ARSENAL FINISH OFF BRUTAL BRENTFORD
That was my favourite victory of the year because it was exactly the sort of game the narrative gods thought they could control.
They couldn’t.
The injury-ravaged bully boys of Brentford came to our house to rough us up and put some perspective on our title run.
They took a wild swing, grazed our cheek, and fell over the pool table.
The footballing gods had the cheek to weigh in and stack the cast against us. They put a referee in charge from Liverpool and they had Paul Tierney in the VAR room after his shocking mistake for Liverpool against Forest. You couldn’t make it up, only divine intervention plays these sorts of games.
Even worse, our superstar signing David Raya was out of contention because he’s on loan from Brentford.
We took a nice early lead from a Declan Rice beauty of a header, served up by Benny Blanco. Everything about the goal was world-class. Who knew Declan had final third attributes as good as that?
The game was rough, but Arsenal were fully in control. Then, just before halftime, disaster struck. Gabriel laid off a standard ball to Aaron Ramsdale in his 6-yard area; he didn’t read the run of Wissa; he took a touch, the Wissa tackle caught the clearance, an equaliser was the result. I felt horrible for Ramsdale, he’s rusty, that’s what happens, a true nightmare must have been unravelling in his head.
The second half was much more beastly. The ref was allowing the game to flow like glass through a straw. Every tackle from Brentford was heavy; every time we touched a Brentford player, a St. John ambulance was called upon, every corner was an argument, handbags were flying all over the place, and there was a clear and obvious pattern of play that the ref was happy to indulge/ignore. The ball was in play for around 49 minutes. That is disgraceful and worthy of an investigation. Will that happen? Of course not. Another ‘nothing to see here’ game form PGMOL.
Brentford were also getting a bit of luck with their hopeful balls into the box. Aaron Ramsdale pulled off an excellent save from a speculative header with a flying hand that tipped the ball over. He also worked miracles when Ivan Toney hit a screamer over his head and he used all 6ft 5 of his reach to tip it wide. World-class is an understatement.
Still, there was to be no forgiveness without a winner.
Kai Havertz stepped forward for the 4th game in a row. Ben White, for the second time in the game, took on the responsibility, picking up a perfectly weight-through ball from Odegaard and offering a chipped cross for Havertz to put into the top corner.
No one deserved that goal more than Kai. Beloved at the club by the staff and players. Now beloved by the fans who have fully shaken off the Chelsea unfavorability tax.
Arsenal saw out the 9 minutes of injury time and moved on. Business as usual. Onto the agenda of a Champions League that will look the same as Brentford (minus physicality), then we head into the most consequential week of the season. City, Luton and Brentford. 30% of our remaining games inside a week.
So, any final thoughts on the game?
Ivan Toney did Ivan Toney things again, but all the leaks post-game seemed to point in the direction of that transfer decision being final. The club doesn’t like him, nor do the players if you’re judging the anger directed before him. It’s looking like Andrew at Arseblog is taking the W on this one. He said we’d be in for a project striker, and that would make the most sense, considering the market for Premier League strikers banging them in is mostly stacked towards older players.
The biggest takeaway from that game was Arsenal don’t have a weakness in 2024. We’re one of the best two teams in the Premier League. We can’t be outplayed, we can’t be bullied, we don’t have weakness in the air, and increasingly… we are adept at dealing with a refereeing union trying to tear us down.
Brentford were brilliant at being Brentford. That has been our kryptonite over the past few years. They couldn’t get away with it yesterday. They only made the game scary because of a horrendous error by our second-choice keeper.
This squad of boys are now men. This group of men are no longer pretenders, they want to be in the conversation for the Premier League because they believe they are at that level. That performance was everything we needed to see to be convinced that we can take this season down to the wire.
8 wins in a row. 10 more games to go. If you want to do City things, you probably have to win 8 of the next 10 games.
Can we do it? Who knows. But this is what the Arteta project was always supposed to be about… asking questions in the biggest league in the world. No one has a right to win it, but it’s fucking incredible to be in the running. Especially on a day where I’m watching Unai Emery tactically botch it against Spurs in a disaster-class afternoon for a team on the cusp of the top 4.
So now I give you permission to sit back, relax, and soak up a City vs Liverpool game that means very little to us. Can Klopp motivate another miracle with a team that looks desperately short? If he can, it’ll be one of the greatest miracles of his extremely impressive career. I fear the worst though, this could be a wallopping.
Ok, that’s me done. If you want the On The Whistle Podcast, sign up for a free 7 day trial and enjoy me and Matt jabbering off about that MASSIVE win.
Big love xxx
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— LE GROVE (@LeGrove) March 9, 2024