Category: Premier League

Secret maps

Amy O1 Comment

We woke very early in Cambridge and had breakfast at a Pret a Manger in probably the fanciest building we’d ever encountered for this establishment. A man was seated nearby waiting for his friend, while a man at another table drolly asked him if he intended to attend the parade to celebrate the Battler of Agincourt’s 575th anniversary. The Battle of Agincourt was one of few battles won by the British in the 100 Years’ War with France. The man waiting for his friend responded he would not attend the fictional parade; rather he would celebrate later with a bottle of wine. “Not French wine, I hope,” quipped the historical savant.

My husband had won the aBode shower lottery for the second day running. Warm for him, lukewarm for me. We headed for hopefully greener pastures with a fairly uneventful trip from Canterbury West to Charing Cross. The train had been nearly empty leaving Canterbury but became jam-packed, stop by stop, by the time we reached London. We had been wondering how on earth the Southeastern train system is able to run with any form of profitability considering how empty almost every train we’d been on over four days had been. It appears to work similar to Christmas for retailers. All the money must be made on trains as they approach stops close to London.

By the time we arrived in London, it was raining again, but our hotel was reasonably close by way of a funny alley. Our new hotel in London, The Grand at Trafalgar Square, met the new financial criteria to which my husband and I agreed before the trip. They weren’t ready to check us in, but checked our luggage and showed us to a nice lounge where we could regroup and make a latte. The hotel seemed pretty fancy for our new price point.

We were intending to meet a friend later in the day who was coming into London from California with her adult children. Their original flight had been cancelled and their new flight would be later. So we bought tickets for the Secret Maps exhibit at the British Library to stay occupied. We’ve been to the British Library twice in the past, once for the Treasures exhibit, years ago, and once for the Medieval Women exhibit earlier this year. The British Library has super interesting documents to start with, and they pull together such interesting narrative and themes for their exhibits.

This exhibit about secret maps was the best I’ve seen there. It just never occurred to me how interesting the history of maps is and how they were used–to share information as well as to obscure, deflect, and mislead to maintain an upper hand–commercially, politically, in warfare. Also, how many different kinds of maps there have been to be used for these purposes, including maps of land masses, trade routes, the heavens, escape routes, war equipment and assets. And how maps were shared with the right people.

After viewing the exhibit, we checked into our hotel, learning that The Grand is part of the Club Quarters chain. We’ve only stayed at this chain once on one of our trips many years ago. There’s a lot of work and lounge space in the hotel and it’s quite fancy. I noted that this would have been a good hotel for the times I worked from London last year. In contrast, the rooms are pretty basic and small. But, hey, hot water both days we need it. A win.

Speaking of maps used for deception, it’s long been a thing that Mikel Arteta keeps things close to the vest in his press conferences before a match. He tells the truth and nothing but the truth, but with regard to injuries, it’s often not the whole truth. There is often someone who came off the last match limping, of whom Arteta will truthfully say in his next press conference before a match whether the player has been in practice that week. But often he’ll say they’ll evaluate them on match day and see how things stand. Then that player may show up as a starter, or as a sub, or we’ll find out after the match he’ll have surgery tomorrow and will be out for at least three months.

Gabriel Magalhaes, big Gabi, came off in the match against Atletico Madrid with about 20 minutes left to play and it looked like something was not quite right with him. Arteta had said in his pre-match press conference for Crystal Palace that he was unsure whether Gabi would play against Crystal Palace. “Let’s see how he evolves,” he said. Arsenal is having a wonderful defensive season and a lot of the reason has been the play of Big Gabi. His partnership with William Saliba is considered among the best in the Premier League. And obviously, he’s been important for delivering goals from set plays. Either he heads it in himself or places where someone else can finish up the job.

But Arsenal’s defense is not only good because of Gabriel and Saliba; the whole team contributes to Arsenal’s overall stability. Arsenal has held every team goalless since September 28, yes, but teams hadn’t even been able to register a shot on target. And we’ve seen some great play from the person who can deputize Big Gabi, Christhian Mosquera. So losing Big Gabi would not be ideal, but it’s not a horrible situation either.

Arteta also used his press conference to encourage fans to bring the noise and spirit. “Play the game with us,” he requested. “If we’re going to win the league, everybody has to turn up.”

On that backdrop we arrived at the stadium the next day having spent a morning walking in the Tower Hill area and having had a nice lunch. We got to the stadium a bit late but still made time to walk through the Armoury and, as has lately been our habit, buying nothing. My husband and I were sitting apart from each other but both in the west stands. He was high up near the half way line; I was in Club near the North end. My seats were just about even with the D at the top of the penalty box. We had had a pretty easy time getting tickets for this match, none of the usual drama and not very many clicks.

I arrived at my seat with very little time to spare before the teams came out of the tunnel. There was something odd about my section that made it a little less straightforward to access from any direction and it took me some time to find the right passages. My section had quite a few human season ticket holders in it, and I’ve found that those areas of Club are almost as much fun as being in other parts of the stadium. Lots of spirit.

The whole stadium seemed to be taking Arteta’s request to heart. A lively atmosphere considering the opponent was Crystal Palace. Technically a derby, but usually one without as much of the usual rancor. This even though Crystal Palace managed to produce a tie in our last match at The Emirates.

One possible point of drama was that Eberechi Eze came to us from Crystal Palace. As I recall, he scored one of the goals in the match at the Emirates last year. The woman to the left of me wondered aloud whether Eze would celebrate if he scored a goal against Crystal Palace. There is some nonsense where players who score against their former team will not celebrate so as to be kind to their former club. To date, the Crystal Place fans have been notably classy about losing Eze to Arsenal. He did a lot for them. They appreciate that. Eze has played pretty well for Arsenal but has only scored one goal this season, in the Carabou cup. It seemed we probably would not find out the answer to that question on the day.

In contrast, Declan Rice came to Arsenal from West Ham under similar circumstances but while producing £105 million in revenue for his former club. Money that could be used to strengthen the West Ham team beyond replacing this one player. But Declan Rice gets tortured when he plays against West Ham. They do not forgive him at all. Rice didn’t score against West Ham in his first season with Arsenal. He did manage to score against them in early October at the Emirates. And while he did not celebrate the goal he scored right in front of the visiting fans, he appeared to make eye contact. A bit of a glare, I felt.

An example of a player who did celebrate against his former team: Arsenal had a player named Emmanuel Adebayor from 2006 to 2009, when he was sold to Manchester City. The first time Arsenal faced Man City at Man City’s stadium, Adebayor scored a goal against Arsenal and then ran the whole length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the Arsenal fans, who rioted. I’m sure he was receiving a ton of schtick from the Arsenal fans before that decision. The process of losing players was so painful at that time. You felt so insulted when someone chose to leave.

I was so late to my seat I didn’t have time to check out the line-up. As soon as the players came out of the tunnel, there was Big Gabi, clearly in the starting line-up. Quite a relief. And Eze, of course.

All the usual ceremony took place. Good old Arsenal (blah), North London forever (yay) and finally the kick-off.

Many times I’ve been asked why I fell in love with Arsenal. Although I fell in love well in advance of the Premier League being picked up by NBC sports in 2013, I remember a great article in the sporting press in conjunction with the rollout campaign for NBC about how, now that everyone would be able to watch every match, someone could go about selecting a team to support. It was described as being akin to the sorting hat in Harry Potter. Just watch the soccer and a team will be magically chosen for you.

I was watching soccer with my kids and husband on Fox soccer channel well before that and had that sorting hat experience after watching Arsenal a few times. When I try to verbalize why Arsenal was chosen, I say I’m a sucker for beautiful, flowing soccer. Arsene Wenger, Arsenal’s manager at the time, also appeared to have a weakness for that beauty. His teams were stacked with players with technical ability. People who could complete the beautiful pass, deception with the ball, a tricky dribble, a back heal, a lovely, arcing shot. But Arsenal was also naive in spirit and porous in defense. The Arsenal of old could also not break down a low block, but it was very susceptible to counterattacks.

But now, Arsenal is not that. This is not really a pretty team. So why has the sorting hat not rethought my options?

I’ve heard it said that the reason is Arsenal fans are hypocritical. Speaking only for me, I think I’ve become more mature as an appreciator of the sport. Not just the overtly pretty things, but things that are less obvious. I have learned that what I want and what Mikel Arteta wants are often two different things. And when someone knows more than you and sees things you never could and whose job hangs in the balance, it may make sense to try to respect that. And try to learn what that person is attempting to achieve. What is the objective when working from the back? What is the objective of the horseshoe of death (as we call it when Arsenal’s defenders are passing from right to left and back to right)? Why has Arteta selected this player in this situation and a different player in another situation? What are the different ways Arsenal attacks a set piece? I’ve learned to appreciate winning a duel, laying down a great tackle, working in concert to ensure our defensive team is the last line of defense and not the first line. And, of course, all the different ways to produce a deceptive set piece.

And when I approach a match with not just excitement, but also curiosity, a match that might have felt tedious to me feels interesting and like a learning experience. The Crystal Palace match, especially in the first half, was probably the poster child for a match I would have formerly found tedious, but at this time found fascinating. And with regard to my fellow fans at the stadium, I would say almost every time they might be starting to feel frustrated, they reacted by trying to lift up the team with chanting. Arteta’s request had clearly been heard.

Crystal Palace of course deployed a low block and Arsenal of course struggled to unlock it. I can only remember one shot on goal. And when Arsenal did unlock it, guess how?

Set piece again, olé olé. One of the Crystal Palace’s players briefly lost the plot near the end of the first half and fouled Saka, giving up a free kick, which Declan Rice took. At least 20,000 fans in the stadium picked up their phones and started taking video, including the man to my right. The ball Declan kicked naturally came to Big Gabi, who was facing Declan and away from the goal and who headed it back toward the edge of the penalty area. Eze came running in and struck the ball in a very odd way. Since the match, I’ve heard the kick he made referred to as a karate kick, a scissor kick, a hitch kick, a forward bicycle kick, and probably a few other things.

Whatever. It rocketed into the net.

Answer to the question posed at the top of the match by my seat mate: Eze did not really celebrate. He kind of also did not not celebrate.

We celebrated enough to make up for whatever it was he was doing.

At halftime I went to concessions and stood in a long line of people getting beer and ultimately picked up a cup of tea. One of the beers Arsenal is now serving at the stadium is Guinness. It takes a long time to pour a Guinness–I wonder if they regret that? The lady next to me complained fiercely to me about the inefficiency of the process of serving beer. Beer is available at no added charge to those in Club. Ergo, a lot of people want one. I appreciated her decision to read me into her frustration and nodded sympathetically, even though my empathy was not really piqued.

In the second half, Arsenal had a lot of chances right in front of me, just no success scoring. Hitting the bar, goal keeper saves, a lot of excitement, not much payout. Some set pieces that did not produce a goal.

Arsenal’s former player Eddie Nketiah was introduced late in the match to the applause of both home and away fans. Eze was withdrawn about 5 minutes from the end of normal time to the applause both home and away fans.

Toward the end, everyone seemed so tired and Crystal Palace did make some progress challenging toward the goal. I think Arteta was very willing to trust our defensive stability and not worry so much about scoring again. As much as Arteta does not worry. Whatever we are seeing on the field and however we might try to understand and appreciate it, there appears to always be something more he is looking for. I guess we are all growing up together but he’s working on it well ahead of most of us.

The match ended 1-0. The only shot registered by statisticians as being “on target” against Arsenal was this weird thing from Eddie Nketiah that David Raya easily caught. Arsenal’s six matches in October ended with no goals scored against it and only one shot taken by an opponent–Eddie Nketiah’s–being ruled “on target.”

My husband and I normally meet after the match at the Arsene Wenger statue. I got confused with the unusual set-up of my section and headed the wrong way out of the stadium. It took me forever to figure out my mistake. So long, and with crowds so thick. it just made sense to keep walking. It was raining again and when I arrived my husband was waiting under building near the statue.

We walked in the rain back to Arsenal station, 3 points in our raincoat pockets and plans for a nice dinner with our California friends.

You’re getting sacked in the morning

Amy OLeave a comment

Although we arrived in London on the Friday before a Saturday match, pretty typical timeline, we had an unusually quiet time before the match. We had selected a hotel we’d never stayed in, the Montcalm East, located in Shoreditch. As with many recent trips, a hotel nicer than our normal budget would allow but that came into our price point for this trip. Very nice hotel. In my top 5.

After checking in, we relaxed a bit and then had lunch at Pizza Union. My husband had to call in for an Italian class, during which I made up for the sleep I failed to get on the plane. Afterward, we walked over to The Artillery Arms for a beer and dinner. The kitchen was closed by then, so it ended up being beer alone. Cute place, a Fuller pub, naturally. We selected snacks from an Aldi along the way back to the hotel to get through the night.

As much sleep as I got in the late afternoon and evening you’d think it would be a struggle to sleep at night. It was not. I slept like a baby. We awoke in the morning and had a delicious breakfast at A Pinch of Salt Cafe.

The match against Nottingham Forest was early, 12:30, so we headed to the Emirates soon thereafter. Spent a bit of time in Arsenal’s merch shop, The Armoury, just checking out the new stuff. There is always new stuff.

My seat was in the North Bank, really my favorite place to watch a match. You can see play developing and the crowd is almost always quite enthusiastic. This was true on Saturday as well. It’s a pleasure sitting near supporters who are–well–supportive. The North Bank also is prime positioning for offensive actions by Arsenal in the second half. Nothing more fun than having a goal scored right in front of you.

Arteta changed up the lineup in a somewhat surprising way, bringing new guy Eberechi Eze into the left wing and using Mikel Merino instead of Declan Rice. In midfield with Merino was Martin Odegaard, back in the lineup after his shoulder injury during the Leeds match, and other new guy, Martin Zubimendi. The other starters were a bit less surprising given our poor injury record this season.

I would think the changes Arteta made would not have been anticipated by a rival manager. However, in this case, the rival manager didn’t have much time to anticipate anything at all, having been hired only the week before the match. It was our old nemesis from Tottenham, Ange Postecoglou. Tottenham sacked him at the end of last season. Even though he did manage to win the Europa League, the rest of the season was pretty bad for Tottenham. Nottingham Forest only recently fired their manager, Nuno Espírito Santo. He’d been a good manager for Nottingham Forest but seemed to have been done in mostly by office politics. I’d rather face an Ange team than a Santo team, but was a bit nervous about the possibility of the dreaded new manager bounce that can occur sometimes.

Needn’t have worried because Arsenal were excellent right from the start. We dominated possession and looked really, really dangerous. And naturally, because Ange is (to us) Tottenham, we supporters were up for it also. Loud, loud, loud, and quite obnoxious.

Sadly, after losing Martin Odegaard to a shoulder injury in the first 10 minutes in the Leeds match, we lost him again early in this match after he fell awkwardly on the same shoulder. Ethan Nwaneri again came on and deputized him well.

Martin Zubimendi joined up with Arsenal over the summer from Spanish team Real Sociedad. Technically, his deal was agreed across all parties in March, but for financial reasons Real Sociedad wanted it to go through in their fiscal year starting in July. His move to Arsenal was kept relatively quiet although we believed he was likely coming into the team. We were excited—he looked like a great replacement for Thomas Partey, who was to be out of contract over the summer. But the longer the announcement was delayed, and with Arsenal’s surprising move to briefly pursue Partey at the end of last season, the more I worried Zubimendi might not come at all. But you know how it is. Once it’s finally done you rewrite history in your head. Of course he was always coming to Arsenal.

As I recall it, he was the first signing of a busy July for Arsenal. Shortly after Martin Zubimendi was signed, so was Christian Norgaard and Noni Madueke. And it seemed we would also bring in Viktor Gyokeres. Gyokeres was the most exciting signing for fans because he’s a striker, and we have sooooo needed one. Plus, he was lighting up the Portuguese league with goal after goal. When Gyokeres was announced as an Arsenal player, sales of shirts with his name on the back broke the existing record for shirt sales at Arsenal. So with all the other excitement, while I was happy Zubimendi signed, it went a bit under my radar as an important development.

In the pre season and first two matches, Martin Zubimendi was quietly excellent as a player. Mikel Arteta put him right into the lineup and he was solid defensively and reasonably creative offensively. Easy to take for granted. And I think we did just that.

In the match against Nottingham Forest, Martin Zubimendi’s excellence went loud. Very, very loud.

Despite Arsenal’s superiority, it took a while to deliver a goal. It finally came about 30 minutes in in the aftermath of a corner kick. Madueke put up a nice one, but it was headed by a Nottingham Forest defender. It was not a bad clearance–beyond the penalty area–except for one big problem. Apparently Martin Zubimendi is able to volley such a ball into the net from that distance. And he did exactly that. A gorgeous goal. Every time they showed it in the stadium—and they showed it on the giant stadium screens more times than usual—every fan watching it again said “Whoa!” in unison when he again struck that ball and it again flew into the net. It might have grazed a defender on the way in, but no way was any goalkeeper keeping that ball out.

1 – 0. Cue chants of “1 nil to the Arsenal.”

At halftime I stepped away for the typical bathroom break and an atypical wait in the concessions line for a cup of tea. Although you can’t bring beer into the stadium, you can bring tea. I heard the announcer say the teams were back on the field and I carried my newly-acquired tea back to my seat in the North bank.

It was a good thing I did because, just as Viktor Gyokeres scored a quick goal right after halftime in the Leeds match, in this match Eberechi Eze received a perfect through ball from Ricardo Califiori within minutes of the restart. He put up a perfect cross for Gyokeres who rammed it in the back of the net from close range. Like the Leeds match, a lot of people who didn’t make their way back into the stadium missed seeing that live. 2 – 0.

At this point, the chanting in the stadium became bifurcated.

Chant 1: the Victor Gyokeres chant:

He comes from Sweden, the girls are really nice
He dumped his girlfriend to play in red and white
He’s scoring goals with a cannon on his chest
His name is Victor, Victor Gyokeres

(I’ll spare you the gratuitous “De de de”s.)

Chant 2: abuse of Nottingham Forest’s new manager, Ange Postecoglou. No need to update the chant Arsenal fans created for Tottenham when he was the manager there, the lyrics still work. It’s too rude for me to repeat here and goes after not only the manager but also the team. I would suspect the Nottingham Forest players have ever felt quite so reviled at the Emirates. Just caught in the bad blood of an old relationship.

The third Arsenal goal came when Arsenal won a free kick for a foul. Arsenal worked it in and Leandro Trossard, who had come on as a sub, put up a nice looping cross toward the goal. Martin Zubimendi, who I don’t perceive as a particularly tall guy, met it with his head and into the back of the net.

With the requisite chants for Zubimendi completed by the Arsenal fans, they turned their attention to hapless manager Ange Postecoglou on his inaugural match with Nottingham Forest: 

Sacked in the morning
You're getting sacked in the morning

Despite the fact that Zubimendi scored 2 goals and Viktor Gyokeres scored only 1, at the ending whistle the stadium DJ cued up Salt-n-Pepa’s Push it, the musical inspiration for the Gyokeres chant. We note that the DJ can only work with the materials he’s been given. A player is endowed with a chant by the supporters. It may be based on commercially-created music or some traditional chant or some new invention. Much like your family, you can’t chose your own chant. Zubimendi’s chant isn’t based on commercially-available music.

He’ll just have to be happy with being named man of the match. That, and our love and admiration.

A hopeful fool and her money are soon parted

Amy O3 Comments

After a fairly barren soccer summer the Premier League is–at last–back in session. I had plenty of time on my hands, having retired from working at the end of May. I am a person of very few hobbies and one for whom most of my social contacts were established through my work. Therefore, it’s been somewhat of an uphill battle keeping busy, let alone Finding Purpose. I did a lot of gardening, helped some friends and family members with financial questions, and experimented with volunteering. Got plenty of exercise, more than I ever did while working. (I daresay that if I had exercised as much while I was still working maybe I could have tolerated Work BS a few years longer. That’s a theory I don’t feel compelled to test.) Still, I would say there has been a lot of floundering and too much doom scrolling. It’s such a terrible time for scrolling, so hard to keep it mindless and not take in all the nonsense/doom. In short, I have work to do to have a retirement I feel good about.

I couldn’t force myself to watch the Club World Cup–such an abomination–but I did invest in watching almost all of the Women’s Euros. Delightful and worthwhile in every way. I didn’t gravitate to any one team as I usually do while watching international competition, just enjoyed watching women play great soccer, have high highs and low lows. Kudos to Team England for winning the competition. They ground out result after result, never looking comfortable until it was all over.

A lot of my doom scrolling of the summer was focused on Premier League transfer rumors, especially for Arsenal. I see ESPN and other media outlets grading Arsenal’s transfer window as a B-. First, let’s acknowledge the ridiculousness of grading transfer business. Then let’s take exception to the grade Arsenal got. I can’t remember a better overall transfer window in my time as a fan. We’ve brought in six players that would make it possible to replace a future injured first-choice player with a solid second choice option, to successfully rotate to prevent those injuries, to be able to bring different energy from the bench when needed in a match, and to just make us better in key positions.

We successfully brought in a new dedicated striker, Viktor Gyokeres, where both previously available options had been repurposed under desperate circumstances from other positions. In my opinion, both of those options worked out pretty well. But having a guy who has a history of scoring a goal on average in every match is pretty exciting. We also brought in Martin Zubimendi to replace the position formerly filled by Thomas Partey, whose contract expired at the end of the season. Against its better judgment, Arsenal did try to re-sign him, more as a replacement of Jorginho, a solid second-choice defensive midfielder. Partey is an excellent defensive midfielder but has legal–and possibly moral–baggage that we’d have been smart to be freed of. Not by Arsenal intention but because Partey wanted higher pay than Arsenal could stomach, it seems we have been freed.

Zubimendi has been very exciting to watch in the pre-season and will make a great difference immediately. How long it will take Gyokeres to kick in as a valuable option is an open question. He came from a weaker and less physical league and has a style that isn’t exactly a fit for Arsenal. I back him and Arsenal to figure out how to get the best of him.

As I write, Arsenal appear to be in final stages of signing Eberechi Eze from Crystal Palace, out from under the noses of our fiercest rivals, Tottenham. He’s a magnificent creative midfielder but where he fits in Arsenal with its very solid existing midfield is a bit mysterious. I’m going to trust the process, here.

The primary wild card is that other teams were unfairly able to strengthen over the summer as well. The future is contingent on alchemy, ours vs. theirs.

We’ve already played one game in the season, an away fixture at Manchester United on Sunday. That is always a tough game. No matter how badly Manchester United are they always seem to have a good day when we play them at their home. Last Sunday Manchester United played pretty well and Arsenal played pretty shit, but Arsenal still won, 0 – 1. The goal came via a header from an unmarked Riccardo Calafiori on a corner kick routine that has produced more than its fair share of whining. In every corner kick situation in the Premier League there is grappling in the box by both teams, and this kick was no exception. I don’t know how VAR could rule a possible foul by an Arsenal player as more important than fouls on 3 Arsenal players in the same moment, and this time they did not. The goal stood and Manchester United couldn’t break us down for the 80+ minutes after the goal. We’ll take the win.

On that backdrop, my husband and I managed to score tickets to the Leeds match on Saturday. You know the drill, we have to enter the ballot and, once we inevitably lose, that allows us to use the exchange to try to find tickets being sold by others. This is the home opener (not sure they call it that in soccer!) so it was a very popular ticket and arguably hard to get. You know why–because we are going to win the league this year. Everyone wants to say they were at the first game.

For me it was quite easy to get. I was chatting with my mother on the phone and the conversation was nearing its end when she started to tell me a story I had heard before. I am an old person so I appreciate being able to repeat my stories again and again to any person not bold enough to stop me from re-telling them. Therefore, I allowed her to tell the story without interruption while concluding that it might be acceptable to multi-task a bit on the exchange. A ticket came up on my first click. It’s Club (you know I don’t love Club) but the price was decent, I bought it, and a trip could be planned.

Airfare prices are pretty great right now and we were able to book a hotel that’s never before been in our price point. That said, going to London for Arsenal matches is a pretty expensive hobby for someone with no income. Well worth it if you know for a fact you are going to win the league that year. I do know it. You know I know it.

Luckily, while a hopeful fool and her money are soon parted, it takes a whole season to part her from all her money. Let’s rejoice in the fun to be had along the way.

Never gets old

Amy OLeave a comment

We had the extreme fortune of being successful in Arsenal’s ballot for the Manchester United match so no additional persistence was required to get tickets. Unfortunately, the match was midweek and I’ve just taken a 4-week sabbatical from my job. I felt disinclined to ask for the almost full week off required to travel to London to be there for a Wednesday match.

Also, my husband was scheduled for his upcoming Italian language test on Thursday in Chicago after the match. Virtually no way we could get back to Chicago on Thursday and also see the match. Fortunately, the Italian test is delivered on that day all over the world. We found it was possible for him to reschedule in London. Meanwhile, the cost of airfare was a nightmare. We actually found it significantly cheaper to stay in London for the full week than traveling back the day after the match.

So we decided to leave for London on Monday night with plans to study (him) and work (me) all week. That might sound like a bummer but it turned out to be pretty nice. We stayed in a hotel that we’ve been in before, the Doubletree London – Tower of London, not because we love it so much but location is great, rooms are a bit more spacious for a week-long stay, and it promised to be a good place to work.

I work so much more efficiently with a second monitor that I was a little nervous about how productive I could be on the road. But I researched and found a very cost-effective and sweet portable option from ARZOPA that could fit into my backback with my laptop. It was pretty perfect for my needs and the price was right.

My husband works better in quiet so he used the desk in our room and I worked from the lobby. I’d go down in the morning with my stuff and all day long I was pampered by the staff with cappuccino and tea and at mealtime by my husband who would pick up sandwiches and quesadillas and bring them back.

So yes, it was London and I was working and not seeing much of London, but here is the equation I learned: Playing from London > Working from London > Working from Lombard, IL.

I was out in London mostly in the dark. Walking around the neighborhood in the morning, going to the match on Wednesday night, meeting a friend for dinner on Thursday at our favorite London restaurant, Dishoom. But London is so lovely at Christmastime in the dark. Trees and lights and markets and everyone is so damn cheerful. During the evenings while I was working the lobby became a loud nightclub with lights everywhere, loud music, everyone dressed in sparkly skirts and tuxedos. And the staff took care of me by bringing me glasses of wine.

One morning we were out walking next to the Thames. It was so magical with lights playing on the surface and mist in the air. My husband looked at me and said, “This never gets old.” In a trip that really did not involve much fun, where we stayed at a hotel we’d been to before and ate mostly at restaurants we’d eaten at before, where not much was novel and everything was just nice, I can only agree.

I’ve signed this especially for you

Amy O1 Comment

After having lunch on Saturday, we headed over to the Emirates. The Tube was unbelievably empty for a match day. Usually we’re crammed into the train car like sardines. We took the requisite walk around about 3/4ths of the stadium and then went up to the Club level. With Club seats you get a match program “for free” and can buy a drink from the bar and watch the warm ups through big windows until about 20 minutes before the match, when they bring shades over the windows. After that, they want to hurry you out to your seats before the match starts.

While we were having our beer we met another couple who travelled from Chicago to watch the match. They were big Arsenal fans and at the Emirates for the first time to celebrate a big wedding anniversary. We had a lot in common and enjoyed talking with them until we all went our separate ways to watch the match.

After everything it took to get tickets, is it ok to admit I was a bit disappointed to see about a dozen empty seats near me? Sell your tickets when you can’t use them, Arsenal family.

My seats were lower in the stadium than at any other time I’ve been and it was interesting to see things up close. I could actually make out Declan Rice’s features when he came over to my side for many corner kicks in the first half.

Arsenal looked great the whole match and I felt very relaxed. Lots of movement and space creation, solid passing, shots on goal. Arsenal’s first goal came when our defender William Saliba did a beautiful job of intercepting a pass to our flop artist Leicester City nemesis, Jamie Vardy, and it was worked down the right side of the field, then across to Gabriel Martinez on the left. He’s struggled to score for an extended period, but he did not struggle in this instance. Slow roller, perfectly placed in the left corner of the goal.

The next Arsenal goal came late in the half, again starting with a William Saliba interception and worked on the left. Gabriel Martinelli had a nice cross into the Leandro Trossard, who put a great shot past the Leicester City goalkeeper.

2-0 at the half. We regrouped with our new Chicago-area Arsenal friends in the Club for a “free” halftime drink, feeling confident.

What happened next is a bit mysterious for me. It was the only time ever I wasn’t back in my seat when the second half kicked off. When I got to my seat only a few minutes into the half, Leicester had somehow gotten a goal back. The fan next to me also did not know what happened. I had to text my son, watching in the States, to find out how the goal was scored. Seems there was a foul called on Saliba and the resulting kick by Leicester’s James Justin was deflected off our boy Kai Havertz, where our goalkeeper, David Raya, could not reach it. Quite a bit against the run of play, but these things happen.

Unfortunately, a second “these things happen” event occurred again near the middle of the half. Leicester City managed to produce a cross to James Justin again and he tagged it into the Arsenal goal via a deflection from the right goal post. One of the more beautiful goals you’ll ever see, if you can ever really appreciate a goal from your opponent. 2-2.

The Leicester City fans were way too close to me and annoyingly cheerful. And things became very quiet among the Arsenal fans. I received a text from a fellow fan, friend, and (tellingly) former boss in Chicago: “Fix this.”

I still felt confident but I had the slight sinking feeling maybe I should not. Arsenal had been looking great in the second half, but just not able to get a shot past the Leicester goal keeper.

Minutes went by and the Leicester City keeper managed to keep out everything Arsenal threw at him. Mikel Arteta made a few subs, including 17-year old Ethan Nwaneri for Thomas Partey. Partey had a great match, but Nwaneri brought unbelievable energy and very nearly scored a goal the first time he possessed the ball.

Leicester wasted time like no one’s business. We reached the full 90 minutes of match time still at 2-2.

The fourth official announced 7 minutes of added time. Not a ton of time to make things happen, but something to work with. Arsenal continued pressing and forced a number of impressive saves from Leicester’s keeper.

Arsenal is well known for its recent success in scoring from corner kicks and other set pieces. We had dozens of corner kicks on Saturday, almost all dangerous, but none resulted in a goal. That is, until about halfway into the 7 minutes of added time. Bukayo Saka put one of his perfect kicks across the goal and Leandro Trossard smashed it. From my seat, all I saw of the actual goal was all the Arsenal fans behind the goal raising up and shouting “YEAH!” in unison. That was proof enough for me that a goal happened. Trossard’s kick had ricocheted off the leg of a Leicester defender and into the goal.

The added time lasted much longer than 7 minutes because of the goal and ensuing celebrations and some time wasting by Leicester (before the goal) and Arsenal (after the goal). It lasted long enough for another counterattack by Arsenal via Gabriel Jesus. He took way too long to get off a pass to two open teammates, but when he finally did shoot, the Leicester goalkeeper spilled it. Kai Havertz was there to give it the nudge across the line.

The goal was immediately flagged for offside and a VAR check was triggered. The only time I felt nervous during the game was during that VAR check. I still felt that Leicester could score another goal and tie it up. But VAR overturned the on-field call and the goal was counted. The match ended 4-2 not long after.

As I was standing after the match in the stands getting a photo of the final score and dancing and singing along with the other fans, a man walked up to me and tried to hand me his match program. “This is for you,” he said. I was taken a bit aback because every one in the Club section had been given a match program. He said, “I’ve signed this especially for you.”

So I took his program and handed him mine. Was he a famous person? Had he been an Arsenal player? Was he a random dude?

Over the next couple of days I’ve looked all through that program and one thing is abundantly clear: there is no signature.

We met our new Chicago friends after the match in the Club for one more drink and bathed in the 3 points. We took pictures at the Arsene Wenger statue and said our goodbyes, and my husband and I headed back to our hotel. Along the way we made an impromptu decision to get off the Tube at High Street and see if we could have dinner at the Princess of Shoreditch, one of our favorite London restaurants. Luckily, Saturday is a relatively quiet night at the Princess and we were able to have a delicious dinner.

We left London early Sunday morning after 21 hours on the ground. Great visit and hope to be back soon!

Mission Possible

Amy OLeave a comment

It’s continued to be difficult getting tickets to Arsenal matches after our more reliable source dried up before last season. Currently, we’re arguably able to get tickets because we paid the club the annual membership fee of about $60 to be “Red Members.” A Red Member is able to participate in the Ballot for each home game, essentially a lottery. About 5-6 weeks in advance of each match, the lottery opens and we are able to enter a ballot for one ticket per person. Then a few weeks later, we receive an email from the club about how we fared. If we are successful, our credit card is charged for the tickets and we can plan our travels. (We refer to this as “winning the lottery.”)

If we are unsuccessful in the ballot, two additional avenues remain for receiving tickets. We can attempt to buy them in Arsenal’s official exchange, which for most matches is limited only to those who were unsuccessful in the ballot for that match. Or, we can attempt to use secondary websites where tickets are resold, like StubHub. We refer to the latter as “illegal” tickets, not that they are technically illegal in any way, but the club really does not want them sold that way and has been hammering away at eliminating this market. And you are for sure taking your chances about whether you will actually receive them and whether they are legit.

Many of the secondary resellers guarantee your purchase in the sense that if the tickets are not received and/or not legit they will intercede and make sure you are made financially whole. Which is ok-ish when your failed ticket only involves you taking the Tube across town and being turned away from the match. For us, we have invested in air tickets and hotels and taken PTO, and being repaid for the failed/illegitimate tickets doesn’t quite get the job done.

We had a fair amount of luck with the ballot early last season. We applied for all matches except for a couple during the month in which I was undertaking daily radiation therapy for breast cancer. (BTW: I’m fully healthy now!) We were able to get three matches via the ballot. My husband was able to get one ticket from the official Arsenal Exchange after a failed ballot.

As you may recall, the Premier League was only won on the last day of the season and Arsenal were fully in the running. I could not get even a nibble of a ticket on the official exchange even up until 10 hours before the match when we would absolutely have to be boarding a plane to get to the match in time.

To torture myself, I even kept checking even after there was no possibility of being able to get to London on time for the match. Not one ticket.

This season, we’ve applied via the ballot for every match except one….and been unsuccessful in every ballot. This leaves only the possibility of getting tickets on the official Arsenal exchange. Keeping in mind that every ticket in a stadium that holds 60k people has been sold, you’d still think someone might get sick, need to attend a wedding, have something intervene and sell their ticket. But a remarkable few end up arriving on the official exchange. When one does arrive, it gets snapped up immediately.

This creates a necessity–for those who are committed to getting to a match–of committing to keeping the exchange app open on your phone as much as possible and regularly clicking the button to see if any new tickets have arrived. 99.91% of the time, none have. 90% of the time one actually comes up, by the time you click less than a second later, it’s already gone.

For me, I have to also commit to being aware at all times what the operative cost is for airfare. If airfare is completely unreasonable, it saves a lot of clicks on the Arsenal exchange.

This brings me to the Leicester City match last Saturday. We received the rejection email from the ballot about a month ago, but I had a particular reason for trying my best to get tickets through the Arsenal exchange. We were already going to be in Europe for a trip taking place during a 4-week sabbatical offered by my company. If we’d been able to get tickets by Monday the week of the match, we would have been able to change our travel plans and go directly to London instead of flying back to Chicago from Amsterdam. But no matter how many times I clicked the button to refresh the results on the official Arsenal exchange, no tickets were available.

That is, until we were in line to board our flight from Amsterdam to Chicago on Tuesday morning. I clicked ONE MORE TIME and a ticket came up. I actually could select it and get to the payment page of the app.

I dropped out of the boarding line, pulled out my credit card and worked through all of the problems that occurred during the timed period by which the transaction needed to be complete–both because of restrictions on the Arsenal web site AND because the door to that airplane was going to close.

Given the fact that our luggage was already loaded on the plane and my husband was on the plane and our travel agent who could have helped with rescheduling flights was asleep in the US, there was no question that we HAD to fly back to the US rather than going to London. And that meant arriving in Chicago from Amsterdam on Tuesday and making air plans to travel to London on Thursday.

I was the last person boarding the plane, but I owned an official ticket to the Leicester match. I was shaking with excitement as I sat in my seat.

Once one of us had a ticket to the match and both of us had air tickets to get to London, we still had to work to get a match ticket for my husband. A great amount of clicking occurred over two days with nibbles of tickets, but no actual tickets.

As we were driving to the Chicago airport on Thursday, we finally were successful. The transaction was completed as we pulled off the highway into the exit to O’Hare. We both ended up having to buy Club tickets, but at least at market price.

Much as we hoped that a more reasonably-priced option might come up on the exchange (and then we could sell our Club tickets), we were never able to get one before the match.

But we had tickets! And we were happy.

It’s changed my life

Amy O1 Comment

We had managed very recently to get tickets for the Leicester city match (more on that later) and arrived in London on Friday morning. Our hotel, the the Clayton Hotel London Wall was located in the heart of the City neighborhood, tucked back into a cute corner near a pub, coffee shop, some fast food. It’s in the business district, close to the Bank of London and the London Stock Exchange.

We had selected this hotel for its proximity to Tube lines on which the night train runs. Our flight out of London on Sunday was going to be very early and we wanted to count on being able to use the Tube back to Heathrow. Given the short notice on which we had booked our trip, hotel rooms were scarce and expensive. However, this one was reasonable and quite nice, one of the nicest we’ve stayed in in London.

When we arrived at the hotel it was well into the afternoon. I mentally noted that we should eat every meal in our cute little neighborhood and so, after dumping our stuff in the room, we wandered over to The Telegraph. I usually I try to slowly work up to fish and chips when I visit London. Not this day; I dove right in. It was very good. In particular, the chips. I know they are just chips, but I felt they were especially yummy. Naturally the fish and chips came with mushy peas, of which I am a big fan.

After that we took the short walk to the Bank of England Museum, where there is a small exhibit about the history of the building–interesting on its own–as well as the history of money in England. There was also an exhibit about the future of money. I’m not sure what I expected, but this small museum kept our attention until we were literally kicked out at 5 p.m. when it closed. I particularly enjoyed learning about the history of coin and note production as well as attempts to prevent counterfeit bills.

With regard to the future of money, my favorite exhibit was about what is lost as money becomes increasingly digital. Is it as magical to receive monetary value electronically from the tooth fairy, for example, as it is to receive coins under your pillow? As a parent, I would have loved the convenience and ease of electronic delivery, especially since there were so many times when I forgot that the kid had put a tooth under their pillow. In the morning there would be consternation about the tooth fairy’s whereabouts. This led to inflation of the standard monetary prize the next night (accompanied by an excuse from the tooth fairy). Which led, in the future, to our kids hiding their teeth from the tooth fairy so that she would not be able to find it and would have to give a larger gift the next night. Unintended consequences of monetary policy. But have to agree with the Bank of England; it’s not as magical to get tooth fairy remuneration from PayPal.

My husband and I have a long-standing vow never to attempt to view a play or performance on a first night in London. It’s just too easy to fall asleep when the lights go out. During lunch we broke the vow and bought tickets to a play, Abigail’s Party, at the Stratford East theater. Stratford is quite a ways from the City, out near the London stadium built for the 2012 Olympics and now used by West Ham Football Club. We travelled over to Stratford after leaving the Bank of England museum and, given our late lunch, grabbed a small dinner at Pizza Express.

Stratford East theater is quite small but the production was well done. The play takes place in the 1970s, where a couple is hosting a get-together in their flat for a new couple in the complex. Their event is also attended by Abigail’s mother. The title character, Abigail, is never seen in the play–she is a teenager having a noisy party in her family’s flat in the same complex. The play is driven by the passive/aggressive behavior of the hostess, perfectly played by Tamzin Outhwaite, and her toxic relationship with her spouse. It’s fun & icky, and (spoiler alert) ends in tragedy. I probably did doze off a little bit, but the music, staging, plot, and great acting mostly kept me alert. Highly recommend.

In the morning, my intention to eat only in our little neighborhood was foiled by the fact that not a lot is open on the weekend in the financial district. We ended up walking over to the Leadenhall Market, which you may recall is supposed to be the model for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter movies. There also wasn’t much open at Leadenhall market, but we did find a cute bakery called Aux Merveilleux De Fred. I had a raisin brioche and a latte and my husband had one of the most beautiful croissants I’ve ever seen. My husband often has hot chocolate for breakfast and almost always turns down the offer of whipped cream. (I know you are asking, “Can this marriage be saved?”) This time, he took the whipped cream and let me sample it. It was amazing. Only once before have I have cream that was whipped by hand with a whisk and it has the most amazing and perfect consistency. I have to believe they whisked it by hand. That, or they have some magical, secret, other way to do it. If you go, get the whipped cream. (You can ask them to hold the hot chocolate if you want.)

Our Saturday morning plan was formed by consulting Time Out London, a great source for understanding events happening around town. We ended up drawn to the Mudlarking Showcase being put on at the Museum of London Docklands as a part of the Totally Thames Festival. “Mudlarking” is the unusual hobby of seeking historical objects from the shore of the Thames (and other rivers) at low tide. Because the Thames was central to life and commerce through many centuries, the mud contains an abundance of treasures accidentally or intentionally finding their way into the river. The Mudlarking Showcase allowed mudlarkers to share exhibits of their finds, which included everything–coins, pipes, clothing, buttons, pottery and china, tools, product packaging from centuries past. What each mudlarker found was interesting, but even more interesting was the unique ways they exhibited their treasures, how they talked about their hobby, what they learned from it.

One of the mudlarkers talked us through the process of finding a trade token (we had learned about this form of currency at the Bank of England museum), how he researched it, how and what he learned about the coin, the tradesman, his business, the tradesman’s family. He had come to the hobby after losing his wife. “It’s changed my life,” he said. One mudlarker walked us through the friendly competition he held with his son (also a mudlarker and a future archeologist) about their respective finds. Another mudlarker described holding in his hands the base of a 17th century mug and very nearly chucking it back into the Thames before deciding maybe it was “something” after all.

One of our favorite London experiences, ever.

After a walk around Canary Wharf where the Museum of London Docklands is located, it was time to grab a quick lunch and engage in our perhaps less unique hobby, watching our favorite boys play our favorite sport at our favorite stadium.

Believing in Beauty.

Amy O3 Comments

A new statue for Arsène Wenger has been placed on the grounds of the Emirates since our last visit. After the match we wandered around trying to find it. You know my love for Arsène Wenger. It’s a bit out of the way and the grounds were so thronged with people, we struggled to find it. A nice steward pointed us in the right direction. Many people were lined up to take a picture with the statue and we waited patiently for our turn. Near the statue there were signs like the one above that surely reflected his philosophy. I recalled an article in which he was quoted in which he stated that he only facilitates “beauty in man.” I fell in love with Arsenal because of the beauty he so valued.

But that was at the end of the day and we should start at the beginning. We had breakfast again over near St. Katherine’s Dock, close to where The Big Half marathon was being run by thousands of people. After breakfast, we walked along the route where people were lined up to start and where some had already started and had doubled back to cross the Tower Bridge at around the 7-meter mark of the race. I am that annoying person who claps for every graduate at a graduation, so I am also the person who claps and whoops for runners who happen to be doing something I will not do. When I am giving (in my mind) motivating words to my kids, my family calls it “happy Mom talk.” When I am cheering at graduations and races, it’s “happy Mom cheering.”

I make no apologies. Except (mentally) to the people sitting near me. Sorry your ears hurt. Now start clapping for the graduates, you lazy, selfish beast.

Afterward, we took the Uber boat over toward the Eye and Big Ben just to enjoy the lovely day. It was shaping up to be a warm one.

In keeping with the theme of trying new things, I considered not having Sunday roast in London on this trip. That seemed over the top, so instead, I booked a different restaurant than I normally do, called The Marksman Public House. I found it by consulting an article. How does the article know? I have no idea. I ruled out some locations that seemed too close to Tottenham Hotspur stadium, although I was pretty sure they were not playing there on Sunday, and then focused on those not too far from the Emirates. The match was at 4:30, a little late to have Roast afterward, so we planned to go for lunch.

The Marksman turned out to be awesome. It had a more casual feel from the incumbent favorite roast place, the Princess of Shoreditch. The decor was light and airy, and people were laughing and relaxed. There were many big groups of people sitting near us, suggesting a popular family/friend gathering place. There was significantly less attention on food presentation. Importantly, there was plenty of attention on the taste of the food. We shared a crispy, perfectly seasoned, juicy whole chicken, a cloud-light Yorkshire pudding, deeply caramelized potatoes, and green beans and carrots with minted, crispy breadcrumbs. Perfect.

We both selected for dessert a thing called a brown butter tart. When it came, I was disappointed. It had sounded so glorious and looked so plain. Big lesson here. With the first bite I understood why no one bothered to make it look good. What would be the point? I’ve never tasted anything as delicious in my life.

We took the bus to the stadium and, because we were newbies to the new check-in procedure, went right in. Like all of the teams, Arsenal appear to be cracking down on the secondary market for ticket sales. In the past we would be sent a pdf of our tickets and would print it out to be scanned; this year, Arsenal require you to download their app and use the wallet feature of your phone for the ticket. A screen shot is not sufficient. As participants in the lottery, we would have been eligible to sell our tickets on Arsenal’s exchange, but we would not be permitted to transfer the ticket to other parties at will.

There is so little chance we will ever part with these precious tickets.

The check-in process went smoothly and we walked up a great many stairs to the novel location of our seats, high, high in the Clock End. I was shocked to realize that from our new seats I was not even able to see our old seats because there is a dip in the roof that conceals parts of the stadium. It had never occurred to me from our old location that most people in the stadium are unable to see all of the seats. We had a fine view of the field and the stadium was rocking when we got there. Literally. The chanting was deafening from the moment we walked through the turnstile until pretty much half time.

At the Clock End, you are very close to the opposition fans, and it became very clear what our role was to be: drown them out, counter their nonsense, and remind them they are guests, very unwelcome ones at that. It seemed the Man United fans were more organized than many who show their faces at the Emirates, but I’ve only once before sat this near the opposition. We had to endure their happiness when Man United scored the first goal, very much counter to play. We rubbed it in their faces when Arsenal scored our first goal about a minute later.

What to say about the match? In the stadium it felt like Arsenal had the upper hand and Manchester United’s only idea was to slow things down as much as possible and break our rhythm, hope for a counterattack. They executed their tedious plan well.

Arsenal had a call for a penalty that was overturned by VAR and Man United had a goal that was ruled offside by VAR. It looked like we were headed for a 1:1 draw well into the very substantial 8 minutes of stoppage time due to Man United’s time wasting and the time spent on VAR reviews.

The noise was more intermittent as the match wore on, but the fans got behind Man United’s substitution that brought Harry Maguire onto the field. Even the Arsenal fans–especially the Arsenal fans–were chanting his name. If you’re struggling to score a goal, there are not too many defenders a team would be more delighted to take a chance against. That is until Man United introduced Jonny Evans as a another substitute defender. I couldn’t believe he was still playing. In his day, he was probably one of the better defenders in the league. He played for Manchester United years ago and more recently played for Leicester City, who was relegated last year. So although nothing much was happening for Arsenal, you had to feel optimistic. And, like the sign said, you had to keep “Believing in Beauty.”

At least 5 minutes into the 8 minutes of added time, our captain Martin Ødegaard hit a hard shot that deflected off of a Man U defender for a corner kick. Saka put it into play and while Jonny Evans got distracted by Gabriel Magalhaes’ antics in front of the goal, the ball bounced off the face of our new boy, Declan Rice. He had a million years to take aim at the bouncing ball and tag it off Jonny Evan’s leg into the goal. The Emirates went insane. When Declan Rice ran to the corner flag to celebrate with the fans the fans in that corner rose in a wave from their seats to join him.

With the subs and celebrations, we had no idea how much time was left and we all stood and sang with great nervousness waiting for the final whistle.

Instead of the whistle, the ball came loose in Arsenal’s half and our sub, Fabio Viera (a far better choice than Jonny Evans or Harry Maguire), put a beautiful through ball exactly where our other sub, Gabriel Jesus, could run onto it, feint to draw the last Manchester United defender into a fruitless slide, and slot it calmly into the corner of the net.

Bedlam. Joy. Unbelievable relief.

And now we are hoping the match never ends.

We’ve got Granit Xhaka

Amy OLeave a comment

Or, at least we still did by the end of the last match of the season, which took place Sunday under sunny skies. By the time I get off this plane, I would not be surprised to hear about his plans to move on. But I hope not.

The mood at The Emirates could have been anything after the way we capitulated the Premier League title. I didn’t expect it to be quite that cheerful. But extremely cheerful it was. 

With regard to our time in London, after we visited the Troubles exhibit at the War Museum, we also visited the exhibit about video war games. Like all the exhibits, it was excellent. I am predisposed to think negatively of video games like many people of “my generation,” but there were plenty of things about the exhibit that gave me, lo these many years later, a grudging appreciation of what a video game provides a participant that cannot be replicated in a book or a movie. And though I do not love that war is replicated in video games, I have to agree with the exhibit: we have long simulated war in play.

We also took a tour of the London Opera House. We have stopped in before when there were no tours, but it’s way more interesting to hear about the history of the Opera House with a very enthusiastic guide and see behind the scenes. While we were touring, a rehearsal was in session and it was cool to hear the performers working on the show. I especially enjoyed hearing about how the sets are created and controlled, and how they evolved over time to become particularly flexible and easy to shift to support a production. And made a note of how awesome it would be some sunny day to have a drink in the Opera café overlooking the Covent Garden market.

After that, we walked over to the Albert & Victoria Museum. I cannot in good conscience give any review. We were exhausted and unable to appreciate it. We decided to find the most significant 10 works, but quit well before that. Another time….

Sunday morning we got up and went to the Mattins service at St. Paul’s cathedral, across the street from our hotel, the Lost Property. It was something else to be in a service like that, in a building like that. The service was mostly choral music. The acoustics of the cathedral are not made for understanding the lyrics, but they are perfect for making you feel like you are experiencing something incredibly special.

The match was later than usual, so we hit up the Princess of Shoreditch for Sunday roast at lunch time instead of dinner. Delicious as always. Then we walked to the match. Long walk. 

I’ve mentioned the Arsenal player Granit Xhaka in previous blogs. For many years after he arrived in 2016 he picked up a lot of red and yellow cards. I remember Arsene Wenger saying, as a means of explanation, he really doesn’t know how to tackle. When you are a top professional, not being able to perform an activity essential to your job is probably not a thing you want your manager to notice about you.

Still, he’s been a starter for the entire time he’s been with the team, usually playing the entire 90 minutes, and has been remarkably healthy for a Gunner. I can’t think of many times he’s been out for injury. 

While he has always seemed to have enjoyed the trust of the Arsenal manager, across three of them no less, and has been a leader among the players, he has not been a fan favorite. There was just always a sense that we could do better. And frustrations with the cards and defensive mistakes. 

All of this culminated in the situation I described in He’s sleeping on the couch now, where as captain of our team he was encouraged/booed off the pitch by fans and responded, let’s say, not well. 

After that event, he was stripped of the captaincy by then-manager Unai Emery and was seemingly on his way out of the team. He said his bags were literally packed and ready to be shipped when our current manager, Mikel Arteta, convinced him not to leave. 

His path to redemption has been nothing short of outrageous.

Because of his early propensity to get carded for fouls, fans now feel a sense of shared defensiveness when he gets a card. It’s started to feel like his reputation and not his actions have caused unfairness by referees. In fact, when someone on another team gets away with a minor foul, everyone–not just our fans–will ask, “Now, if that had been Granit Xhaka, would it have been a yellow card?” 

Fans also started to get a grudging appreciation of his mastery of the dark arts, especially his ability to draw fouls just when we need them. He has this one patented move where he falls with the ball magically between his arms once he hits the deck. It is for sure going to be called a foul by the opponent or a handball by Xhaka. It gets called a foul by the referee every time. My husband says to to hapless, alleged fouler on the TV, “You’ve been Xhakaed.” And Xhaka is now able to get into an argument on the field with an opponent and take it all the way to the edge of the line, when in the past he might have come unhinged and well over the line.

Most importantly, Xhaka has become a critical part of how Arsenal play now. He is much more mobile and involved offensively. His passing is significantly improved and critical to the success of the team. He’s scored goals.

As a result, he’s become a serious fan favorite. Last year, after so many years in the team, he was endowed by the fans with his own song. 

We’ve got (clap clap) Granit Xhaka

We’ve got (clap clap) Granit Xhaka

When interviewed, he’s been open about how much that means to him. 

Everyone talks about how much he changed to be able to win support from the fans that he never had, but I would argue it’s equally true that the change is about the fans. We are able to take the occasional bad with the mostly good, and have appreciation for what our team, including Xhaka, delivers.

He stayed when it was hard, and we fans stayed when it was hard. We worked through our respective stuff and came out better–for ourselves and each other.

It’s clear: Not only have we got Granit Xhaka, we finally “get” Granit Xhaka.

Unfortunately, he’s out of contract soon and, rumor has it, wants to live elsewhere for family reasons. Or, alternate rumor, wants a longer contract than Arsenal are willing to give him at his age. Rumors aside, there are probably many reasons. In any case, it was believed that Sunday’s match was his last one in an Arsenal jersey. 

He had a marvelous day Sunday. Not only did he score the first two goals, he was fervently sung throughout the match. He was taken out of the match with about 15 minutes remaining, and the cheering and singing of support was deafening. In contrast with St. Paul’s Cathedral it is easily possible to understand the lyrics sung in the Emirates. He even got a new song on Sunday when he was substituted. Well, new lyrics to a common tune.

We want you to stay
We want you to stay
Granit Xhaka
We want you to stay

Oh yeah, there were 3 other Arsenal goals. The match ended 5-0.

We end the season with remorse for what we failed to do, but with happiness for what we achieved and optimism for the future.

I’m already scheming about tickets next season.

They will be in short supply.

At the end, Spurs went over to thank their fan. . .

Amy O5 Comments

. . . for by the time the whistle blew, there was approximately one Tottenham fan remaining in the stands. 

What. A. Day.

We left the Somerset house and made our way over to the Covent Garden tube station. We had a bit of time so we walked through Covent Garden, enjoying the sun and the market. Not much was going on by this time, it was far too early, but it was still fun to look at the shops and restaurants and market. 

Normally, we take the Piccadilly line all the way to the Arsenal stop. The other option, sometimes, is Holloway Road, which allows you to enter the stadium complex from the opposite side. We always think of the Arsenal Tube stop as part of the required game day experience, but in reality, the Holloway Road stop is often closed on match days and not really an option. It was an option yesterday, maybe because we arrived with more than 90 minutes to spare. There were plenty of people who had the same idea. 

We used part of our time to stop into the Armoury and look at the merch. In the interim since our last visit I had decided that the pink jersey was not for me; rather, the black one was. However, the lingering Pandemic/Russia invasion supply chain crisis had a few things to say about that; there were actually no jerseys available in any color but red, anywhere near my size. Probably for the best. We departed merch-less.

We left the shop and wandered over to Highbury, which is just a few blocks away. The old Arsenal stadium has been turned into townhomes and the pitch is a park in the middle. The entrances were well guarded on Saturday. There have been times when we were able to sneak in, but that was not going to happen without a fight this time.

We took a few pictures and went over to Gillespie Road to pick up some barbecue for lunch. Then we went back and circled the stadium, picking up as much good luck as possible. By the time we went inside, I had chased down Gunnersaurus, the ridiculous Arsenal mascot, and got a photo bomb-like picture with “him,” posed with Statue Tony Adams, rubbed Statue Thierry Henry’s head, and touched Statue Dennis Bergkamp’s right knee before entering the stadium. 

The fans were up for the match; it was a party atmosphere, even more than what we experienced for the past few matches. I suppose this was not surprising considering we were playing our arch rivals, Tottenham. I’ve never been to a match against Tottenham. It happens to be the favorite match of the person who shares the season tickets that allows us to attend. When we were here for the last set of matches, we asked him why he wasn’t attending the Tottenham game this year. He admitted that we had his daughter to thank. She was getting married in Greece right at about kickoff. He told us it was a hard match to miss; whatever the atmosphere was normally like, for the North London Derby, it was 20% more.

I’d say that was about so.

There have been a few beer-related changes at the Emirates recently. One of the changes: Arsenal no longer has a contract with Carlsberg for beer. Instead, it’s with the much preferred Camden Town brewery. Second: there is a beer-only concession line to more quickly serve the fans who want only that. (Many.) And finally, the beer is served in “London is Red” themed reusable glasses. Signs all over the Emirates, including in the restrooms, remind us that these cups can be reused up to 100 times if deposited in the correct bins.

We learned this week from this article that the Emirates has the Premier League’s most expensive beer. We didn’t think twice about it and had the Camden Hells Lager in the upper concourse while watching fans arrive across the Ken Friar bridge and listening to a live brass band of fans, with the other fans joining in to sing. There were so many people crammed into the area I could only reliably see the top of the tuba. But it was gloriously loud.

At last we piled into Block 98, for the newly obligatory and much-loved singing of “North London Forever” and kickoff. Although Tottenham is near the top of the league, Arsenal looked great from the time the whistle blew. Dynamic, tricky, beautiful and fast. Meanwhile, Tottenham had parked a big bus in front of its goal, waiting for a counterattack. They did get a few balls off to a waiting Tottenham player and there were some nervy moments, but the first goal was to the Arsenal. Thomas Partey took a beautiful shot from distance. I’ve seen him take a lot shots far from the goal before, but never have I see him take a shot from distance that I knew was going in from the moment he struck it. It curved perfectly to the top right corner where Hugo Loris, Spur’s keeper, was never going to save it. “One nil to the Arsenal” was ringing out all over the stadium.

Before the half was over, Spurs managed to move the ball into the box and our Gabriel fouled Spur’s newly-acquired player, Richarlison. I was so sure Harry Kane’s penalty kick was going in that I considered making better use of my time by visiting the ladies’ room. However, there were so few women in the stands, I had no doubt I would be the first one in after half time. I visited in nearly complete privacy only a bit later with things level at 1 apiece. 

Arsenal continued dominating after half time and Jesus scored a scrappy, ugly goal that nonetheless put us at 2-1, when Loris spilled a shot from Saka. Shortly after that, Spur’s Emerson Royal put in a bad foul on our Gabi Martinelli. Referee Anthony Taylor took his time walking over to the site of the crime, and when he arrived, reached for his back pocket. The red card he produced stood up to VAR scrutiny, and Tottenham was down to 10 players for the remaining 30 minutes. Now I know Tottenham is probably capable of producing a moment to make us sweat and you probably know that, too, but apparently no one ever told Tottenham’s manager, Antonio Conte. He pretty much capitulated by replacing 4 starting players. Only Harry Kane remained among players likely to score. And yes, he probably could still have done some damage. 

Except he did not.

Instead, our Granit Xhaka was fed a ball inside the box and he put up a beauty of a shot away from anywhere Loris was going to be able to get. 3-1 with 20 minutes to go and very little to worry about. In the stadium we enjoyed the last few minutes with songs, which if I am being honest were more focused on taunting Tottenham than celebrating our win. We sang “You’ll always be shit” to the team that has finished above us for at least the past five years. The Tottenham section became a ghost town as their fans dribbled out of the stadium.

We remain at the top of the league.

After hanging around cheering our boys, we spilled out of the stadium into the beautiful Fall day and marched with our compatriots, singing and chanting, to Holloway Road. My husband and I got on a bus and headed toward Hampstead Heath, the beautiful, big park not far from Islington. 

We enjoyed walking past ponds and through fields and groves of trees, and taking in the famous, beautiful sight of the city from the highest point. 

On our way to the tube station on the other side of the park we passed a lovely pub with outdoor seating called The Garden Gate, where we made an impromptu visit for beer and dinner while enjoying being outside. A lovely ending to a successful North London Derby.

My first, but hopefully not my only.

In the airport this morning I read an article on ESPN.com that provided updated statistics from FiveThirtyEight about the chances of any one team winning the Premier League. According to them, Arsenal’s chances to win the Premier League are only 10%. Manchester City, last year’s winner and, let’s face it, the winner for at least half of the last 10 years is credited with a 71% chance.

These are not the kind of statistics that make you feel confident of a big, happy ending to come. And, statistics or no, I can see with my own eyes that we have a ways to go to catch a team as good as Manchester City. Except for a couple of tied matches, they are destroying everything in their path.

However, that hasn’t stopped me from signing on for the last match of the season. No matter how unlikely the chances, if we get the trophy on the final day, I will be there.