Sorry for the VERY late match day post. I took two kids to Miami at 2am and had hands down the worst behaved kids on the plane. Absolute horrors. I should have called the police and had them removed.
But I’m in Miami, and damn, why don’t I live here?
This is going to be a tough review of the Wolves game, because in the grand scheme of things, the only important thing we’ll remember about this game is that we won it. Last year it was a draw, we feel sorry for ourselves and cry that at the end of the season we will regret the points lost. And guess what: those tears were true last season, when we dropped four points in December.
Wolves were a non-entity of a team. They came to block passing lanes, waste time and defend as if their Premier League survival bonuses depended on it.
And they were good.
Arteta went from XI for defeat. He rolled out all his favorite pieces, hoping to make up the goal difference and give Edwards and his boyhood club a thrashing. The NBC commentators suggested they might be hiding behind the couch. I thought we were going to muster them. Every Arsenal fan in the car on the way up dreamed of cricket scores.
Well, the Premier League gods have a way of telling you to go fuck yourself if you think you’ve won the match before a player has even entered the stadium, because we were really, really average.
We dominated possession but we couldn’t find runs or passes in the final third. This wasn’t a “wow, we’re bursting through the door” game. This happened in a lot of games last season, where we became addicted to the horseshoe of death and threw high balls to attackers who were not ideally suited to them.
But at times like these you have to be an adult. You have to understand that the Invincibles went to Birmingham twice and Portsmouth twice on their way to history. Bad games happen to elite teams, and that was a bad game. Liverpool needed a late penalty to beat the worst Southampton team of all time last season. Man City needed a 91st minute winner and a fake injury team talk to beat Leeds a few weeks ago. If you’re looking at Arsenal and crying that we don’t have what it takes after beating Wolves late, you’re not looking at what the teams around us are doing at the moment, and you haven’t looked at Liverpool’s historic good fortune last season.
Arteta’s biggest problem, apart from breaking players, is that he has never been a Lucky General. But this season, things appear to be changing, and Wolves captured the new momentum.
We beat them 2-1 without scoring a goal. Saka took a shot from a free kick, hitting the back post and then the back of Sam Johnstone’s head. A disgustingly lucky goal.
Wolves had one of their two adventures in the second half and scored a great header goal. It came from Arokodare in the 90th minute. It felt like one of those iconic moments where you look back and say, damn, then it fell apart in 2025-2026.
But after seeing another drip of lager from Gyokeres, a small glass of champagne arrived to change the outcome in the 94th minute. Saka, from the right, threw a beautiful ball into Jesus’ run. Mosquera tried to rugby tackle him, and as he tried to stop the inevitable header, he put it into his own net.
That, my friends, is what happens to title winners.
We didn’t give up like the fans who left early.
We believed.
We made our own luck and were able to fight another day.
Those three points, the way we did, playing the way we did, will hopefully be the mental sharpener we need to get through the Everton game.
I can’t quite put my finger on what went wrong in that game. Viktor is so ill-suited for deep blocks and big air balls. I mean, he really doesn’t look like he’s fit right now. He has played nineteen games so far and only scored in four. My disappointment with him is that his one superpower was having to try again and again. Yesterday he looked defeated. He was overpowered by average defenders and managed just one shot against a historically poor side. He can’t create for himself even when the team is diabolical.
Compare that to the eye test with Gabi Jesus. He can create space, beat defenders from a standstill, hang on the last shoulder, draw people in and operate like a genius in tight spaces.
But he wasn’t the only one. Eze was not at the races and was replaced by Odegaard. It was one match too many for Zubi, who looked gassed. Martinelli once again showed that he seems better at influencing matches in the Champions League. Trossard ultimately showed how to do things against teams that don’t know how to play.
Declan gets a hall pass because he played due to an illness… the man is a machine. He really wants the Premier League this season.
But then again, this is football. These performances only matter if you keep serving them. You only remember them if you lose points. We won ugly and lucky, and that’s a good thing, especially when you’re at the top of the two leagues.
If you draw any profound conclusions from that performance, apart from the fact that Arteta plays Ben White three games in a row and destroys him with an inexplicable decision, then I fear you are trying to build an agenda against the manager.
We have a whole week to prepare for Everton. That will be a difficult match, but an important one to correct last night’s problems.
Okay, that’s all I have. Check out the earlybird On The Whistle! X
#WOLVES #TERRIBLE #WAYS