Result: Arsenal 1-0 FC Zurich
Competition: Europa League
Date: 3 November 2022
Venue: Emirates Stadium
Arsenal: Ramsdale, White, Holding, Gabriel, Tierney, Elneny, Lokonga, Vieira, Nelson, Jesus, Nketiah
Subs: Hein, Hillson, Partey, Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli, Saliba, Cedric, Tomiyasu, Marquinhos, Zinchenko, Smith
It was 1-0 to The Arsenal on match-day six of the Europa League group stage, courtesy of a brilliant strike from Kieran Tierney.
The result means the Gunners secure top spot and have two less games to worry about in an already-packed season.
PRE-MATCH
Arsenal needed all three points to guarantee top spot in their Europa League group and thus bypass the first knockout round and progress straight into the last-16.
Arteta made seven changes from the team that beat Nottingham Forest on the weekend, with Elneny returning after two months on the sidelines and Nelson starting in attack, following his brace on the weekend. Jesus was perhaps the surprise inclusion in the starting line-up, as he was given the chance to try and end a mini-drought in front of goal.
FIRST HALF
A frantic opening saw Arsenal struggle to get the ball down and play, with Zurich even finding space behind a stretched Gunners midfield and asked questions of the defence. But After a lacklustre first 10 minutes, Arsenal managed to calm the game down and started to gain more of a foothold.
And soon enough, Arsenal took the lead through Kieran Tierney. Some industrious play by Gabriel Jesus started an attack, which eventually led to Fabio Vieira shaping up to shoot, before his blocked effort fell to Tierney who rifled home from the edge of the box. 1-0 to The Arsenal.
The Gunners had a golden chance on the half-hour mark as Eddie Nketiah appeared to have his shirt pulled in the box, but carried on playing and found Vieira, whose shot was blocked by his own man in Jesus, who was in an offside position.
Minutes later, Ramsdale was tested for the first time in the match after a deflected long-range effort threatened to find it’s way into the bottom corner. Then Arsenal went up the other end and won a corner, which found the head of Gabriel, who powered a header towards the roof of the net, but Brecher was equal to it.
Vieira should’ve scored on 40 minutes after some excellent play by Tierney, who was having himself a brilliant game, but the Portuguese midfielder couldn’t convert from close range.
Quite a funny moment just before half-time as Zurich midfielder Selnæs tried to juggle and chest the ball before clearing it from the byline, but a swing and a miss resulted in an Arsenal corner (which nothing came of). Half time.
SECOND HALF
Arsenal started the second half by winning a free-kick in Zurich territory, after Sambi Lokonga was barged from behind, which probably should’ve been a booking. The ball broke to Jesus, who was denied by the goalkeeper. The captain for the night couldn’t hide his frustration at not quite being able to score once again, as he buried his head into the padded pole behind the goal.
Tierney was in the thick of it once again in the 52nd minute when his shirt was pulled so vigorously that it ripped open, exposing his pectoral. A wolf whistle could be heard rising above the crowd noise…
Mikel Arteta made his first changes just after the hour mark, bringing on Thomas Partey and Bukayo Saka for Mohamed Elneny and Gabriel Jesus. In doing so, the manager presumably protected the fitness of the pair coming off and gave Saka some match minutes after he missed most of the game against Forest on the weekend.
With 25 minutes to go, Arsenal were given a wake-up call when Zurich had the ball in the back of the net from a rebound, after an initial save from Ramsdale. However, the flag went up straight away and the goal wouldn’t stand.
On 72 minutes, Arsenal made two more changes – bringing on Takehiro Tomiyasu and Martin Ødegaard replaced Ben White and Fabio Vieira.
As the match entered the latter stages, Arsenal continued to play a dangerous game with their precarious one goal lead. Partey fired a wayward cross-field pass out of play and Zurich nearly took advantage of the resulting attack as a long range effort whizzed over the bar.
Zurich would count themselves lucky not to have a man sent off after a brilliant Tierney header sent Reiss Nelson on his way, before he was sliced down by Katic, who was already on a booking.
Tomiyasu left the pitch only 15 minutes after coming on after he appeared to feel something in his right leg. Not a great sight for the Arsenal faithful and indeed the player, who has just been named in the Japan world cup squad. Cedric Soares was his replacement.
A nervy end to the game saw Zurich pile on the pressure in and around Arsenal’s penalty area. A last minute free-kick for the visitors saw Katic, the man who probably shouldn’t have been on the pitch, fire a header over the bar. The Gunners held on and got the job done in the end. It’s just the small matter of a London derby at Chelsea next for Arteta’s men…
Possibly one of the worst refereeing performance I have ever seen
We weren’t much better.
I know! They fouled all game and the ref allowed it.
Definitely the worst I’ve seen since at least Sunday
Agreed. He was fucking hopeless.
“Hold my beer” says the ref from the Southampton match.
All while Mike Dean considers coming out of retirement as his urge to show all the young upstarts how to be really shit spins out of control.
Is that Manchester Mike Dean,the cheat who ended the invincibles undefeated run when he gave Rooney a penalty for a blatant dive.The man was born in Old Trafford,so biased.
That was Mike Riley.
That and the ref in the Southampton game.Why are the FA now using Rugby referees?
We made a right chore of that!
Dirty bastards and you can stick that drum up you arse.
The most frustrating game I’ve watched in long time. Stoppage after stoppage.
This is a bumpy ride but it’s worth it…
Chelsea here where we come next Sunday.
We are the undisputed European and League leaders
Good result but a very poor game!
Im sorry, that referee was one of the most bent officials i have ever seen. No question, no debate, just bent and clearly on someones payroll. Utterly disgusting. The cheating was so blatant I switched it off in the second half. Im not watching corruption ruin the sport i love. Also I hope Zurich get relegated. A throughly shit and unpleasant team. I thought i was watching an old rerun of stoke vs arsenal. That Altitface went down holding his head like he’d been shot twice when replays show he wasnt touched. Abhorrent cheating. Also fuck the Zurich fans. They… Read more »
Let us never not qualify for the champions league again. So glad that’s over.
Kieran Tierney !!! That’s it really all I have to say
Zürich – specialists in fouls and bus parking. Unlucky cunts, unlucky!
This game perfectly demonstrates exactly why we have no chance of winning the title. We have absolutely no cutting edge. We played both our “strikers” tonight and neither managed to even bother the Zurich keeper. In the second half in particular we were awful and could have thrown it all away.
For the sixth game out of the last seven we’ve failed to score more than one goal. Absolutely pathetic.
Arteta: please go out and buy us a goalscorer in January. If not we might not even finish top four.
GOALS WINS GAMES!
Look, we were bang average tonight but we got the win, qualified in first place and probably had more than one eye on Sunday’s big game. Jesus is the bollocks, he won’t ever let this team down. Reserve judgement til post Wolves on required reinforcements.
Scoring made all the harder by them kicking not just our two strikers but everyone all evening and the ref allowed it to go on.
Ah lad, for some reason I have a respect for you because deep down in all your rambling I can see you are a genuine fan and want arsenal to do well. But still you quite clearly go out of your way to be negative sometimes. It seems to me that your self aware alá Roy Keane and you feel you have to live up to your negative personality. Jesus it’s a great time to be a gunner, you’ll be dead long enough, enjoy it!
Fatgooner has dual personality – just like Norman Bates in Psycho.😄
Norman’s two personalities were different, the fat man’s are miserable and fucking miserable. Glass half empty doesn’t even begin to explain it. I like his posts though, he’s been right about a good few things over the years that nobody else wanted to admit.
Goals win games I suppose. But what do I know. English is my L2.
Well pedantic’d. I noticed it too. It’s a curse. 😉
We’re on pace for 91 goals in the league mate
Think you’re wrong fat man. It was an typical disjointed Europa league game. How many of them have have we suffered through at this stage?. I’ll take the positives from it, topped the group smash the chavs Sunday. Top of the league and 2 less Europa games to play.
Agree with you. Playing against Zurich at home, on backfoot and with our main players brought on, it didn’t look good. What is with Arsenal trying to defend 1-0 lead and make the right mess of it? We fail to do simplest of the things like basic defending because of nervousness, even against lowly oppositions.
Okay, Man City away to Copenhagen and Dortmund? Dude, who hurts you
How did we manage to just scrape through against the Swiss League’s bottom team?
Yet another poor EL performance from us. We’ve seen the pattern the latest EL matches, our next best players aren’t able to kill of the matches, being slowly overmatched by stronger players and when Mikel throw in the first team players the rhytm is not there. Partey , a brilliant game Sunday,poor today. Disappointed with both Sambi and Vieira,too easy pushed of the ball and surprisingly bad in position and passing. Good to se Elneny back in action, when he was on the pitch we had good control and a physical presence much needed. The ref? Has the “let it… Read more »
These are games where Fabio has to offer more. That tame shot from him late in the first half was pathetic. One of the best chances of the game.
A poor performance with only Tierney meeting his standard. Lokonga is rapidly proving pointless. Nketiah is clearly nit good enough. A disjointed team display partly explainable but the lack of impact by back up members is highlighting the paucity of the squad
Job done and pleased for KT, but Zurich were a dirty bunch whose only way to stop our lads was to kick, shove and elbow. That, combined with the latest useless tosser in black waving play on means that the odds on one of our boys sustaining a serious injury grow shorter all the time.
Let’s also hope that Tommi’s knock isn’t too bad either.
Still, job done, top of the group, no extra games and now two league games left before the World Cup.
COYG
Two league games and 6 points in the bag.
Let’s hope so mate.
It’s not our ability I fear – we’re more than capable of winning both games.
It’s VAR and the Twats In Black – and a developing but all too familiar pattern.
The anti-Arsenal agenda of yore is alive and kicking. And shoving, shirt pulling and cheating, et all…..
Any ideas why arsenal suffered through mostly poor officiating of late? A soccer jersey ripped? Kidding?
Most of you are much too young to have seen itand probably didn’t care if you are my Age but go find Nebraska Oklahoma football clips when both teams wore tear away jerseys circa 1970.
Couldn’t tackle any one by the jersey Shortly after the jerseys were banned.
I have been think Jesus should start wearing one.
Thumbs up from me just for this reference to college football when I was 2 years old. Respect.
https://twitter.com/nflfilms/status/1448702644411846656?lang=en
I remember some of these plays. Enjoy. But this is what Jesus needs
Just back from my first two games since covid and very happy with two wins.
Sunday was great, today less so. The ref was atrocious and we weren’t much better.
Bags were searched at the ground and I had to explain what my epi-pens were so how did they bring all those flares in to the ground. There was a huge police presence afterwards and we were kettled to a route that added at least 30 minutes to our walk home. Frustrating.