As one might expect when one team plays very well and the other, well, very much doesn’t, that was hugely one-sided. The sun rose this morning, so therefore Sanchez was relentlessly superb, leaving one to perhaps wonder if he’s even too good for this team in which he’s playing. If Arsenal don’t win something with him in the side, then they really are in trouble.
Cheers for reading - it’s now time for you to join yer man Daniel Harris - who is currently jiggling his leg up and down to my right and thus making the desk shake - for Manchester United v Southampton, and minute-by-minute coverage thereof.
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Full-time: Arsenal 3-0 Stoke
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 2: Arsenal knocking the ball around defence as the game, and indeed life as we know it, ebbs away.
90 mins: Ospina is forced into a save, and...sort of does a decent job of it, gathering an Ireland shot with one hand, then two. Arsenal counter, and Sanchez looks to skip around Shawcross but the Stoke defender puts in a superbly-timed tackle to stop him on the edge of the box.
89 mins: Not much is happening now. Bellerin just won a header against Wollscheid, if you’re interested.
86 mins: Walcott plays in Özil, but his right-footed shot goes just wide and a bit high. Meanwhile, Michael Bertin writes, of Stoke’s travel problems: ‘I didn’t know you could get a train direct to Mordor from London now.’
84 mins: Marvellous stuff from Arsenal, who are in showboat mode now. Sanchez and Özil exchange a few passes and the latter sort of hooks the ball over his own shoulder with his left foot, out to Monreal on the left. His cross is cleared, but for showboaters, the applause is enough.
82 mins: The Arsenal crowd have seemingly tired of their own dominance in this one and are now just singing songs about Thierry Henry.
80 mins: Great chance for another for Arsenal, as Sanchez sets Walcott away on goal, but his shot from outside the box, when he could probably have taken it a few steps further, is weak and dragged wide of goal.
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78 mins: A moment of schadenfreude in the crowd as the man on the PA announces some travel problems for the Stoke fans heading home on the train, greeted by laughter and loud cheering from the home support.
77 mins: GOA....no, it’s been disallowed. The ball is clipped over the top for Crouch, who flicks on to Cameron, who forces the ball home via Ospina’s attempt at a save...but the American was just offside.
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76 mins: Whelan gives the ball away carelessly in midfield and it goes straight to Sanchez about 40 yards out. He tries to lob Begovic, but that one really had no chance, and it drifts over the bar.
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73 mins: And another change for Arsenal, and it’s Mesut Özil, returning after ages out with injury, replacing Giroud.
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72 mins: Another sub, and it’s the third and final for Stoke - Stephen Ireland comes on, replacing Bojan. Ireland of course being one of those curious men with a completely bald head but a beard.
70 mins: A brief moment of hope for Stoke as Bojan skips into the area from the left, pulls back to Whelan who has a couple of chances to shoot on his left foot but bafflingly cuts back onto his right, switches out to Cameron on the right but he skews and slices his cross into Ospina’s arms.
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68 mins: And that’s Oxlade-Chamberlain’s last involvement - Theo Walcott comes on for him.
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67 mins: Close to a fourth for Arsenal, as Cazorla and Oxlade-Chamberlain play a nice one-two on the right of the area, and the former dinks the ball over Begovic, but it drifts a little high, kissing the top of the bar on its way over.
66 mins: Sanchez doesn’t belong on the same pitch as these Stoke players, and many of the Arsenal ones too. He drives through the middle, outstripping a couple of defenders with consummate ease, slips left to Giroud but his shot is deflected wide.
65 mins: Therapy for Sparky.
@NickMiller79 My best mate just got broken up with by a lady who told him she was having 'existential problems.' Mark Hughes has a soulmate
— Eamonn Quinn (@EamonnQuinn89) January 11, 2015
Actually, given his present demeanour, is ‘Sparky’ now the most obsolete nickname in football?
64 mins: Crouch then gets a yellow card for a challenge from behind on Coquelin. He got the ball, but had to go through the Arsenal midfielder’s calf in order to do so.
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63 mins: Probably the closes Stoke have come to scoring. Mertesacker plays a weird pass from defence to Oxlade-Chamberlain on the right, which presses his colleague into making a mistake and Muniesa nabs the ball, crossing low to the near-post where Crouch stabs at it, but the ball goes just wide.
61 mins: Cameron gets a booking for dragging Sanchez to the floor.
59 mins: Stoke’s performance is summed up by a pass from Coquelin that goes awry, missing the prospective recipient and drifting into about 15 yards of open space in midfield, but nobody rouses themselves to actually pick up the thing, and Coquelin is allowed to collect it himself, unchallenged.
58 mins: Arnautovic curls it wide. Hughes mood: unchanged.
57 mins: Update: Mark Hughes continues to look like the pointlessness of human existence is weighing heavily upon his mind. Stoke have a free-kick, so will let you know if that changes.
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55 mins: Michael Hood writes: ‘Will Stoke’s players actually get paid for this performance, or more accurately lack thereof?’ If I was a Stoke fan in the Emirates, I’d be wondering about this too. They have been desperate.
53 mins: Apparently Debuchy is having an x-ray in the Arsenal dressing room right now. What a time to be alive. Meanwhile, Oxlade-Chamberlain drives towards the Stoke area but can’t set up any sort of meaningful chances.
51 mins: Wollscheid goes into the book for a cynical tug back on Giroud, and a cheer goes around the Emirates that is nearly as loud as for their three goals.
49 mins: Quite the shambles from Stoke, there. Sanchez doesn’t hit the free-kick properly, and it flies towards the wall at about knee-height. It nevertheless sneaks through the Stoke defences, such as they are, and towards goal, but it looks like a relatively simple save for Begovic at the near-post. Alas for him, he lets the ball squirm away from him, off the post and it inches over the line. Probably just still Sanchez’s goal.
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GOAL! Arsenal 3-0 Stoke (Sanchez 49)
Actually, that might be an own-goal.
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48 mins: Oxlade-Chamberlain cuts in from the left but is felled by Sidwell on the edge of the box. He got some of the ball, but not enough of it for the ref’s liking. In the wall, Crouch wipes some of the ref’s spray off his boots.
46 mins: We’re away again. Stoke win a corner almost straight away, but nothing comes of it and Arsenal counter. Bellerin gets down the right and crosses low, but it’s cut out at the near-post. Giroud, running into the middle, then jumps, grabs the crossbar, but can’t hold on and slips to the ground on his behind. Slapstick, but actually could’ve been fairly nasty.
The teams are emerging for the second-half, and Stoke are making two changes. Marc Muniesa and Steve Sidwell are coming on, replacing Nzonzi and Pieters.
Word reaching Guardian Towers that Thierry Henry is joining Sky in some capacity. More as we get it.
Half-time: Arsenal 2-0 Stoke
Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. That’s the break, and Arsenal are very firmly on top. Stoke have been, frankly, absolute trousers, largely at the back and it’s something of a surprise they aren’t further behind.
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45 mins + 5: Giroud earns himself from Brownie points with the crowd by squaring up to Shawcross, but it was all posturing really.
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45 mins + 4: Nice work as Arsenal move the ball out from the back, feeding Sanchez out on the left. He buzzes infield and squares to Oxlade-Chamberlain, but his shot flies a yard or so over the bar.
45 mins + 1: Crouch does brilliantly to nick the ball away from Koscielny just shy of halfway and set himself up for a run on goal, but he has little support or pace, so has to shoot a little earlier than he’d like, and thus the effort is weak and straight at Ospina.
45 mins: Five minutes of added time. Surprised it isn’t more, actually.
44 mins: Another email, this time from Mags: ‘In NHL (ice-hockey - violent, or at least supposed to be) the Arnautovic “push” on Debuchy would have resultet in 10-20 matches suspension and a huge fine. NHL tries to eradicate the pushes into the walls because they really cause heavy injuries. Football...’
42 mins: Nice work by Oxlade-Chamberlain down the right as he beats a man then slips inside to Giroud, but the Frenchman is, shall we say, ‘eased off’ the ball by Shawcross. A gamble from the Stoke man as that could easily have been interpreted as a shove, but no penalty given, despite the protests from a prone Giroud.
41 mins: Absolutely brilliant low cross by Cameron behind the the Arsenal defence almost causes great woe back there, but a flailing and lengthy Mertesacker leg gets there just before Walters, who was lurking at the back stick.
40 mins: Monreal has been patched up, but now has to change his shirt.
38 mins: Monreal is still receiving treatment. Roy Hodgson is in the crowd, wearing a pair of leather gloves. The two are not connected.
36 mins: Another Arsenal player is on the turf due to an errant Stoke arm, but this time there wasn’t much the Stoke arm in question, Peter Crouch’s, could do about it, as he went up for a header and stretched out said limb as one naturally does. Monreal is the player down, and it looks as if claret has been spilled.
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33 mins: Brilliant from Arsenal. Nzonzi takes a half-heavy touch out on the left but that’s enough for the relentless Sanchez to nip in and exchange passes with Rosicky. The Chilean darts into the area, cuts back in a manner that for most players would be straight into a crowd of defenders and thus trouble, but arranges his feet so brilliantly quickly that he gets the shot away, that zips in at the near post past a bewildered Begovic. Majestic stuff.
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GOAL! Arsenal 2-0 Stoke (Sanchez 33)
What. A. Goal.
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31 mins: Monreal crosses from the right and Oxlade-Chamberlain gathers himself...but then slips over in a manner that should really have been accompanied by the sound of a kazoo.
28 mins: Close for Arsenal as Koscielny and Mertesacker go up with Begovic for a cross, and the Stoke keeper drops the thing. Difficult to tell if the two Arsenal men actually fouled him, or merely put him off. Whatever, the ball is eventually cleared.
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27 mins: Some thoughts from Jesse Galdston on the emails: ‘In the wake of his push on Debeuchy, the announcers said things like “he gave him a little push” and “Arnautovic is lucky not to get a yellow.” But isn’t that kind of needless push directly at the hoardings, when the ball isn’t in dispute the definition of a red card? I realize it wasn’t a strong push, but that area of the pitch is quite dangerous as it’s harder turf and there’s always the danger of actually continuing into the advertisements. FYI, I’m not an Arsenal fan and tend to root against them.’
26 mins: Stoke try a clever free-kick from a set piece on the right, and it works to an extent, in that Bojan cuts it back to a totally unmarked Whelan on the edge of the area, but the midfielder sand-wedges the shot miles over the bar. So, actually, it didn’t work at all. I think Mark Hughes looked quite cross on the touchline, but his default state is that of a joy vacuum, so it’s difficult to tell.
25 mins: Hairy moment for Ospina, as he gathers a cross from Pieters from the left at his near post, but very nearly fumbles it into the path of some grateful attackers. Meanwhile, Gooner hearts flutter as we see shots of Thierry Henry and Bobby Pires in the crowd.
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23 mins: ‘Hey, give Stoke some credit,’ writes Mike Nichols, and one assumes it’s not that Mike Nichols, particularly since that Mike Nichols died a few months ago. ‘It took them a whole 11 minutes to recklessly and needlessly injure an Arsenal player. By Mark Hughes’ standards, that’s progress.’
21 mins: Meanwhile, a replay shows that Giroud is a lucky puppy to still be on the pitch, having shoved Shawcross in the neck/face region while grappling at a corner. Shawcross then wipes out Sanchez with a tough but actually quite fair challenge.
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20 mins: Begovic is keeping Arsenal out on his own here. Sanchez slips the ball to the edge of the area for Giroud, who hits a powerful first-time shot, but the Stoke keeper dives to his right and pushes the ball away, then looks at his teammates in a ‘What the hell are you lot doing’ sort of way. And he’s right to do so.
19 mins: Sanchez gets a talking to for pointlessly trying to get Glenn Whelan booked for an admittedly cynical and blatant handball. He’s subsequently given a dressing down by the skipper Mertesacker.
18 mins: Hmmmm, that’s not exactly how it happened, chaps...
SUB Debuchy is injured after falling awkwardly and is replaced by Bellerin #ARSSTK
— Premier League (@premierleague) January 11, 2015
16 mins: Arsenal go close again, as Oxlade-Chamberlain approaches the area, bursts past a defender and fires a low right-footed shot across goal, and it goes just wide of the post. As an aside, his uncle is apparently called ‘Neville’, which is pleasing. Debuchy is now sitting up on the stretcher that’s taking him to the dressing room, oddly holding his right shoulder and with a wound on his left temple.
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15 mins: Problem is that the Arsenal fans now have to remember to boo both Arnautovic and Shawcross. Let’s see if they keep it up. Debuchy still hasn’t moved.
13 mins: Not sure exactly what’s wrong with Debuchy, but he hasn’t moved and won’t be able to continue - Hector Bellerin is on to replace him.
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12 mins: At this point it’s probably worth reminding ourselves of those words from Hughes, before the game:
The rivalry raises its head every time we play Arsenal and I’m sick of it. It all goes back to an incident five years ago. Goodness me - a lot of water’s passed under the bridge since then. There are other angles that can be emphasised. The last time we met we played exceptionally well. But some people after the game would use certain terms to explain why we beat them on the day.
Terms like intimidation, and that we ‘bullied’ them out of the result. That wasn’t the case, for the first 60 or 70 minutes we played them off the park. We were the ones that played the best football - that means getting the ball down, pass and move, and create chances. That wasn’t really reflected.
Bully’s the wrong word, it’s a lazy term. It’s the easy one to label us with. It has other connotations. I’d use ‘competitive’, there’s a difference. People have seen that we have a Plan A and a Plan B.
And you wonder why nobody likes Stoke.
11 mins: Debuchy tries to shepherd the ball out of play out on the right, which he does from Arnautovic, so the Stoke man consoles himself by pointlessly shoving the Frenchman in the back, and thus directly into the advertising boards. He’s down, and he needs some treatment.
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10 mins: The boos for Shawcross are getting a bit louder.
9 mins: Delightful work from Cazorla that brings a purr of appreciation from the home crowd, as he lightly dances away from a challenge with a delicate spin on the left, although his pass inside eventually comes to nothing after going through a few more players.
8 mins: From the unexpected stats department...
Only West Ham have scored more headed goals than Arsenal (8) this season.
— Orbinho (@Orbinho) January 11, 2015
6 mins: Well, that was the sort of goal you would imagine Arsenal conceding at Stoke, rather than the other way around. Sanchez is afforded as much time as he likes to measure a cross from the left, and when he does swing it over right-footed, Koscielny is unmarked around eight yards out to head home. Begovic’s fine early efforts are for naught.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Stoke (Koscielny 6)
All too easy...
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5 mins: Another superb save by Begovic - perhaps better than the first, as he dives low to his right to tip a low Rosicky shot wide.
4 mins: The ball is in the net for Stoke, but there is no goal. Bojan played down the line for Nzonzi, but he couldn’t keep the ball in play when crossing to Crouch, who nonetheless turned the ball home.
3 mins: Early chance for Arsenal, as Sanchez cuts in from the left and curls a low shot at goal, but Asmir Begovic dives well down to his left to palm the ball away.
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1 mins: We’re away, Arsenal kicking off in the hazy London sunshine. A good few gaps in the crowd, although there does appear to be a bit of noise, notably some traditional but slightly half-hearted boos for Ryan Shawcross.
The players are in the tunnel - Santi Cazorla and Nacho Monreal are enjoying some banter, together, with Mr Bojan ‘Goals’ Krkic.
As an aside, I think we all know Sammy Davis Jr a little bit better after seeing him in that skintight jumpsuit.
So Gooners, are you shocked by the Szczesny dropping...if you will? Me, not so much, but...
Just got to ground - shocked by Szczesny being dropped. Whatever AW says, this is a disciplinary decision. V risky to throw Ospina in today.
— gunnerblog (@gunnerblog) January 11, 2015
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Meanwhile, in Italy...
Roberto Mancini flies as he gets nailed with a ball in the face. https://t.co/9g0A7zTxpo
— Matteo Bonetti (@TheCalcioGuy) January 11, 2015
An email from Nicolas Clerke: ‘According to Hughes Stoke didn’t bully Arsenal off the pitch in their last game. Accepting Bully as a euphemism for very rough play I’d like to know how he ecplains Charlie Adam grabbing Sanchez by the throat...Is that some version of the beautiful game I haven’t encountered yet?’
Arsenal fans cannot believe the Charlie Adam chokehold on Alexis Sanchez wasn’t on MOTD! http://t.co/fJzJzGcItu pic.twitter.com/1la5cB89Mb
— 101 Great Goals (@101greatgoals) December 6, 2014
So Wojciech Szczesny is dropped, then. Is it because of the smoking? Is it because his dad was mean about Per Mertesacker? Or is it because he’s been a walking accident for a little while, now. Your call. It’s probably too early to work out if David Ospina is a significantly better option, but the Colombian (whose sister, incidentally, is a volleyball player married to James Rodriguez, fact fans) is at least worth a go in nets. Elsewhere Mesut Özil is back and on the bench, and it’s perhaps slightly surprising that Theo Walcott doesn’t get a start, given that he looked promising, if a bit rusty against Hull in the cup.
For Stoke, new signing Philipp Wollscheid goes straight into the starting XI, about whom Hughes said this week: “He’s up to speed in my view and having seen him in training this week he looks in good shape. He’s an option. It’s big decision to throw him in the deep end against a team the quality of Arsenal, but he’s an option.”
Team news
Arsenal
Ospina; Debuchy, Mertesacker, Koscielny, Monreal; Coquelin, Cazorla; Oxlade-Chamberlain, Rosicky, Alexis; Giroud. Subs: Szczesny, Bellerin, Flamini, Ramsey, Ozil, Campbell, Walcott
Stoke City
Begovic; Cameron, Wollscheid, Shawcross, Pieters; Nzonzi, Whelan; Arnautovic, Bojan, Walters; Crouch. Subs: Butland, Muniesa, Ireland, Wilson, Moses, Adam, Sidwell.
Referee: Jon Moss (Sunderland)
Let’s talk about smoking. Well, sort of. Let’s talk about the faintly ludicrous image of Arsène Wenger selling cigarettes on some sort of street corner, flogging a carton of Luckys to make a decent score and push a tribute up to Paulie, then when he gets pinched, learning the two most important lessons in life: never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.
Rare images of the young Arsene Wenger's early career pic.twitter.com/xBm7R55lIG
— Michael Moruzzi (@Regista_Michael) January 10, 2015
Now we’ve got that out of the way, we can discuss football. What to do with Arsenal? For every limp, collapse-like-a-flan-in-a-cupboard defeat they suffer, there’s always an encouraging, hey-perhaps-this-isn’t-quite-so-bad-we’ve-actually-got-some-decent-players-here-and-Alexis-is-just-smashing win to make some people blart ‘CRISIS? WHAT CRISIS?’ and a few desperately optimistic souls think that everything is going to be OK again. This is beautifully encapsulated in their last two results - the defensively abject defeat to Southampton in the league, then the casual saunter to victory over Hull in the FA Cup.
The simple truth is that, now they theoretically have some money to spend, basically all of their problems come from Wenger, his approach to defending, how he organises the team, who he buys and his theory of how football should be played. Of course if Arsenal are happy existing, doing reasonably well, finishing in the top four and qualifying for the knockout rounds of the Champions League every year but never actually winning either competition, then grand. Go for it. Do what you like.
Anyway, here’s Paul Doyle with a more considered and lengthy dissection of Wenger’s problems, specifically at the back:
Wenger is looking for one this month to bolster a defence that has leaked too many goals this season, undermining his team’s title aspirations. Yet irrespective of Wenger’s ruminations about the times we live in, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that a substantive cause of his team’s vulnerability has been inexcusably shoddy individual and collective performances from players who should be capable of better. In other words, it has often seemed like Arsenal’s coaching and attitude – and, in fairness, injuries – are more to blame than external forces.
Still Wenger believes that his current crop of defenders are improving. “I think we are not far, we are getting there,” he said.
On Sunday Wenger’s side will have an ideal opportunity to prove that because Stoke visit the Emirates. Five weeks ago at the Britannia, Mark Hughes’s side inflicted a painful defeat by exposing basic organisational and mental failings in the Arsenal defence, in which two young players were given little useful support by the experienced Per Mertesacker, whose performances this season have been so erratic that, according to Szczesny’s father, Maciej, even the goalkeeper has been made to look bad.
So what of Stoke? One usually thinks of them as Arsenal’s bête noire, but not away from home. They haven’t won at the Emirates or Highbury since 1981, 12 visits later in which they haven’t even managed a draw, let alone victory. So on that basis one might think their chances of doing anything useful today are slim, but their recent form suggest they are certainly capable of causing some problems. There have lost one in their last six, and that was to Chelsea, in which time they have picked up good and encouraging results against Manchester United, Everton and, well, Arsenal.
You also think of Stoke as a physical team who bully their opponents, particularly a diddy old team like Arsenal, but the largely joyless vessel that is Mark Hughes doesn’t think so. He said this week:
The rivalry raises its head every time we play Arsenal and I’m sick of it. It all goes back to an incident five years ago. Goodness me - a lot of water’s passed under the bridge since then. There are other angles that can be emphasised. The last time we met we played exceptionally well. But some people after the game would use certain terms to explain why we beat them on the day.
Terms like intimidation, and that we ‘bullied’ them out of the result. That wasn’t the case, for the first 60 or 70 minutes we played them off the park. We were the ones that played the best football - that means getting the ball down, pass and move, and create chances. That wasn’t really reflected.
Bully’s the wrong word, it’s a lazy term. It’s the easy one to label us with. It has other connotations. I’d use ‘competitive’, there’s a difference. People have seen that we have a Plan A and a Plan B.
Well, there you go. What can’t be denied is that these two do not like each other, thus in theory we should be in for a decent affair. It’s on.
Kick-off: 1.30pm
Nick will be here shortly...
