ARSENAL SLIPPED TO just a second defeat of the season after being outplayed at PSV Eindhoven as they failed to ensure top spot in their Europa League group.
A point would have been enough for the Gunners, but they were deservedly beaten 2-0 by Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side, with Joey Veerman and Luuk de Jong grabbing the goals.
Arsenal can still top Group A – and avoid the knockout round play-offs against the likes of Barcelona and Sevilla – by matching or bettering PSV’s result in the final round of pool fixtures, but manager Mikel Arteta will be ruing having missed a chance to wrap things up early and rest players for their final Europa League game before the World Cup.
After confusion in the build-up surrounding what shorts Arsenal would wear to avoid a kit clash, the visitors ended up riding by the seat of their pants as PSV had two goals disallowed before finally opening the scoring through Veerman.
Aaron Ramsdale – on his European debut, with Matt Turner missing out as a precaution due to a groin issue – made a fine low save from Xavi Simons before Cody Gakpo fluffed his lines moments later, with the hosts setting the scene for the rest of the evening.
Gakpo was quiet at the Emirates Stadium a week ago but showed his quality in collecting a through ball and clipping a fine finish over Ramsdale – only to have his celebrations cut short by an offside flag.
With the game opening up, Eddie Nketiah drew a smart stop out of Walter Benitez with a near-post flick from Fabio Vieira’s cross.
PSV had a second goal of the half disallowed after Simons battled past Kieran Tierney, Rob Holding and William Saliba before finishing beyond Ramsdale, only for Anwar El Ghazi to have been caught offside in the build-up.
The half ended with Martin Odegaard stinging the palms of Benitez, but the visitors went for the break lucky to be level.
Nketiah flashed a shot past the post and Tierney curled over the crossbar as Arsenal started the second half brighter.
PSV, though, were still a threat at the other end, with Simons and Veerman both calling Ramsdale into action before Gakpo flashed a shot across goal.
It was third time lucky for the hosts, Veerman steering home a fine finish to break the deadlock 10 minutes into the second half.
Shortly afterwards the lead was doubled. De Jong, having been introduced at half-time, made the most of Ramsdale coming off his line and failing to punch clear a corner which the PSV skipper duly nodded home.
Arsenal, with Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus all thrown on in an attempt to turn the game around, almost went three behind as Gakpo turned in a cross only to once again be thwarted by an offside flag.
De Jong then headed a fine chance wide with Arteta’s side well and truly on the ropes, although Nketiah still worked Benitez as Everton loanee Jarrad Branthwaite cleared away bravely.
Arsenal could not get any closer to a consolation than that, with former United striker Van Nistelrooy dishing out just a second loss of the campaign to Arteta’s side after the Red Devils won their Premier League meeting last month.
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Sounds worrying
@geraldo: he has a point about thr penalty count. When your winning handy enough there’s no excuse to give away penalties.
Hard to stay disciplined and motivated if you are winning by 50pts. The big problem is the overlap with international windows. It effectively means each club has to have two teams. If there were fewer games it would be more competitive. A pool or conference system is the only way to go without asking unions to reduce the number of teams they have.
@Rudiger McMonihan: few clubs lose a whole team to the international windows. Maybe one in each country would lose 15. I think a 2 division league might work but as soon as the SA teams come in it would be them and the 3 Irish sides. So maybe not.
@Chris Mc: I think this year you need to include all four provinces. If Connacht had played all their games they would be second in conference B.
@Chris Mc: no union will ever have relagation, would the FIR, WRU or IRFU risk one or more of their professional teams being 2nd division teams? Glasgow, Edinburgh, Zebre, Benetton lose as many players as Leinster to international call ups and have nowhere near the same resources. Its little surprise Leinster are walking it against those teams.
@Rudiger McMonihan: think we touched on this before, clubs need the 10/11 home games. The proposed new rugby calendar if it gets agreed will sort it out. With no overlap durning internationals. It has a 29/30 week club season, but I think it would be the end of the HCup. As the French Top 14 takes 29 weeks and if given the choice between changing their league system or leaving the HCup the French would leave the HCup. The Pro 16 and English Prem would have maybe 5 weeks that they could fit a new European rugby cup in (Current HCup, takes 9 weeks), but no way can the French fit in a 29 round league and 9 round HCup in 30 weeks, and if there are no French is it really worth it?
@Kingshu: yeah I said they need to reduce the number of club games. Pre-covid Super rugby teams played far fewer games (16 + 3 knock outs). The best players go on to play internationals after (14 in a normal year). Then the rest play in the mitre cup (10 + 2 KO’s). So everyone gets game time, the calendar is more coherent and the games are more competitive. The way our calendar is set up is ridiculous. There is so much overlap between pro14, Heineken cup and internationals. We bounce between the 3 all year too. Teams dont get enough time together to build momentum and their position on the table is often down to how well their 3rd or 4th choice player is.
@Rudiger McMonihan: The New global calendar proposal
Is
Autumn internationals: October-November
Club and European games: December-July with a 7 week break for
Six Nations: April-May and same time the Rugby Championship: April-May. Players get a break from end of July to start of Oct.
Thats a 30 week club season with 7 week break with no games played durning 6 nations/rugbt championship. I just can’t see the Top 14 fitting their league and Hcup into that window.
@Con Cussed: have they not lost 2 games so far. They are a bit off the top 3 to be fair.
@Kingshu: I am with you on this. The system that has been cobbled together over the years has suited the Irish set-up more than anyone else; its deficiencies are increasingly obvious but it is hard to see that there will be changes that will be beneficial in the round.
The underlying problem is that there are only 2 countries – England and France – with the resources to support a domestic professional ‘club’ set-up. The rest have to rely on subsidies from the mens’ senior international game and an artificial cobbled-together league combining the remaining countries.
For us the real focus of the ‘club’ game is the Heineken Cup, but this can only really exist if the English and French clubs want it to, and only a minority of them are really committed