By Walter Broeckx
A lot of changes as could be expected for the FA cup match against Sutton.
Ospina kept his place in goal and Gabriel, Holding and Monreal came in next to Mustafi. In midfield we had the pairing of Elneny and Xhaka.
Up front in the attacking positions we had Lucas, Reine-Adelaide and Iwobi with Walcott up front.
On the beach we had Martinez as the goalkeeper and then the expierenced legs and heads of Debuchy and Mertesacker. Also on the beach The Ox and Alexis next to Maitland-Niles and Gibbs.
Starting team: Ospina, Gabriel, Mustafi, Holding, Monreal, Elney, Xhaka, Lucas, Reine-Adelaide, Iwobi, Walcott.
On the beach: Martinez, Debuchy, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Maitland-Niles, Oxlade-Chamberlain, Alexis.
Arsenal monopolising the ball in the opening 5 minutes but apart from Walcott being offside no goal mouth action. The most interesing part in the first 11 minutes is a spectator on the pitch. Reine-Adelaide with a good combination with Iwobi but he couldn’t find a teammate with his cross and Elneny fired the rebound over. 0-0 after 15 minutes.
Sutton throw a few crosses every now and then but nothing dangerous. Xhaka goes in the book for a pull deep in the Sutton half. That is really a soft one. Xhaka launches the ball to Lucas on the right flank he cuts inside he fires a low shot/cross in towards the goal and Walcott makes a dummy that beats the keeper. GOAL!!!! 0-1 to the Arsenal after 27 minutes, goal from Lucas.
Monreal is played in space on the left flank but the keeper with a fine stop and then Reine-Adelaide complete misses the ball when Iwobi won it back. Walcott then with a run and a hard shot but over the goal. Still 0-1 after 30 minutes.
Elneny goes down a minute later with what looks like a calf injury. Collins goes in with a two footed tackle that would see Xhaka being sent off, but no foul called. Iwobi limping as a result. Elneny could carry on. Sutton trying to keep the score down and with all 11 players around their own penalty area most of the time. Adelaide a bit too sloppy on the ball and then losing it and has to pull a Sutton player and is booked. Arsenal counter with Walcott after the free kick is cleared but can’t get past the last man and then Iwobi shoots but the ball is deflected. Ospina has to pick up a long ball before a Sutton player can become dangerous but the keeper always in control. Walcott chopped down from behind. No card…. Ospina then gives the ball away to a Sutton player but lucky they can’t take advantage. Please let us not make silly mistakes at the back. Arsenal go in at half time with a 0-1 lead after 45 minutes.
The Ox started in the second half and Elneny came off probably due to his injury. Sutton trying to play a few long balls over the top forcing Holding to play it high back but Ospina in control of the ball. Arsenal struggling a bit to find the rhythm again in the opening minutes. The Ox with a few attempts to what would have been great passes but just couldn’t find the right length and angle. Gomis winning the ball for Sutton but a good block from The Ox and Holding to prevent a real dangerous situation. Arsenal startto press after some 7-8 minutes and a good attack over lots of stations find Monreal on the left and his low cross finds Walcott who fires it over the line. GOAL!!!! 0-2 to The Arsenal after 56 minutes. Goal number 100 for Theo who is today’s captain. Well done!
Sutton with a shooting chance but the low shot is comfortably saved by Ospina. Lucas almost on the end of a back pass but the keeper is first on the ball. The Ox first brilliantly winning the ball, then losing it and Sutton can counter but Monreal saves with a defending header. Ospina being blocked on the corner and Sutton head the corner over. That was a foul on the keeper ref. Arsenal still 0-2 in front after 60 minutes.
Lucas away but his low cross is cleared in front of Walcott. Lucas seconds later with a shot from distance but wide. Deacon then with a cracking shot that comes off the crossbar. That was unlucky for Sutton. The Ox with a brilliant run from in his own half but his cross just was out of reach for Walcott. A pulling foul on The Ox like Xhaka got booked for…. no card given. After 72 minutes Alexis and Maitland-Niles come on and Reine-Adelaide and Iwobi go off. Sutton with a long throw in but Arsenal can clear. Still 0-2 after 75 minutes.
The Ox losing the ball but Holding comes to his rescue. Alexis and then Walcott wanting to force things on their own a bit too much instead of playing it to a teammate. The Ox with a good low shot but saved by the keeper. Then Alexis tries to lob the keeper but his effort goes just over. Meanwhile the Sutton reserve goalkeeper enjoying a pie. Collins pushing Alexis when the latter tried to take a quick free kick but yellow cards are only for Arsenal players today I think.
Odoi with a shot but Mustafi with the block. The Ox trying to set up Alexis but the ball again slipping away like it happened a few times this evening. Arsenal not really looking to risk anything to score more goals in the last 15 minutes and just being happy to play the game out.
Arsenal win 0-2 and go to the quarter finals where Lincoln will come to the Emirates somewhere halfway March.
That will do.a very ugly win but thats all that mattered. We move on.
A solid professional performance. Well done Arsenal
Was always a no win situation for the team. Obviously the press and TV wanted Sutton so why everyone gets their knickers in a twist about the media ‘bias’ is beyond me. Who apart from Burnley fans didn’t want Lincoln to beat them? Always had a couple of extra gears if needed. Result was never in doubt but Lincoln will be a little more tougher with better players and a full time set up who will come with the same gameplan as Saturday.
The refereeing was totally one-sided in an otherwise unremarkable win.
Iwobi gets hacked, Sutton player feet off the ground – no card.
Xhaka pulls – straight in the book.
It’s tiresome
Amazingly I managed to watch the game in Australia. Found a computer channel and it worked – surprisingly; my laptop is of a very modest variety and just intended to allow me to write, but has served me very well.
Anyway, I leave for the trip back home tomorrow – arriving in time for the next games: a trip involving a walk, a ferry, a train, a plane, another plane, and a car trip. Nothing to it.
I can see why Collins was upset with Sanchez because our little guy took a couple of extra tumbles. But, Collins’ push was crazy obvious. If you let stuff like that go, you never know what will happen later, if the match becomes close. Bad move, ref. Not only do you show bias but you encourage stupidity later on.
What’s this about the bottle throwing incident at Wenger?
Some of these idiots need their heads examined. I want the man out but throwing a bottle at the man?
Watch the media amplify the headline tomorrow Wenger Bottled by hundreds of fans.
What you doing commenting on this blog then?
GGG
I thought the card wasn’t given because Oliver was laughing at Sanchez’ triple roll.
Completely amazed (or perhaps not) how Collins got away with a tackle that “won the ball” but was hugely reckless and dangerous. Not at all amazed that neitherOliver ir the pundits thought anything of it. Would love to see an identical challenge on Rooney for England or ManUre
Wow, so even in a cup match against Sutton there is referee bias against Arsenal. Bloody ridiculous! Have a good journey back, Tony.
It is still a matter of not doing his job. Laughing or not.
Yes, of course.?
A fairly comfortable win against a workmanlike team.
It was disappointing to see the bandit in black strangely deciding to see a funny side to some dangerous tackles from Sutton; while booking Arsenal players, one booking at least being very soft. I suppose the bandit has to at the very least try to conform to instructions.
Nice win & on to the next round.
Watched he game last night .
English football is rugby . The referee standards is atrocious. Can we move the Arsenal franchise elsewhere where football is more civilized?
Menace.
I apologise to you, sincerely.
Fact is, I’ve read and appreciated your comments for a long time.
I’ve also failed to acknowledge them despite you having done so for me in the past.
I often read articles here but don’t always read the comments, what with the numerous multi-troll fake fans posting here. You, along with so many others (tooooo many to name but …no, I wanted to mention one name but then a flood of great contributors came to mind), see what’s going on, whether on or off the field. (And you all actually read the full articles).
Keep up the good work. I appreciate it.
A few articles back Tony wrote about UA’s 9th birthday. Besides enjoying the piece I also enjoyed the positive and appreciative responses, naturally, penned by folk who know what Untold is about.
Remember, only a very small percentage of people who read these articles actually reply, and that silent majority take much that is positive from this site (otherwise they wouldn’t read).
Thanks Walter.
Gunners supporters, keep on supporting.
Rantetta – Thank you. I wear my heart on my sleeve & state it as I see it. I am Arsenal biased without shame. I am also fighting for the game I love. Football is a game played in every poor country by kids with nothing. It is a game that deserves better particularly when broadcast to billions. Officiating that is so blatant outside of Law 5 leaves nothing for the game.
WOO HOO , HOO ! Well done guys !
Especially seeing that quite a few were seeing this as a ‘vital turning point’ in AW’s management career . Really ?
From the comments here ,I see that the PIGMOB are still sticking itin with their knives . I just managed to catch the last 15 minutes or so of the game.
Anyway , Congrats to TW14 for netting his 100th goal for the Arsenal .
Up the Gunners !
We win or lose, refereeing performance or lack of it should be highlighted. No point crying foul when we dont win and then shut our eyes when we do.
Two terrible fouls, one which injured Elneny and the other which could’ve been a horror for Iwobi. Minnows or not, that is not acceptable at any level. There were many niggley fouls or ‘making their presence felt’ fouls which were not even looked at. Not acceptable.
Conrats Theo on his 100, 20 more and equals THE LEGEND.
The worst indiscretion that went unpunished for me was having to watch their sub keeper scoff a pie. In his capacity as a role model for English society, some clearly found this very distressing. Right under the nose of the 4th official too, who should have sent him to the changing room to finish his pie off. No wonder England has an obesity epidemic. Pork pies need to be banned from the dugouts immediately!
Tommo
The bookies gave 8-1 against him eating a pie.
Probably set up, so he could face FA charges
The BBC have a lot to answer for this morning. Talk about biased commentary. How many times did we see their manager, when the ball was in play? How many times did we see that fathead being a real role model to kids, how many times did we see Oliver? How many times did we see US fouling them? Disgraceful cover, and this is NOT what the license fee is for when covering sport.
To top it off, they gave MOM to their player just because he hit the bar.
Now Sky keep showing Fatty stuffing his face!
Hard for the BBC to contain its disappointment today. Still, they can now transfer their affections and determined support to Lincoln City.
On a more balanced note, it seemed to me that Arsenal showed class in their whole approach, eg in Holding’s pre-match comment and Arsene’s interview about the dressing room.
The pre match put down (by Sutton’s manager) on BBC of Arsenal’s security arrangements were proved to be a nonsense by the after match melee.
Norman14
You do realise that one of the top 8 richest teams in the world who are on tv every 3 days were playing a team of non- league semi- pros and part- timers, who were in a position that theyre never likely to be in again in their lives. A once-in-a-lifetime thrill for the Sutton players and the 40,000 locals who populate the borough and support their team. Lighten up and congratulate Sutton on a marvellous effort, on and off the pitch.
Equaliser
Congratulate Sutton on this:
https://t.co/KbubVWFHNj
ref:Arseblog
Equaliser/Equalizer
‘scuse my crap spelling
so that tackle was horrific after all….wonder how Iwobi continued.
And people expect us to turn a blind eye towards such tackles cos we won the game…
Tommo, Shoot, Mac – refer to
Leon
21/02/2017 at 9:34 am
‘https://t.co/KbubVWFHNj
ref:Arseblog’
& Tommo now it’s ok for you to have a go at the pie being scoffed?
Tommo
20/02/2017 at 10:02 pm
Yes a bad, potential leg breaker. But apparently not as someone said earlier “feet off the ground” which would have turned it into a certainty.
Equalizer:
What?
Leon – I believe Iwobi has now got damage to the tibia /fibula effectively making it brittle. It will only show up in a bone scan. This damage has weakened the bone & it will break if knocked again. Just my observation watching the game over the years.
Menace
I don’t understand the medical stuff, but if he’s likely to get a break Murphy’s Law says he will.
He needs to beef up those shin pads now then, those silly little schoolboy ones are inadequate.
Menace I must say that I have experienced (and it wasn’t a pretty experience) that myself.
In my playing days (oh long long time ago…) once had a match (my second last one) with a bad ref who allowed all kinds of dangerous tackles.
Twice I has hit with a studs on my shin challenge and not a foul was called. My leg hurted and after the match I got a bump on my shin.
One week later… I played bad. I couldn’t hit the ball like I was used to but as I was rather two footed (not close to Cazorla of course) I used my left foot most of the time. And then….another lunge in the last minute of the match. Studs on my shin and crack. Not the Eduardo but the Ramsey legbreak.
That was the end of my football career at the age of 19.
When I talked with the doctor later on I mentioned the accident the week before and the bump and bruise I got from that match. He said to me that I probably will have suffered from a hairfracture in my bone and that it was only waiting for another hard tackle to completely give way. He said that even if they had taken an X-ray (we are talking of the early 80ies) they might have not been able to see it. But when there is such a minor crack the leg becomes different and so that explained my bad ball treatment in my last match.
If I had taken maybe one or two weeks off, the crack might have healed and the bone would have been strong enough to get kicked. But now it wasn’t. Oh, the last lunge was very similar to the Collins tackle in Iwobi.
And the point that makes my angry is that the ref and the media laughed it away. Just as the ref did in my second last match. I still feel angry about it when I think about it…
A decent performance on an unfamiliar plastic pitch. Not as ‘complete’ as I’d have liked but it was obvious that the pitch played a big part in the game. Every dribble was fine whilst the player was concentrating on the ball but as soon as he looked up for ‘The Pass’ (or to go past a defender) and then looked back at the ball, it was a foot plus ahead of where the player expected it to be, so ‘The Pass’ became much more difficult. Sutton worked very hard in MF and defence but despite hitting the crossbar, they were really ineffective in the last 3rd.
I expect the Lincoln game to be easier purely due to playing on a semi-grass pitch and wouldn’t expect it to be any tougher if we had to play away instead of at home.
Yes they have better players but the plastic pitch caused us some real issues (Although the officials could create some drama in Lincolns favour…).
Sutton Manager said this at the pre-match interview against Arsenal, at least he know what he’s talking about.
‘Wenger is getting criticised wrongly. They say he doesn’t have enough leaders but he’s still managed to qualify for the Champions League for the last 15 years. I’d rather be in Arsenal’s position than Manchester United’s in the Europa League.’
@ Meusenge – It’s good to see that when your comments consist of only 3 short sentences, you actually manage to type them yourself, instead of copy and pasting them from websites that you let do your thinking for you.
Even though I disagree with his actions, it appears that the Sutton reserve goalie is being investigated by the Betting Commission for eating that pie.
Pity the powers that be can’t find such enthusiasm to investigate PGMOL.
Walter
Thanks for your reply to Menace. I’ve seen the account of the assaults on you, (years ago), and it’s entirely appropriate to post it again.
May I copy this? Please.
Would someone post a .gif of that tackle on Iwobi, perhaps with the commentary too?
How about the Sutton player who shoved Ospina as he went for the ball, allowing another to head on goal, followed by commentators dismissing any foul and expressing desperate wishes that the Sutton player scored?
My theory is that the bone although appearing to be solid is in fact a structure that flexes. This flexing causes the structure to weaken. Modern day MRI scans will pick the stretching/compression of the bone. I would assume rest would allow the bone to regain its structure in a more solid state & effectively make it less flexible but stronger. Rest alone is not sufficient. A diet to include cartilage & geletin (& associated catalysts) would also be necessary.
Rantetta – the fouling of Arsenal goalkeepers is legendary. It started with Lehmann being fouled regularly to every one since.
If a bone is cracked, one of the things a person can do is to listen to it. Have a tuning fork vibrating on one side, and listen with a microphone on the other side. If the bone is sound, it should be a pure tone. If the bone is cracked, it should sound fuzzy, from the two sides of the crack rubbing and bumping each other.
Iwobi apparently has posted a picture of his foot in bandages.
Joe.ie has an article up, about the Sutton captain “faking” a head butt on the Ox during the game.
The Arsenal website had an article up about a joint program that Arsenal (in the Community) runs with Sutton United. In the news, was mention that Arsenal has donated 50,000 for 2 schoolrooms to Sutton. I would presume it is part of this work between Sutton and Arsenal in the Community.
And that idiot Pears Mrgan apparently has something up about the reserve keeper at Sutton and 6 Cornish pasties. I just skimmed by, but I thought it was that the Sutton reserve keeper had said he would marry Pears Mrgan for 6 Cornish pasties. I hope the two are happy together.
Apparently, Shaw (their goalie) has resigned post “Piegate”
In the medja, is a report that the Sutton reserve keeper has resigned.
Sorry Norman14, I should have hit Reload before I posted.
I cannot understand why people are surprised by the bottle throwing incident at Wenger. For the better parts of the past week, journalists, some fans and pundits have been INCITING Arsenal fans to react against Wenger as that is the only way they can get him out of the club. The consequence is what we saw at the Sutton’s match.
I hope someone will be willing to take responsibility if anything happens to him.
Can’t have been our supporters throwing bottles, as they were at the far end of the stadium. Unless they were dropping them by drone.
All this business about the sub keeper eating a pie and getting investigated is stupid. It seems that every third team in the league is sponsored by betting firms, weird betting patterns emerge in the Far East regularly and they are going after an unpaid employee of a non-professional side?
It’s the same as with the infamous “bruised bone” injury to the F Word, rushing back from that and the subsequent lack of rest over the summer for that successful WC ended his career as a top flight footballer, though like any footballer or athletes he’ll have considered it to be the right call to have played on. However that’s why you have refs, and physios these past one hundred odd years…
The rules on hacking were invented C1850 for a fairly obvious reason. It is quite disturbing to see this rule or law that is over a hundred years old and fairly easily understood except by idiotic trolls continuously and consistently ignored by officials in football matches involving the arsenal. Doesn’t matter if it’s Hull or Sutton, once you’ve got such transparent and obvious tilting you are no longer watching a football match!
Iwobi is lucky there’s a long break but I’d like to see him rested till he’s fully recovered from that clump.
Interesting to note for the record that even Freddie L suffered a hairline fracture at the beginning of the Riley era which also ended his career at AFC. Such a fine fracture that the technology to scan it didn’t exist in Europe at the time.
Probably like Cesc, like so many others Debuchy Sagna etc, this would’ve been by an uncalled yet obvious foul. Not an opinion. Just a simple observation of the record. It is, what it is!
pgMOB Rules Football (ok?)
It’s a flexible variable football code,
but it’s not association football as you know it. (You’re not allowed to elbow someone in the head following a run up & sprint across the length of say, a penalty box…)
Very sorry to hear about young Iwobi! I’m glad you put up that detailed account of what happened to you, Walter, just to remind everybody where the indulgence of the kick em brigade can lead. And you still hear all that rubbish day in and day out from the pundits. Tackling is one thing, assault is another.
Ranteta, yes you can
Thankyou Walter.
I honk you know where I’ll paste it.
honk = thought
Well said Finsbury.
Finsbury – you sum it up well. Yet we have brilliant ‘supporters’ that enjoy the game when boots are flying in.
Jeff Astle had brain injuries from heading the old leather balls that started life as 16oz & lived through at 28oz in the rain & damp sodden football fields. A 16oz ball is sufficient to cause mild trauma initially but as the neck muscles & head begin to physically adjust, causes carelessness to creep in & powerful headers of a 16oz ball must rattle something (that is if there is anything there in the first place). Then the BBC MOTD employ them to take the piss out of Wenger, for us losing 5 -1 to Bayern.
The modern day ball does not absorb water, but many kids play with cheap leather imports that do. There is no control on what can be sold because there is a huge variety & little or no research.