Napoli vs Arsenal: Gunners Face Tough Champions League Test in Italy
Scintillating football on display in the super sunday clash, Arsenal Vs Chelsea, at the Emirates. The first heavyweight clash of the season and Arsenal outclassed their London rivals two goals to one.
The game itself was a very exciting one, highly pulsating end to end battle. A lot of neutrals found it very, very enjoyable. And, you know, that label of boring Arsenal was put to the side because everybody had a match that they couldn’t take their eyes off. And that is what happens when teams dont sit back in lowblocks against us which is good. The problem is, most teams know they'd get beat so they decide not to go for it, and then rivals say Arsenal play Haram ball. Shaking my head. Anyway
Now we move on to the Champions League, and the Gunners have a date with Napoli in Italy. This is where the real business starts in Europe, and with some much tougher tests coming later in the competition, Arsenal needs to get going early.
Arsenal vs Chelsea Review (#EPL)
Chelsea came with their blocks flying while the roadshow was scoring a goal under two, three minutes. And, of course, Arsenal was staring down the barrel, but the boys rose to the occasion.
Calafiori put one in the net in under fifteen minutes. However, it was ruled for offside, rightfully so. But the Gunners, the lads, picked themselves up, kept pushing, kept punching, stifling Chelsea, pushing them back until Kai Havertz once again delivered the goods, equalising for Arsenal on twenty-five minutes. He got the ball, cut inside, moved, shimmying on his left, and he just smashed one into Martinez’s near post. And I’m sure Martinez wouldn’t really, really like that. But, if you’re asking, he was obscured by the many players that were standing in front of him, and he couldn’t get down quickly enough to save it once he saw the ball coming.
Raya also could have done better. But, again, the ball from Rogers was also through the legs of a couple of players, and Raya couldn’t get down quickly enough to save it. What I liked, though, was the way the Arsenal players stuck to their guns, kept pushing, kept pressing Chelsea and not giving them a hair’s breadth. Of course, Chelsea had some moments, but never really threatening Raya’s goalpost. And that is exactly what we wanted to see. Arsenal getting the equaliser took the game to Chelsea, and the half finished out at one-one.
Well, after the interval, the lights came out, and they went out again at Chelsea, pressing them hard, not really giving them a hairspray. And that goal, that’s a goal by Odegaard. The whole move was just sublime. Turning Chelsea over in midfield, Odegaard started the move, shifted the ball out to the wings. Calafiori sent it to Tzolis. Tzolis’ decision-making, as usual, sending the ball into a dangerous half-space area, right in Chelsea’s box, and Kai Havertz with that wonderful dummy that left Fofana mannequined, allowing Odegaard to smash the winner past Martinez into the net for the win. The Gunners, once in the lead, were rarely gonna relinquish it. Of course, call it ominous or whatever, it was always gonna be difficult for Chelsea to get back in. Estevao did come close to putting one in the top corner of the net against the Gunners, but there you know who, the best keeper in the #EPL right now, David Raya, putting up another wonderful save for the lads to ensure we closed the game out with three points in the bag. Raya went to have a cheeky little chat with Estevao after the game, like "I saw what you tried to do to me back there lil bro" they both had a laugh, good sportsmaship with game recognising game.
What I'd say for Alonso and his Chelsea boys, they tried. But, you know, the gulf in class really showed up at the end. Yes, they have a very frightening front three, but the midfield and defence was nowhere near good enough compared to what Arsenal was able to marshal. I mean, look at the players that Arsenal brought off the bench. You had Zubimendi, World Cup winner. You have Merino, World Cup winner. You had Gyokeres. And who were the people that Chelsea brought on to save the day? Malo Gusto, a right-back who is not exactly world class.
The players Arsenal didn’t even feature, you had Eze and Bruno. They both didn’t even feature. I mean, the depth of the squad is just incredible. And that, for us, for me, is something that keeps Arsenal heads and shoulders above quite a number of teams in Europe. I’m not even just talking about the EPL here. Anyway, that said, Chelsea did well. They tried, but the Gunners were just too good enough. That’s three wins for the Gunners in three, one goal conceded and six scored. Bodes well for us. We are joint top of the log with Manchester City. Alonso also seems to be getting his message across. They have a frightening attack. We all know that. He will most likely be able to stabilise that midfield and sort out the defence.
He needs time, though. Hopefully, their one-week game-to-game might be the tonic or the time that they need for them to be able to get the team to understand the way they wanna play. So I’ll say in the next two seasons, if Chelsea sticks with Alonso, they have a lot to look forward to. But for now, Arsenal is definitely head and shoulders above them and most of the teams... a lot of the teams in Europe, if not just the Premier League.
Napoli vs Arsenal Preview (#UCL)
So we move on to the Gunners. They have four games to play, all away, across three competitions. First, the Champions League. They have a date with Napoli. Then they have Sunday, another away game at the weekend. And then in midweek, they have the EFL Cup tie to also navigate before they come back to the EPL. It’s really gonna be crunch time across the next one to two weeks for the team, but with the depth of the squad, hopefully we will be able to navigate this tricky set of away games without losing or dropping any points. Touch wood.
So onto the next game, which is the Champions League match against Napoli in Italy.
Napoli has not exactly been in the best run of form in the last five, six games, winning two, drawing one and losing two. In fact, they’ve lost the last two Serie A games against Como and Inter Milan. Arsenal, on the other hand, has been on a good run of form, winning the last four, five games across preseason and Premier League competitions. It doesn’t mean anything, though, if the teams are not up for it. You get smacked because this is the UEFA Champions League, and everybody has to come with their A-game. The Gunners playing away also means that they have to really, really be disciplined in their defensive shape from the midfield to the defence and take the opportunities when they come because Napoli will give up... they will definitely give up some chances to the Gunners.
Napoli has a few concerns in terms of key players who are out due to suspension or some kind of injury. We have McTominay, who was once their player of the season, being out with an injury. We have Buongiorno also injured. We also have Giovanni injured, and, of course, Anguissa is injured. Arsenal, on the other hand, has a full squad by one or two key players. We’re talking about Timber being out, his back, but he’s not yet fully fit. Saliba, of course, is out with a long-term injury, and Mosquera is also out with injury.
Besides those three players, Arsenal has a full squad to choose from.
Arteta, I expect, should do some rotation considering the fact that some people actually need game time. The likes of Mikel Merino, Zubimendi, Eze and Gyokeres need match sharpness via game time, so Mikel Arteta needs to find a way to rotate while still fielding strength for the game. Napoli is still a strong side. The likes of Kevin De Bruyne can be very dangerous, even though they don’t have strikers as good as Victor Osimhen as before. But Allegri is still a top coach, and I expect them to put on some fight. But at the end of the day, I still would believe that we have more than enough to come away with a result from Italy, preferably a win. Especially when you think about how Madrid went away last night and City also got off to a winning start away at Porto. So the onus is on Arsenal to really get going because there are much tougher tests along the way. We have Madrid. We have Bayern and co. So these are some of the games where we need to pick up valuable points for us to have a good run-in in this competition, especially when we’re looking to go a step further by winning it. All in all, I’d expect us to have way too much for Napoli to handle, especially with their injuries to key players. We must not underestimate them though. That would be dangerous to do. Matches aren’t won on paper but on the field of play. My team sheet would look like this with a temptation to start Marli Salmon at right-back due to Ben White’s delicate fitness in recent months. He only just recovered from injury. Mikel should show some common sense by learning from past mistakes. It also shows trust to the young lad. He is next in line to break into the senior squad.
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