By Walter Broeckx
As we knew no Sokratis of course because of his double yellow card last week. Arsenal playing with 3 at the back. And with Lacazette in the team after we won our appeal against the high punishment of 3 matches. Xhaka is the only player that has to be carefull if we make it to the next round ans he is on a yellow card. Arsenal need to win with at least 2-0 if we can avoid Rennes scoring. When they score we must make a goal difference of 3 goals for example a 4-1 win.
Arsenal team : Cech, Maitland-Niles, Mustafi, Koscielny, Monreal, Kolasinac, Xhaka, Ramsey, Özil, Lacazette, Aubameyang
On the beach: Leno, Mkhitaryan, Torreira, Iwobi, Suarez, Guendouzi, Nketiah
A long ball finds almost Lacazette but the keeper first on the ball. Arsenal continue to attack and Maitland-Niles with a ball to Ramsey who gave it to Aubameyang who simply tapped the ball over the line. GOAL! 1-0 to The Arsenal after 5 minutes.
Kolasinac with a good run and a low cross but Rennes can clear. Arsenal dominating the match so far. Arsenal attack on the left flank. Aubameyang on the sideline and he gives it to Ramsey who gives it back. Kolasinac who was offside didn’t go to the ball and Aubameyang with the cross and Maitland-Niles at the far post with the header over the line. GOAL!! 2-0 to The Arsenal after 15 minutes. Arsenal have made up the score of the first leg.
Mexer plants his elbow against the back of the head of Lacazette and he can be glad he is only given a yellow card. Rennes getting a bit in the match now around the 20 minutes mark but so far without creating much danger. Probably because Arsenal dropped the high tempo from the opening quarter a bit. Aubameyang also escapes a card when his studs land in the side of a Rennes defender but the defender was not in front of him when he touched him like wit Mexer. Kolasinac has to clear a dangerous looking cross. Arsenal still 2-0 in front after 30 minutes.
Lacazette with a strong challenge that earns him a yellow card. A stupid tackle in the Rennes half. Let us play some football please. Özil with the cross to Aubameyang but he misses his attempted volley and the ball goes wide. Özil with a cross to Lacazette who lays it off for Ramsey but his shot was too central and the keeper can stop it. Ramsey then goes down twice and needs attention and he doesn’t look to comfortable. Something at the back of his knee it seems. Ramsey back on after treatment. The ref who seems rather out of his debt so far with some strange decisions every now and then. 4 minutes of extra time in the first half. Arsenal dominated the first 25 minutes but then Rennes came a bit better in the match without really creating much danger. Arsenal go in at half time with a 2-0 advantage that could be enough to get us to the next round. But better to score at least one and even better 2 more goals in the second half.
Mustafi loses the ball around our own penalty area and the shot crashes against the post. Please let us not do stupid things around our own penalty area please. Lacazette heads over after a free kick from Özil hits hime more than he could direct it. Ramsey sends Aubameyang away but he was almost ont the corner flag and the keeper could catch his attempted cross to Lacazette. Lots of fouls from both teams with the ref holding his cards in his pocket. Rennes trying to get Lacazette send off when he makes a foul and the player pretends to be shot. As the Rennes players are asking for a card it is one of them who gets the card. Not much football to be seen for the moment. Arsenal still 2-0 in front after 60 minutes.
Sarr almost with a shooting chance but Kolasinac with a great blocking tackle. Rennes looking more dangerously in the second half so far. A shot crashes against the outside of the post but the player was clearly offside and given by the referee. We could do with a 3rd goal if you ask me. Arsenal seemingly not being able to set up a good attack so far in the second half. Mkhitaryan and Iwobi come on after 69 minutes and Özil and Lacazette go off. Lacazette with a yellow card and with some stupid fouls that could have earned him another yellow card so maybe understandable. Xhaka with a good pass to Iwobi but his shot goes one meter off the target. Mkhitaryan with a good ball to Kolasinac and his cross is simply tapped in by Aubameyang. GOAL!!! 3-0 to The Arsenal after 71 minutes.
Aubameyang doing the mask celebration. I hope he didn’t get a yellow card for it. He did. Let us hope this doens’t come back to haunt us later. Stupid yellow card to take. Mkhitaryan gets a yellow card for a foul in the Rennes half. But remember Rennes only need a goal to go to extra time. The Rennes players also pretend to being shot after each contact. Arsenal still 3-0 in front after 75 minutes.
A Rennes player gets a yellow card for dissent. Iwobi finds Aubameyang but he puts the ball just wide of the post on the wrong side. Then Iwobi plays it to Ramsey who gives it to Aubameyang who misses the open target from 8 meters out. What a miss. After 87 minutes Torreira comes on for Ramsey who had ran his heart out all evening.
Cech with an excellent block when a Rennes player infiltrated in the penalty area but he was correctly given offside. Cech ggot a blow against his head and needed some attention. With all 3 substitutions done lets hope he can continue. He seems okay. 5 minutes of extra time given.
Another chance for Rennes but another offside but the player missed the target so not important apart from the fact that this is bad for our hearts. The ball bounces around in our penalty area and we can somehow clear it but it is all hands on deck now. Kolasinac picking up a yellow for time wasting. Iwobi being wrestled without the ref giving a foul and he then kicks on the turn also without something being given. Traore gets a yellow card for confronting Iwobi. Arsenal trying to get it over the full time whistle and Cech having to stop a shot in the extra extra time. Surely this should be it. And it is.
Arsenal win 3-0 and go further in the Europa League. It was a terrible match with too many bad blood and bad fouls and some stupid yellow cards.
You’re behind 2 goals 🙂
PEA from Aaron, and A-MN from PEA.
COYG!
Despite the 2 goal lead in this match Arsenal have to be very careful as the Referee seems to have selective vision. He has allowed Rennes to foul Ozil & Lacazette several times but was quick to book Laca for a sliding tackle that clearly got the ball.
Once again the away fans have brought a flare or flares into the stadium & the security has not uncovered them. The CCTV should pick the fans up & they should be locked up for a couple of nights.
I managed to find Walter’s commentary again. I wondered what happened?
COYG!
Women win four nil
PEA scores again, from Kolasinac!
COYG!
Thanks Andrew.
Did Carter get a runout?
Thanks Andrew this makes a great Arsenal evening!
Ends 3- 0
Professional performance.
I felt the referee did okay tonight. Let a bit go from each side although one of their guys, I cant remember his name, got away with a lot of fouls and really should of been yellow carded for persistant fouling.
Plus he didn’t really buy their persistant play acting.
But:
Our 2nd goal looked offside, but it didn’t matter in the end anyway.
And a silly kick out by Iwobi could of seen him get a yellow, maybe even a red card, although as he didn’t make contact that would of been harsh, but silly non the less.
All in all though a very satisfactory night.
Well done lads.
COYG
Hurray! Great win for the Arsenal! Two great goals from Auba, and lovely to see Ainsley Maitland-Niles get one as well.
Gord,
Yes about 6 minutes nearly got a goal with a 25 yard thunderbolt that hit the join of upright and crossbar deflecting upwards rather than down into the net. Miedema Hattrick and McCabe with the fourth. Miedema now on 19 for the season in the league and 26 I think in all competitions
By the way, what a game from AMN.
Congratulations on your first European goal.
MOTM in my opinion.
Dont think he put a foot wrong tonight. Great stuff.
I guess every topclub in Europe is scouting AMN out. What a player indeed. Arsenal hold that man. I thought very solid team performance overall. Agreed a bit ugly sometimes but we stood our ground and some nice footballing too COYG
WOO HOO , HOO ! A great win , but it wasn’t all that easy as the score suggest. But we appeared more composed , and the early goals did settle us down somewhat.
PEA should have had his first Arsenal hattrick , but some poor (and surprising) finishing from him prevented it.
No complains really , but their players were too petulant and silly at times.
Now for an easy draw will be most welcome.
Up the Gunners !
I could imagine that Cech would love to have Slavia Prague as our next opponents…. Would be fitting in a way to go to his first foreign team Rennes this time and then to the capital of his country in his final season….And in the final beat Chelsea his former club…. Now theres a thought….
Great game. The boys did what needed to be done.
Any of you know if the laws of the game say putting on a mask is a yellow card offence?
It is seen as over celebration like going in to the crowd
@Sammy
Yes. Keith Hackett actually wrote to Aubameyang on Twitter – after he had announced he would make a celebration like the one he did last night – that he would get booked for it. It was a warning that Auba didn’t take seriously.
Anyway, it wasn’t a stress-free game to watch, especially because of the dark arts our visitors were trying to use on us but we responded to the challenge. Auba MoTM despite his regular misses (reminds me a bit of Adebayor’s best season when he could have had 50 goals if he had been more prolific) and Ainsley did a great job and I’m glad for the kid that he capped his performance with a goal. I thought Mkhitaryan was great during his cameo and Rambo (oh, Rambo, how I’m going to miss you! 🙁 ) had another strong performance. Seo, for a change, made positive impacts on both sides of the pitch.
I am amazed at the laws that are introduced in football.
Scythe somebody down with a cynical kick – no booking – over celebrate and get a yellow card. Maybe I have missed something but I find the rules archaic to say the least.
Kick a ball away – yellow card, time waste all game – no yellow card – What is the difference?
On another note just watched the end of a hockey match and saw video being used to decide a couple of incidents. Funny how other sports can use video correctly without there being a big secret.
So we have Napoli in the quarter-final, after Chelsea the next toughest opponent. Then the winner of Vilareal or Valencia in the semi-final. Chelsea have Slavia Prague and then the winner between Benfica and Frankfurt in the semi. Could well be a London Derby 4,950 miles away in Baku, Azerbaijan.
We play at home first on April 11, despite being drawn out first as, yet again we have to change to accommodate Chelsea having preference due to them having won the FA Cup last year.
COYG
Let do Napoli like we did AC Milan.
Can’t for the life of me understand why a player would deliberately get himself booked just to get attention for a goal celebration. One mistimed challenge later in the game and we’re down to ten.
Players taking their shirts off, jumping into the crowd etc should be fined a weeks wages flor being so selfish and stupid.
Silly rule though it is, no player should decide to weaken his team by breaking it.
Talking about Auba’ missing a hattrick for Arsenal and himself, he should have scored his 3rd goal in the match, but for his missing a sitter he didn’t. Auba’ should eschew being lakadiasikal in front of goal for Arsenal that bothers on in discipline in an match that he plays in for for the club. But be disciplined in front of goal to steer in any scorable goal pass that is passed to him. He should stop being carried away in celebration mood because he has already scored a brace and assisted another goal that was scored but only for him to miss the next goal for Arsenal. He should concentrate 100% on the match for 90 minutes plus in any Arsenal match focusing on goals scoring business for Arsenal which is his main job. And therefore be businesslike absolutely always in front of goal to bury any chance that he has for Arsenal. It doesn’t matter if he has already scored 10 goals in an ongoing Arsenal match, he should take the next chance that falls to him and bury it to make it the 11th goal he has scored. The same thing applies to Lacazette and other Gunners in an Arsenal match.
Immediately the Europa League Cup quarterfinal matches draws were made and Arsenal was drawn at home against Napoli in the 1st leg match. But no sooner than the draws were made, my instincts started to tell me that Arsenal who will be playing at the Emirates Stadium against Carlos Ancelotti’s Napoli team will beat them 4-0 in the 1st leg match of the two legged match to be in unassailable position in terms of total number of goals scored in the 2 legged match during the 2nd leg match at Napoli. And therefore will knock out the Napoleon Napoli FC in the quarterfinal match of the competition this season after the international break when the Gunners would have beaten the Maggipies 3-0 despite them having Almiron in their rank before take on Napoli to beat them. This is what my instincts have been instinctively telling me and I have accepted it wholeheartedly.
In the “news”, a former liverpudlian has said Arsenal and Chel$ea are fragile. And then he fell over while stepping away from the table and broke his hip.
Dec
15/03/2019 at 3:44 pm
Totally agree. It is truly selfish & silly to weaken ones position just for self gratification.
A healthy fine would soon put a stop to it.
Auba did a great job of taking the pen & scoring. It was however, in my opinion, not a professional certainty to take a penalty that way. A penalty needs to be despatched with power to a position where the goalkeeper just cannot reach. There are two 4 foot square areas to the top corners of the goal that goalkeepers just cannot get to if they are starting from the center of the goal.
Why professional players cannot practice shooting on target beggars belief. Financial penalties will soon get them perfect.
He doesn’t look at the ball once , he waits to see which way the keeper moves and then alters his aim to accomodate. If the keeper stays still or sends him a dummy he’s up the proverbial.
Just want to wish our Theo a happy 30th Birthday.
Absolutely loved the guy. Gutted when he left. Not only was he a great player but a great guy. Loved that moment on the stretcher mocking the spuddies.
Always handled the pathetic media that constantly critisised him, and even had to endure a lot of stick from some of our own fans, but then again what player hasn’t ?
Happy Birthday Theo.