Don't Have a Dow-man
Before I get into things properly, can I just say one of my favourite things to come out of the Everton result is someone naming their new puppy Max. It is extremely cute:
Lots to cover this week, including matches in our top two priority competitions (in my opinion) - the Champions League and the Premier League.
Leverkusen (A)
This was a really interesting game, and by interesting I mean completely boring and soul sucking but the outcome was interesting. It happened in the midst of almost all the other British clubs faltering in Europe (that Kinsky performance will live long in the memory), and I saw many pundits and commenters lumping our result in with some of the others which I don't think our comparable. How can you put a battled 1-1 draw away to a team with one of the best home records in Europe in the same bracket as getting thumped 5-2 or 3-0, with virtually no chance of progression to the quarter finals?
Don't get me wrong, we had virtually no creativity or goal threat and continued our recent shaky performance run, and absolutely got away with it thanks to a soft Madueke penalty. However, we did also manage to get a draw away from home with the prospect of taking them back to the Emirates whilst still very much in the tie. I feel confident we can get the victory at the Emirates in front of a recently buoyed crowd (more on that in a bit). They are a well-organised side despite sitting 6th in the Bundesliga at the time, and they clearly do their homework on their opposition - we got well and truly Arsenal'd for their goal.
Given the result in the other area of our corner of the draw, it looks like a victory tomorrow night will reward us with a trip to the Arctic Circle to take on FK Bodø/Glimt - the greatest team to ever play football ever in the history of kicking round objects at things. I think that will be a really tough game, especially given we will be even deeper into the run-in with the fixture pile up at breaking point. I'd take some scrappy wins in the cup competitions if it means we can rotate and protect players for the final few league games - I want that title more than anything else. Speaking of...
Everton (H)
Well where do I begin? I could sum it all up by singing 'Super Max Dowman' for the 1,836,589,375,472,674,847 time, but my neighbours might decide to finally kill me off if I sing it one more time.
I could start off by discussing our deficiencies in attack for 89 minutes of that game, including more of the same slow slow slowwwwwwwwww build-up that we seem to be addicted to, but that spoils the fun I think. I actually think we were a bit better than our previous recent performances and Everton were very good until the end.
First of all, credit to the manager for making the substitutions and really going for it when the title charge was about to suffer a big blow. This includes making the brave decision of bringing on Dowman instead of seasoned title-winner Gabriel Jesus to spruce up the attack and finally cut open what was a fantastically organised Everton mid-block. Arteta has been criticised for a lot of things this season, many centring around his lack of ambition to try and win a game rather than not lose it. This was an act that spat in the face of that more ruthlessly than Pep any time he's pictured on screen (why does he do that weird spit thing EVERY TIME?!).
Almost all of the substitutes were involved in the goals, notably Viktor Gyökeres who scored the crucial goal to put us 1-0 up. That's what we signed him for, that's what we need from his type of striker - right place, right time and breaking the deadlock in these tight games that we were drawing last season. He's been responsible for getting 6 points out of Everton this season, which is the gap between us and City if they win their game in hand. Yes he's not been spectacular and we expected more goals from him, but he's by no means been awful this season and these goals go a long way to getting us (hopefully) over the line to the promised land.
As for Dowman, all I can say initially is thank you. Thank you for giving me one of the best moments I've experienced at the Emirates in my lifetime. Everyone around me was about ready to sulk off down the stairs to the exit (some already had 😠) until this young not-quite man lit things up. Every time he's played this season he has been one of the best players on the pitch, and on Saturday evening he finally got a reward for his creativity, flair, bravery and attacking intent without fear. His ball into the box for the first goal was everything, after I had complained to the totally smashed guy next to me that our balls into the box were lacklustre all game thus far (to which he replied "eeuurhgh", I think it means "indeed dear fellow, a most insightful observation").
Then for his goal, it was like it all happened in the space of 10 minutes. Firstly, there was the intense anxiety all around me as we conceded a corner in the last minute and we see Pickford striding into our box to provide the extra attacker. We were all watching between our fingers praying for Gabriel to clear the outswinging ball far away into Kinsky's goal down the road. Not only did Gyökeres manage to get a clearance that was just as good, but Martinelli lay down the red carpet on top of the Emirates green carpet for Max to produce one of the finest goals we will see by any player, let alone the youngest to ever score in this league. Make no mistake - he had a lot to do and made some very difficult things look very easy.
The way he glides past defenders is a quality we don't have anywhere else in this team. Whilst I don't want to rely on a 16 year old during a huge title run-in, we may very well need some of the qualities he has during some moments in what remains of this season.
City dropping points at West Ham meant we kept an increased gap of 9 points at the top with an extra game played compared with Man City. It's a healthy lead at this stage of the season and when you look at the remaining fixtures for both teams and consider both their form, it's hard not to start getting excited. I still can't bring myself to confidently say we will do it, I've been hurt too many times before. What I will say is that if I were a neutral and saw this playing out I would probably say Arsenal will win their first Premier League in 22 years - but I'm not so I won't.
Next Week
Next up is the second leg against Leverkusen before a trip to Wembley for the League Cup Final against our Manchester rivals (the new plastic ones, not those other ones), ahead of a two week international break (I hate this one). I'll be very interested to see what teams we put out for those two games, especially given the team news today that Timber and Ødegaard are out for the midweek game, whilst Trossard returned to training and White seems to be fit again.
I'd probably look to start White vs Leverkusen and bring on Mosquera if that's not working. If Timber isn't fit for the cup final I'd start whichever of the two worked better with our setup and looked fitter (in the sporting way, we all know who that is otherwise).
Hopefully in the next blog I get to write about our first trophy of the season, COYG!!!
Comments
Post a Comment