Phill’s Diary – Arsenal (a) 2-0 defeat

Phill reflects on the bare bones of Luton Town giving as good as they got against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium

First things first, in what was a make shift line up punctuated by players playing out of position, we gave a good account of ourselves last night in North London. I can’t fault the effort of the players and the fact that the likes of Hashioka and Doughty took nasty looking knocks and carried on right until the end is a credit to the mentality of this special squad. Speaking of mentality, I’ve noticed on at least 2 occasions now that the spine of our team has truly dogged, determined winners in it, with Teden Mengi and Ross Barkley going at each other again. I think their desire to win, despite everything that’s going against us at the minute is a testament to both of them and I hope that we get out of this and see a smile on both of their faces come the final day.

The game itself was always going to be a tough one, with Arsenal fresh from a clean sheet away to the Champions Manchester City. Arsenal have a truly fantastic back line and we were afforded no favours by Mikel Arteta’s rotation of players, with Gabriel and Saliba in place to nullify Carlton Morris.

We started off well, restricting Arsenal’s changed line up to play around the edge of our area, without Kaminski really being tested, until an unfortunate individual error led to a quick transition and a well-timed 1-2 between Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz before Norwegian smashed into the bottom corner past Kaminski. It felt like a real suckerpunch as we’d battled through the first 20mins and were looking to grow into the game, Ross Barkley spraying passes around and beginning to enjoy the task in hand at spinning and cutting through the Arsenal midfield.

Trossard was a skilful threat on Arsenal’s left wing, doubling up with Smith-Rowe and Zinchenko, eventually leading to Smith-Rowe finding Reiss Nelson in the 6 yard box to add a second goal before half time. Upon reflection it appears Hashioka was unfortunate to get the vital touch that led to the goal, but the 2 goal deficit at half time was tough to take.

The second half we gave it a go and had a few crosses that just seemed to be the opposite of the delivery that was needed, chipped up when it felt a low fizzer would have worked and vice versa, but our goal-scoring run comes to an end at The Emirates.

The Emirates then…so quickly after the trip to White Hart Lane is an interesting comparison. In my opinion the Emirates was the forerunner to the Spurs stadium, the sweeping eyeline at the crest of the stadium, the roomy seats and the facilities that are pretty good but overpriced. Spurs have done this but its newer (obviously) and just appears (on the face of it) to have benefitted from the hindsight of the Arsenal stadium and done things just that little bit better; for example the 4 giant screens that allow you to follow the game when you can’t see up the other end, but are showing the live action instead of a scoreboard. Little things that make sense.

Where I thought Arsenal was better (admittedly probably aided largely by the scoreline), was the atmosphere the fans created. As much as I thought North London Forever was a sh*t rip off attempt of You’ll Never Walk Alone or even Nottingham Forest’s Mull of Kintyre, it certainly beats the woeful trumpet used at Spurs pre-game. Arsenal are trying to make an effort to build an atmosphere at home, having moved to The Emirates in 2006 (it’s taken its sweet time). They have a core of fans sat in the Clock End, near the away end, trying to get a bit of back & forth going, but again, a fan base that relies on a drum, I just can’t appreciate that.

The Hatters now move on to a home fixture against Bournemouth, looking to exact revenge on them following their overhaul of our 3-0 half time lead at theirs not so long ago. Hopefully we’ll have a couple of options returning in the coming days, but whoever we have available, what we can rest assured of is the fact they’ll sure as hell give their all and give it a go. This is the start of a crucial run of games (exclude Man City away) that could define our status at this level, so above all else, be loud on Saturday against Bournemouth and fuel the boys. We can do this. Keep the faith and let’s do this.