By Walter Broeckx
First of all a big sorry for the fact I couldn’t get my article on line. Murphy’s law was at work. As I opened my laptop just when the match started (had to do my theoretical and physical exam as a ref this afternoon and got home just in time – Oh I passed the tests. Both of them. ) I found out that my computer had taken this moment to do a major upgrade on what looked all and everything software wise. So I couldn’t do my usual typing during the match. And then…. I faced some internet problems at my side of the wire(less in fact) I couldn’t get on the site. If you read this… then the problems are solved. But a bit of a different match report as I typed it late.
A match that started at high pace from both teams. Vardy with an early opening but the returning Koscielny was there to put the ball in corner. Wes Morgan just missed a cross and the ball went wide.
Arsenal with most of the ball but not much openings. In fact a few times the chances were there to create a real chance but the final ball went missing. Bellerin with a good attack on the right but his cross was cut out by a defender and cleared for a corner.
For the rest many attempts from distance like a curling shot from The Ox. Right at the end Leicester came close when Vardy broke away but Cech was first on the ball. The Drinkwater went looking for a penalty by going down when Kos slid in. Kos made no contact with Drinkwater so Clattenburg was right to wave the claims away. 0-0 at half time.
The second half was very lively. Chances at both end of the field. Mendy injured himself when he cleared the ball and fell awkwardly on his own foot. Walcott just couldn’t find Bellerin on the overlap. Mahrez with a free kick that just went over the crossbar but Cech had it well covered.
Bellerin who attacked a lot on his flank with a volley shot from outside the penalty area but Smeichel could smother the shot. The Ox with a few runs but his engine was running out of fuel. Vardy on the end of a lost ball in the Arsenal half but Kos quickly enough to him to force his shot wide.
After 73 minutes Xhaka and Cazorla went off and Özil and Wilshere came on. Özil with a magical touch on the touchline but Walcott his shot was saved by Schmeichel. With 12 minutes to go Giroud came on for the exhausted Ox. Walcott escapes but Morgan with a last ditch tackle to divert the shot in to a corner.
Özil with a cross from the left flank but a defender half blocking the cross and Schmeichel can catch the ball. Both teams looking to win the match and both trying to get forward. Musa went down in the penalty area under a challenge from Bellerin. But after reviewing it 4-5 times I still can’t say if it was Musa who planted his foot to force contact of Bellerin making contact. Clattenburg goes for the sensible option in case of doubt and that is to not give it.
In extra time Mahrez suddenly in front of Cech but our keeper with a great block. A final free kick for Leicester leads to a free kick just outside the Arsenal penalty area. But the ball hits a Leicester player in offside and this was the final event in the match.
I think this match didn’t deserve a winner or a loser so the draw was a fair result. For me a great match of football with both teams trying to win it.
And I can live with a draw at the home of lasts years champions. With our key players slowly returning I am having a good feeling for the rest of the season.
Were there 2 Arsenal-Foxes matches tonight ?
Metro stating :
Wenger’s side were lucky to leave the King Power stadium with a share of the spoils and the Frenchman was questioned on the side’s lack of transfer business after the match.
Lucky ? Guess they were at the second match which I was not aware of
And guess if we had bought Holding for 20 million, everybody would congratulate AW….
Notice that the subject making all the headlines is our fans chanting that they want Wenger out.
Can someone say if this is true, as I believed the majority of our away fans backed Arsene to the hilt.
On the two penaltiies Walter, I agree with the referee, but I would be mightily aggrieved if I were a Leicester player/supporter as the decisions could have gone the other way.
I thought we played some excellent football and the difference that Kos and Xaqi gave was immense. Only four points off being in first spot (glass half full etc).
I was beginning to think Walter was still out at his anniversary dinner. How did that go by the way?
Thanks for the writeup Walter.
From my reading of Guardian, they were more or less decided that no matter what Arsenal did, it was wrong, not good enough or something negative.
Overall a fair result from an excellent game of football. For the most part we were far more solid defensively and Bellerin/Monreal seemed more disciplined in that only one seemed to be bombing forward at the same time for the most part. Kos looked knackered at the end so well done to him.
Alexis still off the pace which is worrying but we looked a lot more threatening when Özil came on
Much better overall performance
COYG
Watched the whole game liked the way we played although I agree some what with Walter I still think we were lucky to get away with there two pen appeals , sure other refs would have given one .
But signs are good great to see Kos back we definitely looked stronger at the back and credit to Holding well done
Chris,
I think the law of “last match impression” must be reduced to ” last 10 minutes impression”. Leicester’s only 2 clear-cut chances, the shot from Mahrez straight at Cech and that free kick, came after minute 80, when we were also pushing for the win (and maybe got a bit tired too).
The Kosc and Holding were brilliant at the back.
But … Once again we lacked the cutting edge upfront.
For 75 odd minutes we laboured with Sanchez as our central striker. Sanchez is a brilliant player but he simply isn’t cutting it as a central striker.
Our team performed much better when Ozil, Wilshere and Giroud came on as substitutes.
Maybe, just maybe, many more true Gunners will see that we need another striker to assist Giroud during the course of the season.
Good point gained. A defeat would have been very bad. We cannot afford to be too far behind Man disUnited and Man City.
How I wish we had managed to salvage at least a draw against Liverpoo last week.
Good point. Let’s hope this is the first of many points on the road this year.
The impact of commentators, pundits & other battery operated voices make the viewer feel like Arsenal were lucky & the PGMO were excellent. My totally Arsenal biased view is that the PGMO operative was evasive & didn’t card the diving. Japan might have won another gold if Okazaki was in Rio. Vardy & Musa are also missing the gold in Rio. Watch how these so called Champions always get physical & if unsuccessful, dive. Or sometimes if in the box just dive. Watch the game again & count the number of 8,9 & 9.5 dives that were not carded.
When they hold on to our forwards in their box, nothings said by the c, p & battery operated voices.
off topic Gnabry plays full 120minutes for Germany and scores his penalty in the penalty shoot out. Bit lucky though….
But in the end the Germans lost 4-5
So sad for our boy Gnabry. He played fabulous football. He should be proud of his efforts.
I agree, with a bit more punch up front the season could turn out pretty good…
I thought it was a lively game and how important to get Kos back. Vardy’s first trip into the area – nothing doing. And that’s the way it stayed. Going into the the match I was concerned with Clattenberg but he acquitted himself well I thought. Especially since he was not moved by the Diving Foxes! A point on the road is always welcome.
What an interesting performance from Clattenburg! At least one of the two penalty appeals against Arsenal should have been given but other than that, he did an excellent job.
Koscielny is our true captain by performances like that and by his ¨they shall not pass¨attitude. A precious point to come away with and it will signal a revived AFC over the next few weeks.
Well played by the Boys. If we’ve played that way against Loserpool, we would’ve surely won the game last week. Kos made the difference, but Holding was amazing,and he’s still very young. The Boss has done it again, buying a very good player for almost nothing. And Xhaka played well too. The only thing not to my liking is seeing Sanchez playing as a striker. He’s so much much better as a winger.
COYG
The by now usual look at the stats shows that both sides lacked penetration, and that was the main reason for the goalless draw. For all the (c) “last 10 minutes impression”, they only had 1 shot on goal, we had 4.
Interestingly enough, Rob Holding had a better success rate winning duels than Kos (66.7% vs 40%). You can see that Kos is not 100% back at his best, but even so he withstood the full length of the match. Where Kos excelled was pass accuracy = 93.3%.
Their tactics of blocking Alexis and Theo’s runs in the box were quite effective, restricting Alexis to 2 shots (none on target), and Theo to 3 (2 on target), yet none of them giving Schmeichel any real trouble.
It was thus another quite evenly matched encounter, save for the possession of course, so we can take the positive that it was an away draw on the champions’ turf – so yes they still didn’t beat us since they last promoted. The next two matches should be winnable: Watford away, Southampton at home – I know, we developed a bit of unflattering history with them recently, but based on the latest events I can’t believe the PGMO-whatever will let Lee Mason make another mess of the match, like he did last season.
Was impressed with the returning players contributions , but we are still missing the cutting edge in attack . Hope Giroud will start firing in the next game ,
Still a good but hard earned point off the champions .
Up the Gunners !
And congrats , Walter, for passing your tests .
Great write-up Walter and congratulations on passing the test.
I think if a striker is going to be signed it could be Islam Salami from Sporting Lisbon, could be the reason why the rumour that Campbell is heading to Sporting Lisbon on loan, maybe a swap with cash. Campbell could be a fill in until the club find an alternative. He’s not ridiculously expensive either.
I was very happy with the way Kos talked all through the match. I don’t normally see him do that. The draw was good,although I was surprised by Sky showing one man displaying Wenger out banners and making it look like it was many people.Now we need to win the next game, to push the opening day loss out of the system. Next week we will get another striker, me thinks.
Funny to see some talking about penalties that Leicester could have got but don’t mention the same fouls on Arsenal players
Maybe because the media didn’t highlight them…. 🙂
I think we were lucky to get a draw.
Clattenburg was generous to us for not giving a penalty in the last minute for Bellerin challenge. Tough Musa tried to manufacture the foul but players these days are like this not act fairly.
Leicester parked the bus and it was difficult to penetrate.Hopefully everyone is fit next week and we are sharp upfront too.
I only managed to listen to the TalkSport radio commentary, but I was impressed by the repeated reference to the excellent decisions by referee Clattenberg. Both penalties denied were regarded as correct after the commentators had viewed replays of the action.
I hope this means we are in line for equality of treatment from match officials although I’m not holding my breath. 😉
Thanks Polo for this bit of information. We really need a striker to help Giroud. I hope this fellow Islam Salami that you suspect may be an Arsenal target is an improvement on Giroud.
Giroud is good but we could do with an even better striker.
Strange game, like treacle but we struggled through and should have put in more effort to win it though.
I miss the effort from the team sometimes, and wish that they would sometimes just keep the attack going and not go sideways.
Did not enjoy the game, it was like watching another team than Arsenal. Bit boring.
Ken I’ll write it up in a moment as I was there in the away end.
After the endless surfeit of unnecessary games in the Euros, with the sound off from the outset, this game could enthrall, and did enthrall. The season has started.
Granit looked the business. Holding looked exactly as Mr Wenger described it after the game. Bellerin showed how much he has improved on the opening game of last season. Monreal and Le Coq played for the team. Kos – remember how people knocked him game after game? – was towering. Leicester fouled for fun. The pitch could have led to a broken leg. The title holders didn’t score.
Ozil came on and everything changed. Pogba cost more than Ozil and Alexis combined. Is Pogba worth Ozil & Alexis combined?
As for the penalty claims that interesting stat from last season – Leicester City 13 penalties, Arsenal 1 – will have been discussed. Has there ever been a greater difference in penalty totals awarded between the first and second teams in a league?
Sam Allardyce as the new English manager makes the stat look like a perfect poem.
Next Saturday here we come.
congratulation Walter on passing both your exam
Watching the 2 penalty incidents, the first one, from one of the camera angles I could see there was no contact
The second one, I saw the attacking players leg hit the defending players leg from behind.
Sure there were arms around.
So that would mean the ref just did his job by not awarding the penalties.
Looking forward to the ref review. Too bad it does not have replay mode !
‘I saw the attacking players leg hit the defending players leg from behind’
We support Arsenal Buh we should please say the truth. That was a foul and we were lucky. We should be grateful that Clatt let that go. If that had happened to Walcott in the opposition area would you have made that statement?
Let’s be real and say things as they are. Hope we finally get 3 points in our next outing,they were positive signs to suggest that.
‘I saw the attacking players leg hit the defending players leg from behind’ Does that even make sense to you?
That was a clumsy challenge by Bellerin and a penalty. We should be grateful that Clatt let it go and not say it was a good call. Cuz if that had happened to Walcott in their area we all here will be screaming conspiracy. We should please be honest in our comments. We had the rub of the green with the ref and we should say it as it is. Coquelin could also have easily been giving a second booking for a clumsy chalenge on Mahrez.
we played well and I’m sure we’ll get 3 points in our next game.
Stephen, we shall of course do a ref review, and hopefully have video evidence to be able to see, and from that our three referee reviewers will tell it as they see it.