It wasn’t going to happen. Then it was. And then it wasn’t. And then VAR, glorious VAR. I’ve never said a bad thing about VAR, after all. Arsenal tried to give us all a heart attack, but it still goes down as 1-0 to the Gunners. Tow more wins. That’s all that is standing between the club and a Premier League title.
I hardly know where to begin breaking down today’s match. After a scrappy opening 5 minutes, Arsenal settled into the match nicely. The ball was zipping around and the attack was creating
chances. Riccardo Calafiori was causing all sorts of problems in open play and West Ham were at sixes and sevens defending corners. Arsenal had at least three “how’d they not score there” goalmouth scrambles.
The injury to Ben White and Mikel Arteta’s substitution in response, changed the balance of the match entirely. Moving Declan Rice to RB was a really poor decision. Without Rice in the middle of the park, West Ham were able to win second balls, step up their physicality, and muddy up the match. I found myself hoping for the halftime whistle so that Arteta and the squad could regroup, sort things out, and come out with a new plan.
What a cruel turn of fate for Ben White. Off the back of his best performance for the club in two-plus seasons, he suffers what looks like serious injury in the very next game. Mikel Arteta said “it doesn’t look good” in his press conference. The Arsenal manager also confirmed an issue for Riccardo Calafiori (shocker).
Mikel Arteta took Riccardo Calafiori off at halftime to put Cristhian Mosquera at right back, moved Myles Lewis-Skelly to left back, and put Declan Rice back in midfield. That made things better, but the Arsenal attack was left fairly toothless. Without Ben White behind him, Bukayo Saka struggled to get involved in the game. Martin Zubimendi putting in a(nother) stinker didn’t help things, either. I’m not sure whether the Spanish midfielder is exhausted, carrying an injury, or something else, but he’s really struggled down the stretch.
If we’re going to rightly criticize Mikel Arteta for his changes in response to the injury, it’s only fair to praise him for making the bold call to yank Martin Zubimendi midway through the second half. It’s tough to pull a substitute, but Zubi didn’t have it and taking him off was the right move.
Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz made an immediate impact, controlling the ball, pushing Arsenal up the pitch, and sparking the attack around the West Ham box. Ødegaard created what could become one of the biggest goals in club history. He darted into the box and found Leandro Trossard in a pocket of space for the Belgian to rip a shot into the low corner.
Arsenal wouldn’t have been in that position if it hadn’t been for David Raya’s heroics minutes earlier to keep the score at 0-0. On somewhat of a broken play, Mateus Fernandes corralled a bouncing ball through the middle, laid it off to Pablo, who put Fernandes in on goal at close range. Raya was quick off his line to make a magnificent reaction kick save on the gilt-edged chance. A save that should go down in Arsenal history just as much as Trossard’s goal should the Gunners go on to win the title.
There are no words to properly describe the shock and despair we all felt at seeing Callum Wilson’s rebound shot cross the line in the 95th minute. To have come so close to a gutsy away win against a desperate side with the Premier League title hanging in the balance.
But VAR was our saving grace. Before going any further — there is nothing controversial about the decision. The “controversy” is entirely driven by the emotion of the moment and the desperate desire for narrative. There were two clear fouls committed against David Raya. Pablo has an arm across his upper body to grab Raya’s left arm, preventing the keeper from what would have been a relatively simple claim of the ball. Ultimately, I think that’s why the goal was correctly disallowed. But for good measure, Jean-Clair Todibo has a handful of Raya’s jersey from behind, so much so that the pull is unmistakable from the way the fabric is moving.
The controversy would have been if VAR had not ruled the goal out. Had that same sequence happened at any moment in any match that wasn’t the last gasp of a team battling to stay up against a team fighting for the title, nobody would give it a second thought. The neutral pundits, even those with every reason in the world to dislike Arsenal, thought it was a foul.
Remember: to overturn a goal given on the field, you need a clear and obvious error. We’re not talking about a case at the margins here. This wasn’t a decision that could go either way. By VAR protocol, it can’t be. Whatever you may think about the jostling, clutching, and grabbing on corners — and there is plenty of it between outfield players in the Premier League this season that has been let go, including on this particular corner — the PL consistently protects the goalkeeper. You can’t grab the goalkeeper, particularly not in a way that prevents him from raising his arms to claim the ball. There is absolutely nothing inconsistent or controversial about making that call, with or without the aid of VAR.
It doesn’t really matter. The would-be West Ham equalizer didn’t count. Arsenal won. We’re two wins away.
