Not being able to travel to the blue skies of sunny Portugal, I was camped in front of my TV for the match on Wednesday. And what did I learn?
That Arsenal had 70% possession (or 65% or 60%).
That the best scoring opportunity in the first half went to Portugal and that it was a miracle Galeno didn’t score from the rebound.
That there’s some big fight coming up and the next match on TNT Sports that we’re all looking forward to is Arsenal at home to Newcastle
That Arsenal have scored more goals from set pieces than the whole of the Premier League and Championship teams combined – or something like that. Truth is, I got bored listening. There was an almost relentless repetition of superfluous information from the commentators that was, well, relentless.
I thought things would settle down once Granit Xhaka left. Before, you could predict almost to the minute when the commentator would refer to how he’d fallen out with the crowd and his redemption. No game passed without it.
It must be hard to find things for a commentator to say when the game is rather flat, with 70% Arsenal possession, no shots on target (ah, yes, I forgot that one in my list of repetitions), at least until the best chance of the first half… and I suppose I should acknowledge that we’re not immune from being subjected to superfluous information at Arsenal home matches. Or am I the only one to find it mildly irritating at half-time when the stadium announcer proclaims, ‘And at half-time the score is Arsenal….’? Having been in the stadium all game, I would have hoped everyone would be sufficiently aware of the proceedings to keep a tally on the number of times the ball entered a net at either end. Although, in fairness, with VAR ruling out goals and changing the pattern of the match without rhyme or reason, it might get a tad confusing keeping up for the hard of thinking; plus the number of people turning up in the stadium after kick-off does mean there are some who might not have caught up with any early goal, although the giant electric scoreboard is a bit of a giveaway.
But back to Porto. I could have switched the sound off, I suppose. In the old days, I could have brought the portable radio into the room and had the commentary from Radio 5 Live. But of course, with everything now digital, that’d mean setting up Alexa or my laptop and logging into BBC Sounds, and by the time I’d done that, I’d have missed several Arsenal set pieces – speaking of which, did you know Arsenal has scored more timed from set pieces…
Of the game itself, I just hope this is a wake-up after the run of goalfests, acting as a reminder that not all teams are as easy to unpick as those we’ve faced since the New Year. And perhaps remember that corners don’t always have to be long and high in order to score. Plus the inspirational Trossard-Havertz partnership might not be inspirational after all. Not that I want to disagree with our usual blog writer, who was last heard singing the praises of Kai, but in games like last night, it still seems to me that we miss the movement and space-finding skills of someone a bit Emile Smith Rowe-ish, to help find a way through packed defences. But the manager sees what we see, but with impossibly huge amounts of knowledge and experience that we don’t possess. So we’ll have to wait until Saturday at the earliest to tell if the process is to be trusted!
And if you’re wondering what happened to the blogs here after our double success day last weekend, when both the women and the men had momentous victories, our usual blogger was recovering from an accident. Hopefully, he’s on the mend so he can continue here soon. Otherwise, it’s me. Or you. Feel free to feedback your reactions to matches or blogs.
Richard Smith 22/02/24