Whoa! Leno saves it onto the bar, then Giroud volleys it back off the bar. Yikes!!! +6mins... can we possibly hold them off that long???
"Leno made a mess of that" Really? Looked like he saved our ass to me. This commentator really is shit
FT... Chelsea 0-1 Arsenal... Holy Heck Batman! I guess Arteta thought this WAS a cup final. He sure played it like one. Plus lady luck was definitely on our side tonight. And woohoo! we’re up to 8th place, at least temporarily. Just stay away from 7th place please (Europa Conference League) Small smile on my face. Onward...
You might look at the overall statistics and think Chelsea bossed the game and arsenal were lucky not to lose. But were we not the better team in the second half? I think so and Chelsea looked so poor to me.
Tough loss guys, but lots to take heart from. Had a ton of the ball, had a ton of chances, and if it wasn't for a howler we'd have probably won it.
I feel like we have been in the reverse situation of this game far too many times, so we were bound to have one go our way eventually.
Watching the replay on the post-game, it looks like Leno's right knee gave out a little bit when he planted to backpedal, so he couldn't get his momentum going, nor the height he normally would on his jump, and barely got the side of his palm on the header. I think that he comfortably pushes it over the bar 99% of the time.
Two thoughts: 1. El oh el 2. This reminded me a lot of the win over Liverpool in a similarly consequence-free game last season.
This may have been answered, did the ref play advantage from the errant back pass? Technically Kepa handled a back pass so it should be an indirect FK from where he touched it right? If Arsenal hadn’t scored and that was called that would’ve been insane, it was like on the goal line!
If it happens inside the six yard box, the ifk is taken from the six yard line. He must’ve been playing advantage (or, more likely wasn’t thinking about it yet), because Kepa would have to be sent off if he wasn’t.
I got the impression that the ref kind of missed the fact that it was a backpass. I know I did. I was so distracted by the fact that Kepa had to scramble to keep it out, I lost sight of what caused that in the first place. Or it could be that the refs did some kind of quick judgmental calculus that allowing us to play on and score was more to our advantage overall than sending off Kepa and giving us an indirect FK in front of goal would've been. Someone did some quick research at the time (higher up in this thread) which showed that those 2 options were pretty even in probability of us scoring. Thing is once we scored that goal, it was a bird in the hand, and it's hard to imagine anyone wanting to chalk that off, so as to spin the roulette wheel again. Either Andre Mariner or Mikel Arteta. Luckily in the end it all worked out. And it turned out to be the decisive moment in the game, which we can say we actually capitalized on with positive skill & composure. Better than if we'd won the game by some random PK from minor contact in the box. But in the end, this match was one of those in which all the planets aligned for us. Nice to see that can still go our way from time to time. And we managed not to negate it by shooting ourselves in the foot, which we're more than capable of doing. (Mari almost became that scapegoat, but Havertz completely flubbed that one-on-one gift) And the result of this match is going to make the run-in that much more interesting, not just for us, but for the 3-4 other clubs who are vying for the last 2 spots for UCL.
thank you. was about to come ask about that. i personally missed it in the jubilation of us scoring before being reminded of it by a comment on twitter. it'd be handling a backpass, right? does prevention of goal scoring opportunity come into it at all? also, you could play advantage and still come back and give the card.
Huh. Not nearly as bad as I feared. xG map for Chelsea - Arsenalone huge error vs 90 minutes of territorial dominance pic.twitter.com/7OB9J3LvxV— Caley Graphics (@Caley_graphics) May 12, 2021
without checking, i don't think so. i wanna say he was at just about 80 after the first 4 years but was essentially frozen out at the end. EDIT: holy shit. i was dead wrong. 73 league goals in 180 appearances. 16 goals in 38 appearances in europe. 13 goals in 23 appearances in national cup (FA cup). 2 goals in 9 league cup appearances. and 1 goal in 3 community shield games.
As you know I'm not an xG maven, but how do you square this with what we watched? They had complete shot dominance over us: 19(5) v 5(2). They hit the bar twice in a 15 second span late in the game. Havertz had a "sure goal" one-on-one early on. Wouldn't those 2 (at least) have brought their xG up higher? Not to mention whatever other chances they had in between, which aren't coming to mind right now.