Match report –By the numbers – Player ratings – Video
The game had moved into the single minute of injury time in the first half when Mathieu Debuchy found space down the right hand side. Not for the first time, he put in a tasty cross which a Besiktas defender headed clear.
Jack Wilshere kept the ball alive, played it to Mesut Ozil who flicked the ball first time back towards the England man with the outside of his boot. As Wilshere ran onto it, he realised Alexis was in a better position to take advantage, checked his run, and allowed the former Barcelona man to side-foot home his first Arsenal goal.
And what a big goal it turned out to be. The kind of goal that repays some of the fee paid to Barcelona. The kind of goal that is practically worth paying £30m for anyway. It was the moment that put Arsenal into the group stages of the Champions League for the seventeenth successive season, but as tight as the game was I don’t think there’s any real doubt we deserved it on the night.
The team was as I’d hoped yesterday, but I think it’s fair to say that this is a system we’re going to have to get used to. We’re so accustomed to playing with Giroud as the focal point of the attack it looked as if we didn’t quite know what to do at times. That’s also true of Alexis who is going to have to get some games under his belt to grow into his new role in the team, but even if the Chilean struggled a bit in the first half, he put in a monumental shift in the second and it appeared as if he was finding his feet somewhat.
Yet he wasn’t the only one who worked hard. I think that’s true of the entire team. Afterwards, it was interesting to hear Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain say:
We’ve got a great togetherness, we haven’t played at our best maybe this season but we stuck together and did what we had to do.
Hard to argue with that, right? Performance wise we haven’t clicked yet this season, but what’s holding it all together is a group of players who are working their holes off for each other. Previous incarnations might well have capitulated at Everton, might not have got that late winner against Palace, and when you consider the paucity of character in some of our former players that last 15 minutes against Besiktas would surely have seen us crumble.
I thought the referee had started the game well, but by the middle of the second half he was getting his yellow out like a flasher’s mickey on a crowded train. Mathieu Debuchy can have no real complaints about his first yellow card, he turned his shoulder into man in the air, but I thought the second was very harsh. It was two players battling in the midfield and he got the ball (albeit with a little bit of a grapple but not one that was worthy of a second yellow and a sending off in such a crucial game).
That the referee then booked a 19 year old for ‘entering the field without permission’ even though the board had been held up showed what we were up against. Down to 10 men, with 15 minutes + injury time to go, and having to deal with an overly fussy official who would surely have loved a chance to make the game more about him.
Yet the character in this team came to the forefront immediately. Chambers went off, came back on, and the first thing he did was storm down the right hand side and set up a chance for Alexis. When there was a 50-50 to be won, he absolutely monstered a perfectly timed sliding tackle to come away with the ball. That’s what I mean about us not folding and it was brilliant to see.
Of course we should have won it more easily with two fantastic chances just before the sending off. For the first Alexis could have shot when we had a three on two break but fed Cazorla whose effort was blocked. Then Nacho Monreal set up Oxlade-Chamberlain with a tap-in but he hit it straight at the keeper when he really ought to have made the game safe.
However, for all their huff and puff (not to mention some pretty nasty fouls), Besiktas didn’t really threaten. There was a heart in mouth moment late on when Demba Ba contrived to miss a header at the back post, but throughout the game Szczesny didn’t have a save to make and credit to the way we played and defended for that.
I thought we looked just that bit more composed with Mertesacker and Koscielny back in the centre (both players with a 97% pass completion rate tells a bit of that story), while both full backs were really very good. I know Debuchy’s night was spoiled by the red card, but until then he’d been absolutely fantastic, reading the game excellently and making some fine interceptions. If he can just tone it down a little bit he’ll be fine.
In midfield Jack Wilshere put in the kind of performance that will shut up the early season critics and Jamies, and it was great to see him thrive in those circumstances. You knew it was going to be a good night for him when his first touch was a deft flick around an opponent followed by a burst forward into their half. That will do him the world of good.
As for Santi Cazorla, I thought in the final 15 minutes he was brilliant. There were raised eyebrows about Mesut Ozil being played on the left hand side, which I understand, but Cazorla’s display in the middle was so disciplined – especially late on when his defensive awareness (not exactly the best part of his game) was so important.
Afterwards, Arsene Wenger said:
Overall I feel we produced a performance we wanted on the technical side, on the tactical side and on the mental side. We were at the level that was requested tonight against a good team but we couldn’t finish the game off and that of course made it very difficult for us in the last 10 minutes when we were down to ten men.
When you consider that we’ve just done Besiktas away, Everton away, and now Besiktas at home, that’s a pretty challenging schedule for a team that has got its troubles right now. Injuries, shortened pre-season preparation, new arrivals still bedding in and overall a group of players that hasn’t really gelled yet, to have come through that successfully is good going (I’d consider the Everton point very valuable, especially in those circumstances).
Qualification for the Champions League group-stages also takes away a lot of the pressure and hopefully provides a boost in confidence and belief which we can take forward now, on the pitch and off. Let’s not be blind to the fact that failure to win last night would have had some pretty severe consequences, but there’s no point dwelling on that. Instead we have to act and take advantage of what we’ve done.
The manager was, of course, pressed on transfers last night. Confirming Giroud’s four month absence, he ruled out the stories linking us to Zigic and Welbeck and Falcao (with a smile), and although he sort of played down talk of a new striker, he said:
We are open for any position as long as we feel that the player can strengthen the squad. If we find the players who we feel can give something to our squad, we will do it in any position.
We have until Monday night at 11pm to find those players, and there’s still at least one purchase (centre-half) which is an absolute necessity. After that for me we need a forward, if we can find the right man, and then a defensive midfield player, but look, let’s see what happens between now and the close of the window. The manager’s priorities might well be different.
With European football now assured for another season, and money in the bank, we’re in a good position to do what needs to be done. But let’s not allow that to overshadow what was a fine effort last night to put us there in the first place.
Till tomorrow.
