Morning all.
I don’t know if the dust has settled, or the dust is still settling, but a few quick Friday thoughts before I try and switch my brain off a bit on the golf course.
Emotion
As I said in yesterday’s post-game blog, I felt sad after Wednesday night. I’m a little less sad now, but I think a big part of why it’s more sadness than anger is that I like this team. I wanted Arsenal to win the Champions League because I’m a fan, that’s obvious, but also for most of these players. They’ve done so much over the last three seasons, come so close, and not had tangible success in the shape of silverware.
To me they have represented the badge with distinction. I’ve seen players who have taken that for granted, I have seen teams made up of a motley collection of individuals who never listened to a Billy Ocean song in their lives. When the going got tough, forget about getting going, they couldn’t be arsed. Guys who played for themselves when they could be bothered, rather than for the team.
We might be nearly men at the moment, but nearly is still better than miles away wondering how on earth you’re ever going to get to the level where winning one of the biggest trophies is achievable. It hurts more, but at least it’s a more honest pain, if that makes sense.
Perhaps the frustration is more acute, and as I’ve said often in recent times, I don’t think the club’s actions/strategy, in the last couple of windows gave these guys the best chance of success. However, when the chips were down this season, we dug in for as long as we could, and took a step forward in Europe. Despite our exit at the semi-final stage, I believe that to be the case and I believe we’ll be back there with greater frequency than once every 16 years.
We go again.
Gabriel
It occurred to me yesterday that not once over the last week have I said anything about Gabriel and his absence from the two PSG games. I think in part it’s because generally Jakub Kiwior has done well in his stead – he certainly allayed a lot of fears people had. There was a perception, probably a bit of an unfair one, that he might be a really weak link or massively error prone.
What we’ve seen is that a player who gets regular game-time benefits from that. When you get the odd appearance here or there, or you’re drafted in as a sub, you don’t have much in the way of rhythm and mistakes are more likely to happen. Kiwior has had his longest run in the side in his favoured position, and shown that he’s a capable deputy for the big Brazilian.
However, when we talk about the players we’ve had missing, the tendency is to look at the top end of the pitch. In a season when we’ve found goals more hard to come by than you would like, that’s obvious. It’s clear Arsenal identified what they thought was a weakness in PSG, slinging the ball into the box via long free kicks and ‘long’ throws (which mostly weren’t that long). We didn’t really expose that perceived weakness though.
How different might it have been over two legs with Gabriel? He is our set-piece king, after all. Nobody scores more often from them than him. Look at the goals he scored this season too: a winner away at Sp*rs; the equaliser against Man City away in a game I’m convinced we’d have won bar that ludicrous red card from Leandro Trossard; the opening goal away at West Ham; the equaliser against Man Utd in the FA Cup. Let’s not forget, it was his header in North London derby at home that went in off Dominic Solanke to equalise after they’d gone ahead. It was officially given as an own goal, harshly too I think, so morally it’s his goal.
When we think about difference makers in big games, he’s absolutely one of those, and again – without taking anything away from anyone else – I do wonder if we concede two goals because of our own errors if he’s on the pitch. I know they were distinct individual mistakes, but maybe he just transmits a bit more calm on a night when that absolutely needed to be at the right level. Just a thought, obviously, but perhaps another small tinge of regret when it comes to how injuries have impacted our season.
Android App
For those of you on Android, waiting ages for a new app, we have good news this morning. A brand new version is now available on the Google Play store, and you can install it here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.milkbarstudios.arseblog
Some small notes: right now, push notifications don’t work, but we’ll have an update coming shortly which will fix that. There’s now a dark mode, improved reading experience, player ratings work properly, and the apps are now completely ad-free, making Arseblog and Arseblog News 100% ad-free across our sites and apps.
If you have any feedback, you can hit up Milk Bar Studios on BlueSky – https://bsky.app/profile/milkbarstudios.com – or email apps @ arseblog dot com.
Sorry it’s taken so long, but it’s there now. And there’ll be an update coming for iOS in the coming days too.
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Right, I’ll leave it there for now. There’s a Mikel Arteta press conference later on ahead of Liverpool on Sunday, and we’ll have a preview podcast on Patreon at some point – but not sure yet if that’s later today or tomorrow.
Now, time to ease my frustration with football by playing the most frustrating game on earth.
FOOOOOOOORE!
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