That, then, is us. Enjoy the rest of the weekend – later.
And here’s our minute-by-minute of Spurs-Man City.
Here’s Paul Wilson’s report.
Burnley, on the other hand, were excellent. McNeil gives them a really good balance in midfield, and their centre-backs a solidity that allows them to play two strikers. They could finish in mid-table.
That game showed Mikel Arteta how much work he has to do – if he didn’t already know – and might, perhaps, have made his mind up on one or two players. Lacazette and Ozil are worth having for the squad if they don’t mind that being their role, but neither are taking Arsenal into the top four, never mind towards a title challenge. It really is that simple.
Rodriguez thinks Burnley should’ve won but doesn’t specify why, while McNeil says the gameplan was to get after Arsenal. Rodriguez then takes responsibility for his miss, saying he hoped it’d gone in off the bar, but the bar oughtn’t to have been a factor.
Full-time: Burnley 0-0 Arsenal
The most entertaining goalless draw I’ve seen for ages. Arsenal ought to have scored in the first half, but Burnley were very good in the second and Jay Rodriguez missed the game’s best chance. Burnley move up to 11th, while Arsenal move up to 10th.
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90+3 min Andy Hinchcliffe give McNeil man of the match. I like him a lot, but he’s not had as much influence as others.
90+2 min Taylor ploughs through Bellerin, but can’t get around Guendouzi.
90+1 min I think Lowton was just given man of the match by whoever decides in the ground, but he struggled in the first half; I’d go for Tarkowski.
90 min There’ll be three added minutes.
90 min Cork lopes a clever ball from centre to left, finding Rodriguez. He crosses for Wood, but again, Mustafi - who’s had another acceptable afternoon – does enough.
89 min And here he is, replacing Lacazette – who’s endured another poor afternoon and is now nine games without a goal.
88 min Nketiah will shortly be with us. I’m not sure why, if he’s worth bringing on now, he wasn’t worth bringing on 10 minutes ago.
86 min Bellerin, now getting forward, skirts around Taylor and dinks an excellent cross into the middle that’s fractionally high for Aubameyang; Lowton can’t take any chances at the back post, so turns the ball behind. The corner comes to nothing.
85 min Hendrick crosses from the right yet again and McNeil arrives onto the ball, leaping to cushion a side-footed volley which flies over the bar – but not by much.
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83 min Aubameyang drifts left and crosses well, Torreira leaping to lay off for Lacazette, who turns ... and looks to have conjured a shooting lane, only for Tarkowski to close it, his block sending the ball looping back to Pope. He’s just a really good player.
82 min Tarkowski runs right through Willock, introducing studs to instep f0r extra artistic merit. He’s booked.
80 min The finishing today has been absolute nonsense.
78 min WHAT A MISS! Hendrick slings over from the right and McNeil nods back across, perfectly into the path of Rodriguez! Running off the back of Luiz – heads or tails situation there – he meets it with the full meat of his boot, five yards out, but can only cart against the bar and onto the line! Dearie me.
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77 min The teams are in for Spurs-Man City. You can follow that here:
77 min Arsenal have 80 percent possession in the last 10 minutes. I think Aubameyang is playing through the middle now.
76 min Xhaka again marauds forward and finds Lacazette outside him, who comes inside and measures a tasty cross directly onto Aubameyang’s prodigious spam. He should score – again – but heads wide of the near post.
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75 min Burnley might just’ve blown themselves out, and Bellerin does really well to take the ball from Aubameyang, cut inside Taylor and open the angle for a shot. But he can only curl wide.
73 min Pope punches the corner clear and gets some of Luiz in the process; actually, Luiz heads his other elbow. He’s fine.
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72 min The corner yields another, Mustafi jumping into Tarkowski, which allows Guendouzi to shoot wide, off Tarkowski.
71 min But here comes Xhaka, advancing down the left and curling over a fine ball, which Mee does brilliantly to reach ahead of Lacazette, heading behind.
69 min Arsenal were excellent at Bournemouth on Monday night, but that was against a team missing its best players and not really putting it in. Arteta has made some impact, but has a big job to do; Unai Emery wasn’t the only barrier to Arsenal being good at football.
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68 min Arsenal are improving a little; Willock breaks through midfield and fires over.
66 min In commentary they reckon that Burnley should get Aaron Lennon on to have a run at Xhaka – on a card, remember – and it’s hard to argue with that.
65 min Lacazette rubs his head after being outjumped by Mee. He is enjoying this-1.
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64 min Burnley know they can win this, and Wood pulls wide as McNeil crosses, Rodriguez arriving onto the ball ... but he can’t quite sort his feet out and drags a shot wide.
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63 min Here comes that Arsenal change: Willock replaces Ozil who, it appears, is not very good away from home. If only we’d seen years’ worth of football to apprise us of this precise fact.
61 min Arsenal pile forward and suddenly Ozil is in the box, but his cut-back hits Mee. The resultant corner comes to nothing.
60 min This is brilliant from Burnley, Lowton switching play to Taylor – yes, really – who knocks back to McNeil. The cross is a good one too, and here’s Jeffrey! But Hendrick, who looks like he’s done everything right, somehow heads wide!
58 min Westwood shmices the free-kick in flat, looking for those two centre-backs again; Rodriguez heads just wide.
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57 min Burnley can sense something. Taylor ploughs forward, Martinelli alongside, then tucks inside to be flattened by Torreira, who’s booked.
56 min Cork bends the free-kick flat to the back post, where Tarkowski and Mee rush it; the former gets there first, unable to quite get his brow the right side of the ball, skidding on his knees to head wide.
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55 min Lowton pounces on another slack pass from Guendouzi and skates around Xhaka, who imparts forearm to coupon and is booked.
54 min Ozil finds Martinelli inside the box, and he ducks inside then rifles a shot through shins, which Pope saves easily enough.
53 min McNeil takes the ball and Bellerin gives him time to turn and cross, but Luiz does enough to stop Wood heading at goal.
51 min “Arsenal’s players seem to be at about 80% of signal with the rest noise and fuzz,” says Charles Antaki. “Time for Arteta to do some retuning: move Ozil’s dial somewhere he gets better reception (or off the pitch).”
I think Willock might be a better fit – players who can run with the ball in the middle of the pitch are a rare commodity, and Burnley aren’t sitting off.
50 min Westwood crosses from the right, but Mustafi does enough when challenging Wood, who turns out to have been offside.
49 min Burnley look like they really fancy this.
47 min Saka’s injury coincided with Burnley coming back into the game. He didn’t have the legs to get forward, which meant that Burnley were under less pressure, which means that they could exert more pressure. Now, with Xhaka at the back, they should probably focus their play on the right, or think about changing formation to a diamond so at least they’ve got two strikers.
46 min Off we go again. Saka, who spent some of half-time mooching about the tunnel, is done, so Torreira comes on. I’d expect Xhaka will go to left-back.
Half-time email: “On that Aubameyang chance back in the 14th minute,” says JR from Illinois, “a couple of the Burnley players did that thing players do where they immediately and with 100% certainty bitterly complain and abuse the assistant referee because they think an opponent was offside when in reality he wasn’t even close to being offside. Oh boy does it burn my bottom when they do that. As a metaphor for the current state of the world though you could do worse.”
I also enjoyed Xhaka booting someone, hurting himself, and making a fuss; I’m not surprised his mum let him take the house keys. Anything for a quiet life.
In the WSL, Arsenal have just taken the lead away to Manchester City. Follow along with that one here:
Half-time entertainment: this is what control looks like.
Half-time: Burnley 0-0 Arsenal
That was a relatively entertaining half. Aubameyang and Lacazette ought really to have scored, but Burnley have played really well and look good for a goal themselves. The second half should be decent.
45 min There’ll be one added minute.
45 min Another cross from the left and Mee launches himself at it, sending a header just wide.
44 min Mesut Storey lifts his foot, boots someone’s head, and earns a yellow card.
43 min Hendrick’s free-kick is a good one, and Xhaka does well to get the first gel on it, sending the ball behind. Even better, the ref thinks it came off a Burnley head, so awards a goalkick.
42 min McNeil is coming onto a good game and, confronted by the fearsome sight of Ozil, out on the touchline, he easily floats outside him and wears the inevitable lazy hack.
39 min Xhaka goes down after booting Hendricks’ studs, which is apparently the fault of the referee. The Burnley corner yields another and eventually McNeil swings in a cross which Tarkowski attacks, Guendouzi preoccupied with pulling shirts – well hard, him – and the header goes over the top. Burnley are right in this.
38 min Arsenal should be ahead really, but here come Burnley! McNeil crosses from the left and Mustafi hurls himself out of its way, face first, because why wouldn’t he? This allows Hendrick to come onto the ball, but he rushes a rising shot that floats wide of the far post, via deflection.
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36 min But here he is! Xhaka caresses a luscious ball over the top and again Aubameyang escapes Lowton. But Pope is out quickly, and pops up an arm to field the attempted lob.
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34 min Ultimately, Aubameyang is a one-dimensional player. It’s a very strong dimension - scoring goals – but he doesn’t have the feet to do what, say, Marcus Rashford or Sadio Mane do from out wide. Obviously he’s still good enough needs to do stuff from that position, but really he needs play within the width of the goal, and Lacazette isn’t good enough to force him away from there.
33 min Nice from Guendouzi, who turns and finds Aubameyang. He looks to drag the ball outside Lowton, and then again a few seconds later. But Lowton reads him both times.
31 min Mee tries to pass out of defence and is blocked by Martinelli. The ball runs to Lacazette, who’s offside – a lucky let-off for the defender.
30 min Guendouzi gives the ball away – of course he does, is he the Premier League player whose opinion of his abilities is most different to his abilities? – and Burnley quickly find McNeil, who cracks a shot which swerves just over the top.
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29 min Almost all of Arsenal’s attacks have come down the left. They’re a little lopsided in that regard, because Martinelli doesn’t really want to be out on the right.
27 min McNeil surges down the left and whips over a cross, which Mustafi knees into touch.
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25 min Guendouzi knocks a pass out to Saka, who mystifyingly allows the ball to hit his boot and roll out of play. He then goes down, which explains things – he was involved in a clash of knees a bit ago, so perhaps it’s that. He accepts treatment as Arteta readies a sub, but is soon back on.
24 min Arsenal are dominating possession, but Burnley aren’t sitting back. They’re backing themselves to score, and have had enough joy so far not to change their minds.
22 min Ozil advances towards the box and tries a shot, which Cork blocks ... but as Mee challenges Martinelli, the ball breaks to Lacazette who thinks he’s going to score and rightly so! Except Tarkowski appears out of nowhere to nail him with a teeth-rattler of a sliding tackle! That’s a proper goal-saver is that, that is, is that.
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20 min The left-footed McNeil takes this one – Burnley are swinging them all in and Leno punches clear. He’s improved a lot lately.
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20 min Westwood curls in the corner but mishits it, forcing Leno to poke over the bar for another.
19 min Nice from Burnley, a long ball finding Wood in between the centre-backs, and he controls on his chest then tees up Rodriguez, whose low shot is turned around the post by Leno.
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17 min Arsenal are playing with a lot of confidence here, knocking the ball about, probing and such.
14 min Eeesh! Aubameyang is playing as a second striker, more or less, and he zones inside and towards goal as Luiz clips a pass over the top. “It’s one of those” where he’s suddenly in so much space you assume he’s offside, but Taylor botched the trap and it looks like a certain goal; he’s got time to sort his feet out, listen to Shine On You Crazy Diamond and all the rest. But instead of going across goal with his left foot or opening his body to do likewise with his right, he somehow drags a shot wide of the near post. That was miserable.
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12 min Saka raps a ball into Lacazette, who opens his body to cushion a lovely touch to meet the run of Aubameyang. But Tarkowski is wise to the ruse, and nips in first.
10 min “‘His last outing’,” says Charles Antaki, quoting me on Mustafenbauer, “(and indeed the time before), Mustafi played reasonably well. That’s fine, and well done him. The reasonableness is not the issue here. It’s the magnificent, imperious unreasonableness that Arsenal fans don’t like: the dazed eyes, the three-second delay in acting, the catastrophic tackle and – as only recently demonstrated – the extravagantly poor back-pass. So yes, reasonable, up to a point.”
Can’t argue with that. I’m surprised he’s been preferred to Sokratis, but it’s an invidious choice really.
8 min Lacazette gives it away and Westwood finds Wood, who lumbers into the box and ... tries some stepovers! Which reminds me of the lovely phrase, “fairy elephant”. Er, and Wood quickly loses possession.
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6 min “I suspect the choice of Lacazette or Aubameyang may be taken out of Arsenal’s hands,” emails Matt Emerson. “Lacazette has been on a rotten run of form and he’s probably the one that Arteta would want to sell. But Aubameyang is the class act and if wanted to go there would be no shortage of options for him. As it stands, we are playing both in the hope that Lacazette’s form improves whilst Ozil is still in one of his brief periods of motivation...”
Lacazette has started every game under Arteta, but I agree he’s the one I’d expect to go. It’s possible that his ability to bring others into play is valued, but Arsenal would need big goalscoring contributions from their wide players to make that work. Aubameyang, on the other hand, will always get goals, but playing through the middle he doesn’t offer much else.
4 min Saka runs at Lowton, shimmying inside before nipping outside, Chris Waddle-style. Lowton chops him down, as you would, and Ozil will swing in the free-kick ... to no avail.
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3 min Arsenal have started well, and Saka – what a talent he is – advances down the left, crossing towards the far post where Taylor has no option but to concede a corner, given Martinelli lurking behind him. The flag-kick – no you have not accidentally opened a mid-80s football comic library – yields another.
2 min Ozil spreads to Aubameyang, who takes a touch a picks out Lacazette with a cross! He really ought to score, but instead nods wide. There is no bowing and handshaking.
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1 min “I don’t have the statistics ready to hand,” says David Wall, “but has Arteta actually made that much difference to Arsenal since he took the job? There’s been a lot of praise for him personally, about how changed they are already in the time he’s been there, but have they actually been winning more games? I seem to remember them having a lot of drawn games recently, and after having had the lead in many of them (though that’s just a loose impression, perhaps i’m mis-remembering). That sounds much like the perennial soft-Arsenal picture that we’ve seen through the last couple of managers over a number of years. Arteta might have spoken well since becoming their manager but has there actually been much material difference?”
He’s not been given the job to immediately get them winning every week, but to oversee change, and my eyes certainly tell me that he’s doing that. They’re much better organised, in defence and attack, and their players know what they’re doing, which previously they did not
1 min Off we go!
Here come the teams ... and the ball is unplinthed!
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Email! “100% with you on Henderson,” tweets Hubert O’Hearn. “Pope a fine second. I was surprised Man Utd signed another young keeper this window when they have Henderson on their books and out on loan. He may well be better than De Gea is already.”
What’s most impressive about Henderson is his mentality: he thinks he’s proper and carries himself accordingly. United gave De Gea a contract he hadn’t necessarily earned, and when there didn’t seem to be much clamour for his services, but I seem to recall hearing they also rate Matej Kovar.
Sean Dyche thinks he’s hit on a system that works, mainly because the defence and attack are right. He’d also like his team to play well today – more news as I get it.
Well clever #what they’ve done #here. Ozil reminds of Pogba in a way – partly because any footballing discussion necessarily ends with an argument about him – but also because he has sublime talent that is brilliant in a good team but can’t elevate a poor one.
Congratulations, @MesutOzil1088! 🎉
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) February 2, 2020
Mesut is making appearance number 2️⃣5️⃣0️⃣ for us today! 👏
〽️ #250ZIL pic.twitter.com/OhYmgZIIFT
On Sky, they’ve been discussing who should be England’s goalkeeper in the context of Pope v Pickford, which is semi-strange given the correct answer is very clearly Henderson.
Outstanding y’knowing from Nick Pope. pic.twitter.com/3ChD5OAcOI
— Daniel Harris (@DanielHarris) February 1, 2020
What Burnley will seek to do is pretty clear: get the ball wide, get Wood on Luiz and Rodriguez around Mustafi, then force them to defend. McNeil, who looks a really interesting player, might fancy himself to exploit any space left by Bellerin, or to shift the ball and cross early, before he can get in the way.
Mesut Özil hasn’t played at Burnley since 2016, and this is a chance for him. Arteta recognises his upside, but I wonder if he needs two midfielders with legs behind him. At some point, a decision needs to be made on Granit Xhaka, who is in the team because he performs a useful function, but again: teams to win stuff have better.
Sitting five points behind Wolves and Manchester United and a further 10 behind Chelsea, Arsenal is that they can forget about qualifying for the Champions League next season – through the league. This, in a sense, gives Arteta an opportunity: he has scope to work out who to play and how to play them without the pressure of results. The main element he needs to resolve – imnvhotbqfhwy - is how in midfield and attack. At the back, it’s quite clear: he needs two quality centre-backs – but in front of that, he has decent players, just not players you’d expect to see playing regularly in teams who win things. Ultimately, he needs to make a choice that Unai Emery avoided: Lacazette or Aubameyang.
Arsenal, meanwhile, welcome back Shkodran Mustafi – what a sentence that is to type – who was stretchered off at Bournemouth. It looked nasty, but he’s fine and is rewarded for playing reasonably well prior to that. Alongside him, David Luiz returns after getting himself suspended trying to get Mustafi out of trouble, so Sokratis is on the bench.
In midfield, Matteo Guendouzi keeps his place after two relatively decent displays, meaning no spot for Lucas Torreira, Mesut Özil does indeed return – maybe this will be the week he changes the ingrained habits of a lifetime – so Joe Willock misses out while, in attack, Alexandre Lacazette replaces Eddie Nketiah and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is in for Nicolas Pepeé.
So, Burnley are unchanged from the win at Old Trafford, though they went out of the cup at Norwich in between. This means that Phil Bardsley – you may know him better as Tanya’s husband – and who missed that game, injured – does not come straight back in. Instead, Charlie Taylor keeps his place at right-back.
Ins and Outs
Burnley (a good, honest, old-fashioned, traditional, real, you know where you are with it 4-4-2): Pope; Lowton, Tarkowski, Mee, Taylor; Hendrick, Westwood, Cork, McNeil; Wood, Rodriguez. Subs: Hart, Brady, Pieters, Lennon, Bardsley, Vydra, Long.
Arsenal (a fancy, flighty, untrustworthy, insubstantial 4-3-3): Leno; Bellerin, Mustafi, David Luiz, Saka; Guendouzi, Xhaka, Özil; Martinelli, Lacazette, Aubameyang. Subs: Martinez, Sokratis, Ceballos, Torreira, Pepe, Willock, Nketiah.
Commissioner: Chris Kavanagh (Manchester)
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Preamble
Losing games of this ilk is the absolute height of Arsenal – Burnley is cold and unwelcoming, more passionate about control of borders than of trailing legs and whose footballers specialists in the ancient English tradition of facial entry. Except Arsenal have won on every visit to Turf Moor since Burnley returned to the Premier League, and beaten them in every game at the Emirates too, so.
Quite what New Arsenal will make of today remains to be seen. Last time out, they were excellent against an admittedly disgracefully execrable Bournemouth, giving Mikel Arteta a problem: does he keep faith with maybes like Gabriel Martinelli and Joe Willock, or, more likely, does he rely on never will bes like Alexandre Lacazette and Mesut Özil? He has the rest of the season to settle on method and personnel, but must decide if the circumstance – where Arsenal are and where they want to be – demands revolution or evolution.
Burnley, meanwhile, are looking good after a dodgy period. Wins over Leicester and Manchester United have left them six points and three places above the relegation zone, with today’s game in hand; ruining things from here requires an enormous effort. The key wins which made this so were founded upon the defensive excellence of Ben Mee and James Tarkowski, who might just prefer the more statuesque stylings of the old men; will Arteta oblige them?
Kick-off: 2pm GMT, 3pm CET.
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