Essential Arsenal news: Weekend roundup

Arteta was asked about the view that Nick Pope should have been sent off for his foul on Viktor Gyokeres and was unequivocal in his answer. “I don’t know [why the referee didn’t give a red card],” he said.

“They will have their opinion. I’m here to give my opinion. I’m someone who has been in the game for a long time, and you talk to any of the players because the trajectory, where the ball is, there’s no keeper there. If that were to happen the other way around, it’s a red card.”

Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

He was then asked if he felt decisions were going against Arsenal, and said, “I’m saying it’s been the reality of the last two games in crucial moments when everything is at stake. We need everything to go our way and it hasn’t. I’m not making any excuses; I’m the first one to understand. I didn’t talk about it when we lost the game. I’m doing it when we won. It’s a red card today, it’s a red card in Manchester and the world is different. That’s it.”

It’s the second time this season that Pope has got away with one against Gyokeres after he should have conceded a penalty at St James’ Park earlier in the season.

Eze scored Arsenal’s only goal, a wonderful finish that curled away from a flailing Pope after a short corner, the third in a row that had fans groaning before the net rippled.

Next up for Arsenal men

• Wednesday 29 April, 8pm BST – Champions League semi-final first leg v Atletico Madrid in Madrid.

Opposition news

Atletico Madrid‘s Pablo Barrios has suffered an injury setback, and is now a major doubt to face Arsenal in the Champions League semi-finals. More here.

Arsenal women

Arsenal Women will take a 2-1 lead to France after an excellent second-half comeback against Lyon in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final.

Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

On Sunday, Arsenal women took on Lyon in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, hoping to make the final as they defend their trophy.

After a solid start in which Lyon were allowed to put in a number of heavy challenges on Arsenal players (mostly on Olivia Smith), Lyon’s quality alongside poor Arsenal defending, cut the Gunners wide open to take the lead with 20 minutes on the clock. It was to be the only shot they would be allowed in the match, and that’s how it remained to the break.

In the second half, however, Arsenal came out flying and within five minutes Kim Little, bursting in to the box, was fouled. The referee pointed to the spot.

VAR, however, called the ref to the monitor as this ‘touched the ball’ nonsense continues to infect football. Nowhere in the rules does it mention getting the ball as being relevant and the Lyon captain’s touch on the ball was so minimal Little would have had it at her feet in front of goal, had she not been fouled.

Nevertheless, it was overturned.

Less than 10 minutes later, Set Piece FC and Own Goal FC combined to level in hilarious fashion. A free kick, slid harmlessly into the box was fumbled by the Lyon keeper, sending it spinning towards the goal and in off the post. 1-1.

Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Arsenal pushed and dominated, searching for a winner. With less than 10 minutes remaining, Smith’s speed and determination forced an error in the centre of Lyon’s defence between their centreback and keeper. Smith got a toe in and took it from both of them as they collided with each other, leaving her to slot into an empty net.

It was the perfect response to the kicking she took all afternoon. Arsenal finally had the lead they deserved and were able to see it by smothering the life out of Lyon.

The game finished with Arsenal having 16 shots and making six fouls while Lyon had six shots and 16 fouls.

Photo by Richard Heathcote/Getty Images

Leah Williamson returned to the starting lineup and we already knew that Steph Catley had not recovered from the calf problem she picked up at the start of the month.

Beth Mead was left out due to personal reasons (as was her partner, Vivianne Miedema from City’s squad this weekend for the same reason). After the match, Slegers said “we don’t know when Beth will be back”.

Chloe Kelly, however, was a surprise omission, missing out with a ‘small’ muscular issue according to Sylvain Jamet.

The other semi-final first leg, between Bayern Munich and Barcelona finished 1-1.

In other news, Arsenal appeared to leak an article that seemed hint that Williamson might have renewed her contract at the club. It was hastily deleted but not before the post, which featured a picture of Williamson and the caption “Always Arsenal”, was saved by some eager watchers. Contracts in women’s football are much more secretive than in the men’s game but tend to be two-years in length. On that basis, we think she could be out of contract this summer, like Stina Blackstenius who recently extended hers, but we’re not 100% on that and trying to get confirmation.

When we recently did a review of Arsenal women’s loans this season Sylvain noted that Laila Harbert’s at Everton had been a ‘disaster’ given she’d played no football. On Sunday, she finally got her first minutes as a Toffee, coming on in the 85th minute with her side already 4-1 down at home to Chelsea. The score stayed that way and she got to touch the ball five times.

With Manchester City losing surprisingly against Brighton, Arsenal are now 11 points behind with three games in hand having only played 17. City have two games remaining.

Man United played out a 0-0 draw with Spurs, meaning United, in third, are only one point ahead of the Gunners but have also played three more. Chelsea, in second after 20 games, are five ahead of Slegers & co.

Next up for Arsenal women

• Wednesday 29 April, 7pm BST – FA WSL v Leicester at The Emirates.

Arsenal youth

The Arsenal u21s and Arsenal u18s both lost on Saturday, bringing the u21 campaign to an early end and leaving the u18s floundering in the bottom half of the table.

• Arsenal’s under-21 campaign ended with a 3-1 defeat to Manchester City in the Premier League 2 play-offs. Despite taking the lead before half-time, they were overrun after the break. Having finished 14th in the regular season, the early exit underlines a disappointing year and raises wider concerns about development at this level. More on that here.
• Arsenal’s under-18s suffered a 4-3 defeat to West Ham despite leading twice and playing 10 men late on. A stoppage-time winner sealed another setback, leaving them 11th in the table. With little prospect of a strong finish, it caps a difficult season marked by inconsistency and underperformance across competitions. More on that here.

Next up for Arsenal youth

• Tuesday, 28 April, 12pm BST – Premier League u18 v Crystal Palace at the Sobha Realty Training Centre

Other Arsenal stuff

Photo by James Fearn/Getty Images

Mikel Arteta seemed to hint that the number of subs allowed on the bench could increase next season, although there currently seems to be no plans for to change things. After the game against Newcastle, he was asked why Christian Norgaaard wasn’t included in the squad. He replied, “We had to leave two players out of the squad at the end, Mikel [Merino]  is out and there were Christian and Richi [Calafiori], so that’s going to happen.

“As I said, if the Premier League allows us to have 20 or 22 players, we can have everybody involved and hopefully next season that will be the case.”

Currently, nine subs are allowed (which, when added to the starting XI, is 20).

Arsenal gossip

Photo by Denis Doyle/Getty Images

Arsenal fans are generally very excited that the club is being reliably linked with a move for Julian Alvarez but were perhaps not so happy recently when it was claimed he was heading to Barcelona.

Fear not, his agent has said those rumours are “1000% false.”” No one in the family has been in Barcelona,” Fernando Hidalgo said. “The last time was for the match against Atletico and they returned to Madrid.”

Ex Arsenal

Photo by Fran Santiago/Getty Images

Arsenal fan favourite, Hector Bellerin is enjoying his best scoring season since the 17-18 campaign when he was still at Arsenal. He has two goals and three assists in 22 league games for Real Betis.

In the 17-18 season, he scored two and assisted three in 35 Premier League games.

Finally, Alex Manninger will be laid out in a funeral hall in Salzburg on Tuesday, to give people a chance to say goodbye, before a private ceremony for family.

24 Jan 1999: Alex Manninger of Arsenal in action during the FA Cup Fourth round match against Wolverhampton Wanderers at Molineux Stadium, Wolverh…

Anything else?

Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

The referee who took charge of Arsenal’s debacle in Baku against Chelsea in the Europa League final in 2019 has stepped aside from his current role after being told he is under investigation for sporting fraud.