were given.)  A cracking game for the neutral, but nerve-wracking for supporters of either team.

It's very good news that Reiss Nelson seems healthy again, but I'm worried about Trossard and ESR's fitness.  Without them or Eddie or Jesus, we are very light up front.  I'm also concerned about how easily we conceded the goals and other chances.  Careless play.  This should have been a comfortable win, not a desperate last-gasp victory.  The Villa game was also way too close for comfort, and it took 40 minutes to break down Everton.

Tottenham lost again, and St. Totteringham's Day is drawing ever nearer.  It's been six or seven years since the last one.

ARS 4 - 0 EVE: Merseyside Burnley No Match for a Real Football Team

 Remember when Sean Dyche had Burnley overperforming so much he was dubbed "the ginger Mourinho"?  He's rehired some of his old players and turned Everton into a more expensive version of Burnley.  He's now 2-0-3 since replacing the clueless Frank Lampard, which may be good enough, if continued, to save the Toffees from relegation.  They beat us in his first game with them.  But they looked woeful yesterday.  The few times they did have scoring opportunities, and they had two or three good ones, they seemed too surprised to make the most of them.  Their focus was on keeping the Gunners from getting good opportunities, time wasting, and making the game disjointed, and it worked for 40 minutes.  With Saka's brilliant goal, that strategy went out the window, and after the error that preceded our second goal in first half injury time, there was no way back for Everton.  The second half was dominated by Arsenal, though Ramsdale was forced into a couple of smart saves.  Arteta had the opportunity to ease ESR into some late game minutes, and let Fabio Vieira show his stuff too.  Eddie reprised his role as substitute for Trossard's false nine and looked good out there, bagging an assist for Martinelli's second goal.  The commentators noted that Arsenal had beaten Everton 100 times with this game, the first time any team had beaten any other team that many times in the history of English football.  

Arteta will not be letting his guys get ahead of themselves.  They're only five points up on Man City and eight on Man U, and another run of poor games like we recently experienced will see those leads evaporate.  We have to play City again, and they've beaten us twice.  In our favor is that United and City have to play each other, and we all have to play difficult-to-score-on Newcastle.  I like our chances, but we're not prohibitive favorites (unless City gets a points deduction for their financial transgressions).  Arteta seems to have come up with new questions to ask of opposition defenses after they'd answered the ones we posed in the stellar first half of the season.

Congratulations to Erik ten Hag and his revitalized Manchester United, winners of the League (Carabao) Cup.  It's been an age since United won silverware in the minds of their supporters, and they'll be hoping this augurs well for their future.  They are still in the hunt for winning the FA Cup, Europa League, and the EPL, so they're entitled to dream big.

Arsenal Women have fallen apart.  They lost their two best players to season-ending knee injuries and their promising season is in ruins.  There's one realistic chance to salvage it, in the Conti Cup final against Chelsea.  I suppose I shouldn't rule out a Champions' League miracle.