Well that was fucking brilliant. After a pretty tortuous season where there hasn’t been much to be joyful about, we deserved that. All of us deserved that. Mikel Arteta has had a bonkers first 6/7 months as Arsenal manager where his own personal fortitude will surely have been tested. It was the Spaniards own positive diagnoses for Covid 19 back in March that lead to the 3 month stoppage for all football in England. Even searching back through the realms of footballing history, it is difficult to find a manager who has experienced a more turbulent start to his career. In fact, this level of disruption to routine has not been seen since the suspension of football due to World War 2, when the wartime league was set up. Not unlike current times, the wartime league saw a reduction in the number of fans allowed to attend games. Managing a football team during this time would surely have been a challenging job. Many footballers and staff fought in the war, some of whom lost their lives in the conflicts. Of course, these are different times. The FA and the individual clubs have done a remarkable job in ensuring the safety of both players and coaches. However, this has been an undoubtedly difficult period for everyone involved, particularly for a man in his first job in management. When the final whistle went in the FA cup final on Sunday, we not only saw a show of joy from Arteta as his new team lifted yet another trophy. We also seen relief. A video has since gone viral of the usually quite reserved and serious Arteta carrying the historic cup through Wembly’s tunnel area and joining in with his players in the dressing room as they danced and embraced each other while champagne sprayed from all corners. It was a special end to an extremely difficult season.
Arteta sprang few surprises with the lineup with Rob Holding replacing the injured Skhrodran Mustafi, as expected. There were some worrying scenes early on defensively, with Christian Pulisic’s pace causing major problems for Holding. The American took the lead for Chelsea after just 6 minutes, skipping past Kieran Tierney and lofting the ball over Emiliano Martinez. It was the worst possible start for an Arsenal side that have generally struggled when they go a goal down. If Arsenal exceeded expectations against Manchester City, they proved the combination of defensive solidity and attacking threat they showed against Pep Guardiola’s side was no fluke. Despite the score line, Arsenal had been dangerous down the left hand side with Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang causing problems for Cesar Azpilicueta. The latter nearly gave Arsenal an early lead after Maitland Niles got in behind Azpilicueta and put a good cross into the box. Aubameyang couldn’t direct his header goal wards. The Gabon international is lethal in front of goal and this miss should have been a greater warning for Chelsea. A long ball over the top from Tierney set off a footrace between Aubameyang and Azpilicueta. Aubameyang got there first (of course) and the Chelsea defender was forced to make a desperate grab at Arsenal’s striker. It was a clear penalty and Azpilicueta was only spared a red card by teammate Rudiger covering his back. Aubameyang smashed his penalty into the bottom right hand corner. 1-1. Arsenal had the better of the remainder of the first half without creating many chances.
The 2nd half was a far more congested, tactical affair. Arsenal needed a moment of magic or simply someone to take responsibility. With a quarter of the game remaining, Hector Bellerin made a driving run at pace through midfield before Christensen made a crunching challenge. The ball fell kindly to Nicolas Pepe, however, who played a good pass into Aubameyang. The striker had a lot to do and had Kurt Zouma standing in his way but an almost nonchalant piece of skill took the ball past a flat footed Zouma and a delicate chip over Cabellero gave Arsenal the lead and ultimately their 14th FA cup triumph. A pretty harsh second yellow card for Mateo Kovacic ended pretty much ended the game (although it didn’t feel like that). Emi Martinez had us all with our hearts in our mouths as he came to meet a ball lofted over the top. With Abraham hunting it down, he simply had to reach the ball but in doing so almost took it out of his box. Luckily for him and for Arsenal, replays showed the ball remained on the line (so in the box) and Arsenal held on to win.
Winning a trophy in your first year is impressive enough as it is. However, winning one in your first job as a manager after taking the job halfway through the season is a pretty big achievement. If that isn’t remarkable enough, he also had a global pandemic which shut down football to deal with. The scenes after the game were jubilant. Several Arsenal players collapsed on the pitch as the final whistle blew. The past few months, including this game will surely have been mentally and physically exhausting. The players and manager deserve immense credit for coming through and achieving what they did. I think I’m sort of echoing what Elliot said on the always excellent Arsenal Vision Podcast but this is why we do this. This is why we put ourselves through all the pain and suffering. We can talk about Champions League qualification all we like but ultimately it all comes down to trophies. The feeling of watching your team lift a cup just can’t be replicated by a 4th place finish in the league. It’s a much more permanent reward for your efforts. We will always be the 2020 Fa cup champions and nobody can take that away from us. I don’t think any sensible Arsenal fan is claiming that this win cures all of our problems. There is still major issues at this football club that need to be addressed. However, winning a trophy gives everyone optimism. It’s the lift that I think everyone needed. There was sense that the 2014 FA cup final win could be the beginning of better things for Arsenal under Arsene Wenger. Bar a couple more FA cups, that didn’t quite materialize. Perhaps, though, under a talented young manager and with some exciting youngsters, the 2020 fa cup win could spark the emergence of a new era for Arsenal.
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