Right, I guess that us ... but it’s not the end of the sport for this weekend. If you’re not there already – which you should be – join Scott Murray for the staggering denouement of this year’s Masters.
We see Saka’s injury again and Martin Keown is sure it’s impact, but who knows? Not me!
Arteta is really happy with how his team played and says they played at a “really high level”. He could tell his team were “at it”, and liked the cohesion in his team – the distances between them and the way they used space. He quite liked Xhaka at left-back but doesn’t know what’s wrong with Saka, though suggests it’s muscular not impact; that’s not good news, if indeed it’s news at all. Otherwise, he says this was ideal preparation for Thursday, noting that it had been a while since his team kept a clean sheet; he’s happy.
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Here’s Aaron Bower’s match report.
Lacazette tells BT it was really important to win after the last two games and thinks his team played well. He says he missed an “easy chance” on Thursday so really wanted to score today and says that his first goal is the kind they need to conjure against teams who defend deep and in numbers. Asked about injuries, he says the schedule is really hard for the players, but he hopes “B” isn’t too bad and is looking forward to Thursday.
I wonder if Martinelli has played himself into Arteta’s team for Thursday. Nothing I’ve seen over the last couple of years tells me that Lacazette and Aubameyang go in the same team, though it may sometimes work because both are good players. It should be one or t’other, then Saka and either Martinelli or Pepe, but if Odegaard and Smith Rowe don’t make it, I’d go with both and keep Saka in midfield.
Arsenal move into the top half and now sit ninth two points behind Everton in eighth, but having played two games more. Blades are now seven points off West Brom in second bottom, having played a game more.
Full-time: Sheffield United 0-3 Arsenal
That was far too easy for Arsenal, who go to Prague in decent heart – especially if Saka isn’t too badly hurt. Blades, though, are just waiting to go down and for the season to end.
90+4 min Ampadu is late on Nketiah, earning himself a yellow card.
90+3 min As for Blades, they’ve played like a side who know they’re down. There’s been very little intensity to their work, and they’ve not put Arsenal under any kind of pressure - which is suboptimal, but understandable.
90+2 min Arsenal keep the ball. As I keep saying, their top level isn’t a bad level, the problem is that they don’t have enough good players nor, this season, do they have a reliable scorer, so if one or two have bad days or injuries, they struggle. In particular, how much they missed Partey when he was injured should not be underestimated.
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90 min There’ll be four added minutes.
89 min On which point, I wonder what’ll happen to him next season. On the one hand, he has a goalscorer’s knack but on the other, he doesn’t offer a whole lot else and needs to play. I’m Arteta, I’m trying hard to keep him; I’m Nketiah, I’m thinking hard about bouncing.
89 min Off goes Lacazette, who’s been excellent; Nketiah replaces him.
88 min Nice from Blades, Stevens racing onto a fine pass from Fleck, but Mousset can only slice his attempted shot square.
GOAL! Sheffield United 0-3 Arsenal (Lacazette 85)
Partey, who’s been quiet tonight, turns Osborne beautifully on halfway and measures a luscious through-pass to Lacazette who leaves Ampadu agape. Strutting towards goal, he looks at Ramsdale and opens up his body again, shaping to go near post before sweeping just inside the far. Lovely goal, as Barry davies might’ve said.
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84 min That Martinelli goal I mentioned - here it is. There’s something ludicrously thrilling about someone running clear like this, because you expect them to score but there’s so much that can go wrong so suspense builds to a crescendo.
83 min A change apiece: McBurnie can’t carry on so Mousset replaces him, while Arsenal send on Elneny for Martinelli.
82 min Pepe, who’s been decent today, slides a pass in behind Blades’ defence but on the side, Martinelli can’t catch up with it.
82 min Mousset was about to come on for Blades, but the injury to McBurnie means he has to wait a while longer while Heckingbottom decides who needs to come off.
81 min Meanwhile, McBurnie accepts treatment and looks ok to continue.
80 min Mari is booked, perhaps for the tackle that injured McBurnie.
79 min Blades knock it about and in the process McBurnie goes down. Baldock finds himself on the ball close to the corner flag but can’t find a crossing lane so it goes backwards, then a clip over the top finds Baldock again, this time at the back post. He should shoot, but instead caresses across the face, problem being that McBurnie is too hurt to run onto it.
77 min “Re 55 mins, pretty much everyone was saying that there was no one better than Chris Wilder to try to get Sheffield United promoted again next year,” says David Wall. “Assuming that’s true, that he’s been devoted to them throughout his life, and that the change of manager has hardly brought any improvements, is there any chance both owner and former manager would swallow their pride and get back together at the end of the season?”
I doubt that, but far stranger things have happened. I don’t know exactly what went on so it’s hard to know how things are, but professionally, I’m sure Wilder fancies a change much as personally, I’m sure he loves managing his club.
75 min Lacazette plays a wall-pass off Ceballos and diddles Ampadu with a stepover-nutmeg combo before wearing the inevitable foul. It’s just outside the box, left-hand side, and Willian hammers the free-kick into the wall as though he’s been doing it all his life...
74 min Chambers, who’s attacked pretty well today, swerves a cross into the middle, and Ampadu does really well to hook it away before Lacazette can stick it in.
GOAL! Sheffield United 0-2 Arsenal (Martinelli 71)
Blades try to pass their way out of defence but dead centre and just outside the box, Lundstram turned a blind pass straight to Pepe. He strutted past Osborn with embarrassing ease, passed a shot towards the far corner, and when Ramsdale could only palm out, Martinelli was there to pass into the empty net.That’s his first goal since that glorious run at Chelsea and one he only scored because of Saka’s injury – he looked to be going off prior to it.
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71 min Saka has ice clingfilmed to his thigh; that looks positive to me.
69 min Willian replaces Saka as we see a replay of what happened; it actually looks like he took a knee off Brewster then went down a few second later. Assuming that’s so, and he’s just got a dead leg, I’m sure he’ll be fine for Thursday night.
68 min Eeek! Now Saka goes down, and he’s say on the grass rubbing his knee. There was no one anywhere near him at the time, which is not a good sign, and those he doesn’t look badly hurt, he definitely doesn’t look happy.
67 min Yup, Willian is warming up.
67 min Martinelli chases a long ball and doesn’t look in agony but doesn’t look comfy either. He’ll be off as soon as they can get someone ready, I reckon.
65 min Heckingobttom sends on McBurnie and Brewster for McGoldrick and Burke. I wondered if he’d keep one of those two in order to keep an extra man up, but he’s persisting with the 3-5-2.
64 min Martinelli runs at Ampadu, who sees him off well. But as they compete for the ball, the former seems to jar either knee or ankle on the turf, and he goes down for a while. It looks worrying because he’s only just come back from such a nasty injury, but I think he’ll be fine.
64 min Martinelli and Saka were both great in the first half but have been quiet in the second. I don’t think we’ll see the latter out there for much longer, because he’ll be key in midfweek.
62 min There’s nothing going on here.
60 min In commentary, they’re wondering about the effect playing in front of empty stands has had on various teams. They posit Blades as one who feed off the energy of the crowd and the same is so of Liverpool, I think; no, this isn’t an it means more point, or a judgment on whose fans clap loudest, it’s just that some styles of play are more physically and mentally demanding. Similarly, Man City play in a clinical, bloodless manner so it’s no surprise they’ve done so well – though having loads of good players to rotate along with a brilliant manager is also helpful.
59 min There’s still over half an hour to go, but this game is already winding down, both teams relatively happy with the status quo. I daresay both managers will be contemplating changes.
57 min Chambers skitters down the right and finds Pepe, then makes a strong run outside him. But Pepe looks the other way, rolling square to Lacazette who opens his body to bend a beauty into the near-post top corner ... except he goes high and wide.
55 min I wonder if Paul Heckingbottom has a chance of getting the Blades job permanently. I’m sure if he’d strung together some results then he’d be set, but that’s a lot to hope for given the circumstances in which he took over. Replacing Chris Wilder is not something you’d wish on anyone.
54 min It’s gone a bit quiet – Blades are getting closer to Arsenal in midfield, so we’re seeing a more even game than in the first half.
52 min Norwood looks to stick a cross into the box and almost catches Leno out at his near post – inadvertently – but the ball flies behind.
52 min Blades break and Burke looks to have bustled past Holding, who does really well to come back at him.
50 min Arsenal start to assert themselves again, then my BT crashes. Nothing happens.
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48 min This is a bit better from Blades. They did ok in the first half, but were, I’m afraid to say, playing better football than they’re equipped too. If they go a bit longer, they’ll spend less time defending and force Arsenal to spend more time doing likewise.
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47 min Arsenal get the corer away, but a long ball breaks to Basham down the right and he crosses to the back post, where Egan heads into his own arm and Leno punches away.
46 min Ceballos allows the ball to run across him outside his own box, which allows McGoldrick to filch it off him. He shoots from 20 yards, but the ball flicks off Xhaka and flies behind.
46 min Off we go again...
Half-time email: “An oasis of quality in the desert, the vast, unforgiving desert of sandy rubbish that has been the season so far,” surmises Charles Antaki. “But will it all turn out to be a mirage, dot dot dot?”
I don’t think so – they’re not winning enough games, but I think Arsenal are much better now than they were. The question is whether they can find consistency.
Half-time: Sheffield United 0-1 Arsenal
Arsenal have been far, far too good for Blades, and I’d expect them to score another goal or two however things go after the break.
45 min There’ll be one additional minute and Arsenal have a corner to kick if off, Pepe taking so long to reach the quadrant that it might just be the final play of the half. I’ve often wondered why, when that happens, teams don’t send everyone forward, but Arsenal decide against it, and when Lacazette’s flick hits the sliding Norwood on the arm, a VAR check finds nothing amiss.
44 min It goes short and Norwood tosses in a decent cross, but Holding heads clear well. The ball comes back though and Egan does really to sort his feet out, swiping a shot that’s more or less straight at Leno.
44 min Better from Blades, McGoldrick getting on the ball in the box by close to the by-line, twisting and turning to win a corner off Holding.
42 min Arsenal win a corner down the right and Lacazette plays Steve Bould, flicking it on the near post. eventually, the ball makes its way to Martienlli, 12 yards out, but McGoldrick hurls himself in front of the shot and deflects behind for another corner ... which comes to nowt.
40 min Blades are really struggling to get anything going here. They mainly can’t get on the ball in dangerous areas and on the odd occasion they do, there’s nothing they can do with it.
38 min It’s snowing in Sheffield.
36 min “When I see Arteta, I think of the film Moneyball,”says Ruth Purdue. “Brad Pitt as Billy Beane is trying to galvanise his team. ‘It’s a process, it’s a process’ he says as he’s show-talking to lots of different players and trying to get them to improve. Overly simplistic in a good film (my opinion). That’s what Arsenal have to go through, ‘the process’ with some lovely young players, Saka and Martinelli being my favourites.”
I’ve not seen Moneyball, but is that where Louis van Gaal got his “process” mantra from? I agree on Arsenal’s young payers, the problem they have is their senior pros aren’t good enough.
35 min Arsenal quickly try and find a second, Lacazette threading a pass between defenders for Saka, but his first touch lets him down and the ball runs off hit foot and behind.
LOVELY GOAL! Sheffield United 0-1 Arsenal (Lacazette 33)
And there it is! On the edge of the box, Saka plays a quick pass to Lacazette, who knocks off for Saka who finds Ceballos ... whose third lush flick of the evening sticks Lacazette in, and he takes a touch, opens his body, and henries past Ramsdale. It was coming, and it was beautiful.
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32 min Again, Saka finds Martinelli who this time uses his right foot to drill a cross ... but there’s no one there to stick it in. Chambers, though, follows up and opts for control not power, punching a shot into the phalanx of feet between him and goal. Arsenal are going to score shortly.
31 min Martinelli looks lively, and when Saka finds him again – this looks a pretty decent little friendship they’re building –he carves across the face of goal then lets go a shot which Ramsdale parries, following a deflection.
28 min On Smith Rowe, he has a lot of attributes, but currently his numbers aren’t good enough. If you want to play as a number 10 in a serious team, ultimately you need to score and create goals - lots of them - however well you lead the press.
27 min Arsenal look pretty good down the left. If I was Mikel Arteta – for avoidance of doubt, I’m not –I’d be thinking about using Martinelli there in Prague, with Aubameyang in the middle, Saka on the right and Smith Rowe in behind.
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26 min Stevens goes down the left and crosses nicely, but McGoldrick shoves Xhaka in the vicinity of the near post and the ref blows up.
25 min This is good from Arsenal, Lacazette turning up deep inside his own half and near the right touchline, finding Saka who quickly transfers infield to Ceballos. On the run, he skips into a backflick donkey kick that finds Lacazette again, who sets Martinelli away. He’s got options in the middle too, but opts to shot and ruffles the near-post side-netting.
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23 min But seconds later, Ramsdale looks to drill a pass into midfield only to drill one into Lacazette’s midriff. He does very well to have it bounce straight back to him.
22 min A long ball for Martinelli to chase looks for a second like it might materialise into a chance, but Ramsdale does well to charge out and get there first.
22 min Back on the pitch, things have gone a little quiet.
20 min “Obviously Arteta isn’t responsible for the problems that Arsenal have, they pre-dated his tenure by perhaps a decade or more,” emails David Wall. “But it’s also becoming obvious that he isn’t the person to fix those problems. He’s been there over a year and a half but the same old weaknesses don’t seem much improved, if they have been at all. His arrival at Arsenal is frequently compared to Solskjaer’s at United, but Solskjaer very quickly turned around some of the problems at United (in particular the apathy and ill-feeling around the club). Sure, it’s still going to take him some time to get them back to where they were, and perhaps he won’t be able to. But at least there is evidence that they are getting better (much better) than when he arrived. That just doesn’t seem to be true at Arsenal with Arteta.”
I think there are three huge differences between Solskjaer and Arteta:
1) Solskjaer has managed before, winning the league with a club that had never done so before in nearly 100 years of history. People laugh because it was the Norwegian league, but it’s still hard to do what he did - and he did it again.
2) The quality of players. United’s are way, way better.
3) The money available for new players. Again, United have way, way more.
So though I think it’s fair to criticise Arteta, I don’t think it’s especially fair to compare his performance to Solskjaer. He’s a novice, so needs to learn on the job and I think we’ve seen some improvements. His biggest error was not spending last season working out who he wanted to keep and who he needed to bin, and this, taking too long to rely on his younger players.
17 min Saka is getting so much of the ball and finding a decent outlet to his left. This time, Martinelli drills a cross beyond the car post, where Chambers does really well to catch up with the ball, blocking it across the face of the goal – the only thing he can do in the circumstances – but there’s no attacker anywhere near it.
16 min Burke clears the corner at the near post.
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14 min Pepe does well to find Saka, who moves it wide to Martinelli. He feeds Ceballos outside him, but Blades do really well to serry a phalanx of defenders able to block his cross behind.
12 min There’s a real feel of summer about this game – we can’t see the four shadows on each player, so maybe the lights aren’t on ... no, the director cuts to a wide and they are. But still, winter is no longer coming.
10 min First bit of Blades, a loose touch from Saka seized by Lundstram, who slides a decent ball into McGoldrick. But he can’t quite adjust his body-shape as he’d like, drilling a low shot just wide.
9 min I love Saka in midfield because it gives him so much freedom. I’m not sure he can play there for this Arsenal team yet, because they have options in that position and can’t do without what he offers out wide with fewer defensive responsibilities. But he needs to be involved as often as possible, not just when the ball is down one side.
8 min Better feet from Pepe, who finds Saka down the right this time. He feeds a low cross towards the back post, seeking Lacazette, but Egan is on-hand to clear.
6 min Eesh! Stevens, caught all over the place, swings a boot at a long channel ball from Holding like a fairy elephant and Pepe seizes upon it, but he then allows it to stick under his feet and the chance, such that it was, evaporates.
4 min Arsenal have started energetically here; I know it’s fashionable to laugh at them, as it is every football club, but their top level is actually a pretty decent level. The problem they have is improving it but, more pointedly, how they raise their bottom level without the money to seriously overhaul the squad.
2 min Excellent from Arsenal, Martinelli receiving the ball on the edge of the centre-circle snd drifting right then slipping a beautifully disguised pass left, to Saka. The angle, though, is against him, and he lashes a shot over the bar.
1 min Aha! Xhaka is at left-back – “should be left-back in the changing room,” hollers yer da – with Saka in midfield.
1 min Off we go!
The players take a knee. All black lives matter, my friends.
There’ll be some silence for Prince Philip.
BT reckon Baldock is at wing-back for Blades, and Saka is at left-back for Arsenal.
The boyz are baizeing.
“Great end to the season teeing up, I think (fingers crossed),” says Bill Hargreaves. “Plenty to still play for, for so many teams, seemingly.”
I hope so. I think the top two and relegation were pretty much settled today, but the cups and top four should be enjoyable.
I suppose what’s happened to Blades ought not to be shocking. I don’t subscribe to the theory that a team can over or under-perform - how they perform is who they are. But with hindsight, maintaining the standards they set last season, now that teams know what they’re facing and given their small squad and punishing schedule, was a huge ask. How few points they’ve got is more surprising, – hey didn’t play that badly at the start of the season, but contrived to lose every week anyway – which is always a danger when you’ve no reliable scorer.
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Paul Heckingbottom says he wants his players to play on the front foot, and is expecting a fresh Arsenal team given the changes they’ve made. He then says that he’s not too fussed about what they do, and is bothered about how his team perform.
Sheffield United v Arsenal, of course, means we’re obliged to indulge ourselves with this Dennis Bergkamp masterpiece.
Maybe I’m unduly suspicious, but I always thought that when Arsene Wenger offered to replay the original tie, he was certain that would never happen. But, of course, he reckoned without that famous British sense of fair play that some people still think actually exists.
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“Mathematically, everything is possible,” says Arteta of his side’s league prospect, when my BT finally decides to start working, but he wont’ reveal whether Saka is playing left-back. If he’s not, then I don’t see who is.
“I find myself longing to see David Luiz’s name in the lineup,” confesses Chris Hills, “and then realise how poorly that bodes for our defence.”
Yes, I can see that. Blades have scored 17 times in 30 league games, seven fewer than the next-worst, so in theory Arsenal should be ok. But they might also see that as a challenge.
United have beaten Spurs 3-1, Greenwood scoring the clincher in injury-time. They are surely cemented in second place now, but the tussle behind them is warming up nicely.
Back to Martinelli, I know he’s come back from a nasty injury, but I thought we’d have seen more of him this season – he’s playing today mainly because Aubameyang is ill. I guess I didn’t anticipate Pepe’s improvement nor Saka’s move to the wing – I thought he’d stay in midfield – but even so, he might be the future and Lacazette, who’s played loads, absolutely isn’t.
Email! “At other times, at better times,” laments a wistful Charles Antaki, “the Arsenal fan would be entitled to think that playing so many of the first team against the lowliest of the low is in the nature of the hammer, the nut, and the crack. There is, after all, the Europa league coming up. But these are not other times, and certainly not better times.”
It’s tricky, because wins breed wins, and failure to do so here would not send them off to Prague with the happy vibe they’re going to need. But an injury to Saka or Partey would be a fairly significant aggravation.
Elsewhere, Manchester United have come from behind to lead Spurs 2-1, but Spurs are working hard to find an equaliser. Join Rob Smyth to see how it pans out.
It really is ridiculous how good Bukayo Saka is, and in so many positions. Though I’d rather see him play further forward, I’m looking forward to seeing him and Martinelli down the Arsenal left – the potential for overloads would be troubling me if I was whoever’s playing right centre-back and right wing-back for Blades.
Arsenal, meanwhile, rest Gabriel without whom they cannot be in Prague; Bellerin and Cedric are replaced at full-back by Chambers and Saka; Saka’s place on the right of the attack is taken by Pepe with Willian’s, on the left, going to Martinelli; and in behind Lacazette, Smith Rowe’s injury allows Ceballos an opportunity.
Paul Heckinbottom makes three changes from the team that lost at Leeds: Bogle, Jagielka and McBurnie drop out, with Egan, Ampadu and Burke coming in. That means, I think, that Baldock moves from right centre-back to right wing-back, but I guess we’ll see because Stevens can also play there.
Teams!
Sheffield United (a continuity 3-5-2): Ramsdale; Stevens, Ampadu, Egan; Baldock, Fleck, Lundstram, Norwood, Osborn; Burke, McGoldrick. Subs: Foderingham, McBurnie, Mousset, Lowe, Jagielka, Bogle, Brewster, Bryan, Ndiaye.
Arsenal (a classical 4-3-3): Leno; Chambers, Holding, Mari, Saka; Xhaka, Partey, Ceballos; Pepe, Lacazette, Martinelli. Subs: Ryan, Bellerin, Gabriel, Willian, Cedric, Nelson, Elneny, Nketiah, Azeez.
Preamble
First things first: 7pm on a Sunday night is no time for a football match. Perhaps it’s not so bad with no fans in, but once that changes, such narishkeit should be fly-tipped directly into the nearest skip and let us say amen.
Otherwise, and with apologies to Sheffield United who are going down in bottom place, this match is mainly about Arsenal. It’s not hard to denigrate Mikel Arteta – lauded as some kind of tactical shaman, he was given a job he’d done little to earn, has no obvious charisma, and wasn’t a good enough player to inspire by reputation. But it’s also not hard to defend Mikel Arteta – the job he was given is a brute, he found a way to win the cup, and there have been appreciable improvements in his team’s effort, organisation and top level.
Whichever way you lean, Arsenal’s last two performances, in miserable defeat to Liverpool and soul-destroying draw with Slavia, mean he arrives as this match under pressure. What happens this evening won’t affect his position, but a positive result will be helpful in preparing for the game that will: Thursday’s Europa return. My sense is that he’ll start next season however that goes – perhaps he’s well out of a semi against Unai Emery’s Villarreal and anyway, where would the board go next?– but it’s not hard to posit that the task facing him is too big for someone as inexperienced as he.
As for Blades, they’ve lost four straight since beating Villa in Chris Wilder’s final game – in their defence, against decent opposition. But if Arsenal could pick their opponents, this is who they’d be.
Kick-off: 7pm BST
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