Victoria sufrida... y directo a octavos! / Suffering victory... and straight to the round of 16!

Arsenal suffered more than necessary at the Emirates Stadium when they received the weak Zurich for the last day of the Europa League group stage, and despite arriving as leaders, the Londoners needed a victory to get first place, and that is that Seeing the rivals that will reach the competition for the Champions League, it was an obligation to get the victory, both because it would avoid a very strong rival in the round of 16, a phase that the second of each group have to play, and because it will relieve slightly the minute load on Gunner players by skipping this phase.

Mikel Arteta started with a mixture of starters and substitutes, lining up his players in a clear 4-3-3 that played against him in many parts of the game. Elneny was back in the starting lineup after a long spell out, but he had a very difficult game, the Zurich midfield always put pressure on him when they tried to play out from their area, repeatedly forcing them to shoot long balls to Gabriel Jesus or to any of the other players. two extremes, causing the midfield of Arteta's team to lose importance given how little they intervened in this facet.

On a defensive level, things weren't much better either, thanks to those constant turnovers, Zurich added a lot of minutes in possession in the first quarter of an hour of play, and beyond this, by recovering balls near the center circle, they grabbed badly stopped the Gunner defense on more than one occasion. Knowing of Tierney's greatest defensive shortcomings, most of the deep passes behind the Swiss defenders were on the right, looking for both Okita and Rohner, but despite that initial superiority, they did not manage to worry Ramsdale too much, who also did not have his most brilliant night playing with his feet due to this same advanced pressure.

But when Arsenal was having the worst time, the hierarchy came to the fore, because in a very vertical play there is a live rebound at the edge of the area after a shot by Fábio Vieira, which was reached by Tierney who followed the play with a move in diagonal, and despite the fact that he did not have much travel with his foot before hitting the ball, a perfect shot went to the far post, impossible for Brecher to save. Arsenal wanted to take advantage of the high spirits of that goal and went up to close the game, but a series of unfortunate actions, where the center-backs, or even Gabriel Jesús himself, blocked different shots towards goal, maintaining equality in the marker.

The clearest in that first half was Nketiah after he headed in a corner kick taken by Fábio Vieria, but Brecher unbelievably took the ball from the baseline, keeping his team alive at the end of the first half. Seeing how little he contributed to the Swiss game, Rohner left for Marchesano to enter, changing the face of Zurich's offensive game, as he was not only very mobile and overwhelmed Ben White on several occasions, but he had the clearest in the Second half by receiving a horizontal pass and shooting with a lot of power, and although Ramsdale left the ball alive, Arsenal were lucky for Guerrero's advanced position by saving the ball between the nets.

Despite the fact that at the beginning of the resumption Arsenal was much superior, and only Brecher prevented them from scoring another goal, Arteta's were diluted with the passing of the minutes, because as has happened in other years, The Gunners are starting to have a lot of problems closing games, something that already happened in the Premier with Southampton. Much of this problem is that the substitutes do not have the same level as the starters, being much more evident in attack, because when Saka, Martinelli or Ødegaard are not there, the team has a hard time scoring.

Nelson and Nketiah are not bad players, but they are not as skilled as the aforementioned, and when it comes to decision making, they make more mistakes than they should. Something similar happened with Fábio Vieria, the Portuguese is very good and knows how to add to the attack without many problems, but unlike Lokonga who delayed his position to help with the ball's exit, he stayed up most of the time, throwing several solo runs that looked like they were going to end in a loss, but the worst of all was when defining, he had 3 very clear moves to finish off with the goalkeeper without many options to react, but inexplicably all his shots hit the legs of defenders, or even those of their teammates.

All this forced Arteta to return to his classic 4-2-3-1, positioning Lokonga and Partey in the double pivot, refreshing the left wing with the entry of Tomiyasu from the side and Saka from the end, but despite all this, his team was a sea of ​​doubts and the ghosts of the previous Premier began to invade the Emirates. It was enough for Zurich to come back from the game, since PSV Eindhoven was doing them a favor by beating the Norwegian Bodo, and with this in mind they went against the Ramsdale goal, and although they deserved at least the tie, in the last play Katic I nodded over the crossbar, managing to silence the thousands of souls that were in the stadium for a few seconds.

Already with the final whistle of the referee, Arteta's men celebrated the leadership in group A, which means avoiding the giants who had come down from the Champions League, and subtracting a few minutes from their players, since the final stretch of the season will be crazy at the rate that is being played at the moment in the Premier League. Another thing that was very clear to me is that the Gunners will not compete with Manchester City if they are not reinforced in the offensive zone, because beyond the doubts that White as a side or Holding in the central saga generates in me, without Saka or Gabriel Jesús this team It is not the same, and to be more competitive seeing the infernal calendar that they will have, the rotations will be essential...