{"id":407944,"date":"2026-04-20T08:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/407944\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T08:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T08:39:11","slug":"a-last-redemptive-twist-is-still-possible-for-arsenal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/407944\/","title":{"rendered":"A last redemptive twist is still possible for Arsenal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s not done. It\u2019s not done.\u201d Declan Rice<\/a> was doing his best to be defiant.<\/p>\n

Arsenal<\/a> have rightly been accused of indulging in a lot of unconvincing psychomotivational nonsense on this title run in. When Mikel Arteta<\/a> claimed last week with bright and brittle intensity: \u201cFire! I\u2019m on fire!\u201d \u2013 the natural human response was to laugh.<\/p>\n

But in that moment, rising from the pitch seconds after the final whistle at the Etihad, Rice looked like he actually believed what he was saying. Certainly there suddenly seemed more conviction about him than there was in his interview after Arsenal\u2019s 0-0 draw against Sporting Lisbon on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Asked how \u201cfrustrating\u201d he\u2019d found that Arsenal performance, Rice had reacted with obvious irritation: \u201cFrustrating? Nah, we just got to a semi-final. No frustration, positivity all the way. Who cares what people think. All that matters is what this group think, what the manager thinks.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was plain that Rice knew that Arsenal had played terribly, that if they played like that again at Manchester City<\/a> they would certainly lose, and that he was worried this would be the case.<\/p>\n

But Arsenal did not play terribly against Manchester City. They lost anyway, but maybe there was enough to persuade them that there is still hope. A last redemptive twist is still possible.<\/p>\n

Arteta\u2019s set-up for the game had been more enterprising than many people had expected for a match his team only needed to draw. In the first half, and until their energy failed in the second, Arsenal played with an aggressive man-to-man press, hunting City in their own half.<\/p>\n

After 16 minutes Arsenal absorbed a demoralising blow when Rayan Cherki danced between their three towers, Gabriel, Rice and William Saliba, to score one of the goals of the season. It was a resonant narrative moment: Arsenal\u2019s planning, effort and diligence undone by superior talent.<\/p>\n

Yet in the very next minute Arsenal equalised with a goal as ridiculous as Cherki\u2019s had been sublime.<\/p>\n

Receiving the ball from the kick-off, David Raya kicked deliberately for touch and Arsenal pushed up to press the City throw-in. Matheus Nunes, taking the throw for City, saw all his team-mates on the nearside tightly marked, spotted Nico O\u2019Reilly on the far side totally free, and decided to throw it back to his goalkeeper Gigi Donnarumma for what should then have been a simple pass to the free man.<\/p>\n

\"GianluigiGianluigi Donnarumma of Manchester City after miskicking his clearance straight to Kai Havertz. Photograph: Michael Regan\/Getty <\/p>\n

Instead, Donnarumma showed us why Luis Enrique decided to let him leave Paris St Germain. His touch was heavy, his approach to the ball was slow, and by the time he connected Kai Havertz was already on him, tackling the ball directly into the net.<\/p>\n

People scoring by tackling the keeper used to be the stuff of bloopers-of-the-decade videos. Football in the Premier League has changed so much that Havertz\u2019s goal was the second time in the match that this situation had happened. Erling Haaland<\/a> had nearly scored the same kind of goal at the other end a few minutes earlier, after David Raya took a heavy touch on a pass from Gabriel.<\/p>\n

It feels absurd to watch teams so often giving goals away by casually taking risks that would have been unthinkable to previous generations of footballers.<\/p>\n

Now that many teams have essentially given up on creative play in favour of pressing their opponent\u2019s build-up \u2013 because if teams insist on passing it around in their own box and refuse to clear their lines, this is now the richest hunting ground for chances \u2013 maybe a rebalancing is overdue.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Ken Early: Caution and stop-start play are taking all the fun out of footballOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

It felt almost farcical that the Cherki and Havertz goals were worth the same, and the sheer foolishness of the concession rattled City and knocked them out of their rhythm. For a time it felt as though maybe Arsenal really could press their way to victory.<\/p>\n

Just before the hour Arsenal created their best chance so far, but Martin Odegaard\u2019s pass was a little heavy and Havertz, off-balance, couldn\u2019t beat Donnarumma, who now showed the good side of his game. A minute later the City keeper was clawing at air as Eberechi Eze curled a left-footer around him from the edge of the box \u2013 but the ball bounced across goal instead of in.<\/p>\n

\"EberechiEberechi Eze of Arsenal takes a shot that hits the post. Photograph: Carl Recine\/Getty <\/p>\n

Arsenal could smell blood and maybe the excitement was what caused Gabriel Martinelli to make the mistake that led to Arsenal\u2019s downfall, pressing not wisely but too well. He went to chase Marc Guehi, forgetting about Nico O\u2019Reilly, who sneaked into the space behind him to receive a throw from Donnarumma and ran 50 yards into the Arsenal half.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Reilly\u2019s eventual cross squirted between Rodri and William Saliba, and Haaland reacted faster than Gabriel to club it past Raya.<\/p>\n

The big disappointment for Arsenal is how little they managed to create in that last half-hour of chasing the game. When on 96 minutes they did finally set up a glorious chance for Havertz, he missed a header that could have been legendary.<\/p>\n

This performance was not an Arsenal choke. It was a game of many astonishing near-misses that they could easily have won.<\/p>\n

But if they don\u2019t win the league the campaign will be remembered as a choke. Arsenal have lost four of their last six matches, having lost just three of the previous 49. They have the strongest squad in a league that they led, just two weeks ago, by nine points. They have seized up under the pressure and, in the circumstances, an unprecedented fourth second-place finish in a row would be bitter and humiliating.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Troy Parrott lifts first senior trophy as AZ Alkmaar win Dutch CupOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

They can still cling to the hope that it might never happen. Maybe they can steel themselves for battle by thinking of that awful Manchester City fan who was there again cavorting for the cameras with his little Arsenal bottle.<\/p>\n

He was acting as though it was already over, but City still need to win five more games. All the pressure has passed over to them.<\/p>\n

For Arsenal, the worst has already happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s not done. It\u2019s not done.\u201d Declan Rice was doing his best to be defiant. Arsenal have rightly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[15133,28473,28468,61,60,7520,8579,15687,16909,1102,3405,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-407944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-declan-rice","10":"tag-erling-haaland","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-ken-early","14":"tag-manchester-city","15":"tag-mikel-arteta","16":"tag-pep-guardiola","17":"tag-premier-league","18":"tag-soccer","19":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}