I’m lucky because not only do I have a brilliant seat in the Arsenal stadium (a name I prefer since it doesn’t suggest that the place I watch football is either a country or an airline), but I don’t get moved for Champions League games as some of my pals do, making way for the oh so important Uefa officials who need to come and watch because… well, freebies are are an important and vital part of life when you work for Uefa.
Of course this season I am going to have to pay extra to watch Arsenal beyond the group stages (in the past it has always been part of my season ticket) but as ever, in terms of its relationship with its fans, Arsenal is a monopoly supplier. I pay, because, there is only one.
But even so, actually watching Arsenal in the flesh is (as it were) just part of the fun. Living outside London as I do, I also make the afternoon (or evening) out, an enjoyable experience in itself. OK not in terms of the M1, but certainly in terms of meeting friends, a bite to eat at our public house of choice, and even the stroll through the local streets to the ground. It has become over the years, part of life, taking me back to the roots etc. etc.
Then there’s the game – well you know what that is about, and by now you’ve seen the result even if you weren’t there, and quite possibly watched all or some of it on TV. But there are other statistics beyond the result….
Such as the fact that in the Champions League this season Arsenal have, out of all the teams competing in the group stages, the third highest number of goals, the fourth highest possession rate, and the fifth highest passing accuracy. And the player with the highest number of assists (Saka). (Which is strange, since most of the media don’t mention that).
And all that encouraged me to go looking further in the official Uefa site on stats from Champions League games, except that when I went looking for fouls committed on that site the stats make no sense. Arsenal don’t seem to appear on the list (and I am sure I have seen a few fouls in the Champs League matches I’ve watched) while other clubs turn up more than once.
Still, statistics! Eh??? Can’t trust them can you? Or maybe it is just Uefa we can’t trust. I’ll have to work on that.
So anyway, back to the game, which from my position was very enjoyable. The figure of 68% possession seems about right, Havertz was blamed for missing an opportunity, which is normal (the blaming that is, not the missing – I think he contributes far more than most commentators are willing to admit largely because he distracts defenders so much other players get through more easily, but that’s just my perception).
Sevilla did have a shot in the 97th minute, but the delay until that point was more to do with Arsenal’s ability to defend than their poor attack. Besides they’ve only had two defeats in the last ten games, one to Arsenal and one to Barcelona, so they can’t be as bad as the media like to make them out.
Unfortunately, PSV had to spoil it all by getting a win in their match, so we can’t say we are through yet, but one more point will do it, meaning that Arsenal will have qualified from the group stages in every season they’ve entered Europe this century.
But I must add a word about Martinelli. Every game I see him in he gets more and more outrageous with his twists, turns, speed, control, more twists, more turns… I swear that on occasion he goes back and beats the same man twice just to show he has more tricks. Seven times he went on training camps with Manchester United and seven times they failed to make him an offer of a contract which, had they done so, he would have accepted.
Meanwhile Arsenal are now unbeaten in their last nine home games, winning seven of them. So while the unbelievably unbelievable Tottenham Hots (according to the media) march onward towards ultimate glory with 31 yellow cards in league matches this season (compared to Arsenal’s 16) and while the unnervingly sympathetic media refuse to mention that little detail, I travelled back to the Midlands after the match with a warm glow – which wasn’t due to alcohol since I was driving, and thus behaving more or less responsibly. For once.
TA 9/11/23