I worried we might sink without a trace when Girona took the lead in the first half of last night’s Champions League dead rubber.
With a heavily rotated squad and not much to play for, it felt like the kind of game in which the players might sense the complete lack of urgency and coast their way to a result; good, bad or otherwise.
And while that might be understandable, you do want to see some fight from those players on the fringes of the squad because those same players might soon be called upon to do a job in the first-choice XI.
And, to the credit of those who started last night, there was plenty of fight on show alongside some genuine quality too.
The team shrugged off what was a pretty ugly goal to regroup, refocus and come back to claim a good win at the end of the 90 minutes. It wasn’t perfect but it seems pointless getting hung up on the little details given the wider context.
The real hard work of this campaign had already been done going into last night’s fixture, a final win was simply the icing on the cake.
Some acknowledgement must also go to Mikel Arteta and his staff, who have created the kind of culture in which even dead rubbers are consequential. There is a winning culture at Arsenal now and a culture of accountability. Simply rolling over because there’s nothing to play for isn’t acceptable. That’s great.
The reward for the squad now is a well-deserved break of nine days around the beginning of next month. Meaning, at long last, they’ll have the opportunity to relax, if only for a little while. This squad has played an extraordinary amount of football already this season so the chance to catch some sunshine in Dubai, if only for a week, cannot be sniffed at.
If nothing else, it means they can reset, get over any aches, niggles and pains and play as hard as possible in what remains of this campaign. It’s still a long shot but if they can stay free of any more injuries and get a few bodies back too, who knows?
As to last night’s performance, all the flowers will go to Ethan Nwaneri, and rightly so, but I’ll just add in a special mention for Raheem Sterling. It was disappointing that he had to end his night with a penalty miss but, overall, I’d argue it was his best game in an Arsenal shirt. He was aggressive in attack, direct, and producing balls into the box too. It’s everything we wanted from him and it was great to see he still has some gas in the tank even with all the football he has played in his career.
I don’t think it tilts the odds in our favour or anything like that but it is testament to the player’s professionalism and willingness to win. It also means we have an usable, viable option in attack if we need it. The key, it seems, is keeping him involved, giving him minutes and helping him to build the momentum he needs.
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