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Arsenal v Burnley: Premier League – live | Premier League
Key events
40 min: Rice is back in the Arsenal area to boot the ball away for a Burnley corner … it doesn’t bring the hosts any trouble.
Saka dinks a lovely ball into the mixer and Havertz, wearing an invisible jet-pack, rises high at the front post, a glancing header enough to give Arsenal the lead.
GOAL! Arsenal 1-0 Burnley (Havertz 37)
Arsenal. Corner. Goal. Standard.
37 min: Here come Arsenal again as Calafiori pulls the ball back for Ødegaard … his low drive is deflected for a corner …
36 min: VAR’s had a look and said no! There’s a tangle of legs between Saka and Lucas Pires. Gary Neville isn’t sure on comms and agrees with the ref and VAR.
34 min: Flemming misplaces a pass when Burnley have the chance to counter … and here come Arsenal down the left, the ball rolled into the middle. Saka emerges ready to tap in, and he goes down! Penalty?
33 min: Burnley’s defensive shape is holding up quite well.
30 min: Saka scoops a cross from the right that leaves a back-pedalling Weiss briefly worried.
29 min: Hannibal’s got himself a yellow … Eze takes the ball, turns and shoots on the volley, trying to replicate that Dele goal against Crystal Palace back in the day. He doesn’t get the power.
27 min: Burnley launch a dangerous-looking counter, a cross finding Hannibal in the area … he takes a touch but can’t find the balance and composure with his effort as Rice closes down, the shot travelling wide.
26 min: Free-kick time for Arsenal, from way out. Rice decides to go short before Trossard tries to wiggle away on the left. He can’t get the ball into the mixer, though.
Tim Smith writes in:
Any time I’ve seen Burnley this season, Kyle Walker, who, fair to say, is a Manchester City legend, has looked a husk of his former self. He couldn’t, could he?
And a former Spurs man. It’s written.
23 min: Saka intercepts in midfield before Ødegaard very nearly slips a sneaky pass through to Havertz in the area.
21 min: Calafiori suddenly finds himself high up on the right wing to keep an Arsenal move ticking.
19 min: Arsenal calmly wheel it around in their own half, side to side. Eze suddenly speed things up to bring Saka into play on the right. Trossard’s post-rattler remains the closest Arsenal have come.
17 min: Hannibal overcooks a cross for Burnley as the visitors venture down the right.
16 min: Trossard breaks past Walker on the left but can’t find Havertz with his ball into the middle.
15 min: Trossard cuts in from the left and launches from outside the area … the ball slams the post. Arsenal have raised the volume in the last five.
14 min: Saka is in his trademark position, launching a curling effort after cutting in from the right … it’s blocked out for a corner. Arsenal work a rehearsed move, playing it short before it lands to Havertz inside the area … he punts it wide.
12 min: Tchaouna finds the ball on the right for Burnley but his effort at goal is well blocked by Calafiori. Flemming and Trossard have a minor scrap, prompting a break in play.
10 min: Rice sits deep, examining options on the ball before Eze goes down on the left wing. Arsenal have a free-kick … with Rice to deliver into the area. Weiss, in net for Burnley, pats the ball away.
8 min: Not a heavy-metal start, this.
6 min: Eze plays a stinging ball to Havertz on the touchline, with Arsenal mainly operating down the right-hand side.
5 min: Arsenal pump up those possession stats, moving it about in midfield.
4 min: Arsenal get moving down the right, with Havertz nearly finding the ball in a dangerous spot inside the area.
2 min: Anthony plays the corner along the carpet to the front post, trying something funky … but it only leads to another Burnley corner. Florentino launches from the edge of the area … but it’s low, slow and wide.
1 min: Pires ventures down the left wing for Burnley, who win an early corner. The upset’s on!
Peeeeep!
Burnley get us going.
Arsenal and Burnley emerge to a pyro-party at the Emirates. We’ll get going shortly.
Martin Ødegaard’s had a stop-start season with injuries, scoring just once. But he was excellent off the bench against West Ham last time out, showing off his close control in the area before laying off for Leandro Trossard’s winner. The captain starts tonight, his 16th of this league campaign.
Burnley have beaten Arsenal once in the Premier League, a 1-0 win at the Emirates in December 2020.
That’s some welcome for the hosts.
Krishnamoorthy v writes in:
Imagine the mental turmoil of Arteta while he presents a picture of equanimity, imagine the pressure of every single player who must be dreading ‘will I fail today? Will I be remembered as the villain who scuppered Arsenal’s one chance at glory?’, imagine all tbe poor Gunners who must be borrowing their partner’s digits to chew on having already chewed all their own fingernails to their end, imagine if the partner is also a Gunner.
Thank heavens I am a Chelsea fan. But there is no city rivalry today.
Arsenal – march on , do whatever you have to do to ensure that Manchester City does not win (yet) another league.
A reminder of the situation:
Burnley, who have won just one league game since the end of October, are unchanged. Arsenal have replaced the injured Ben White with Cristhian Mosquera. Martin Ødegaard and Kai Havertz come in for Myles Lewis-Skelly and Victor Gyökeres.
The teams
Arsenal: Raya, Mosquera, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Rice, Eze, Ødegaard, Saka, Trossard, Havertz
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Hincapié, Jesus, Martinelli, Gyökeres, Madueke, Zubimendi, Lewis-Skelly, Dowman
Burnley: Weiss, Walker, Estéve, Tuanzebe, Pires, Florentino, Ugochukwu, Tchaouna, Hannibal, Anthony, Flemming
Subs: Dubravka, Hartman, Worrall, Bruun Larsen, Edwards, Humphreys, Ward-Prowse, Amdouni, Laurent
Preview reading to get stuck into:
Preamble
First against 19th, the visitors already down. This should be straightforward but it just isn’t, is it? Arsenal are two victories away from their first league title in 22 years, maybe even just one if Manchester City fail to beat Bournemouth tomorrow night. Every Arsenal fan I speak to is terrified, the heart constantly throbbing, no calm to be found until it is finally over. Three second-place finishes on the bounce will do that to you. The suffering continues at 8pm BST.
The family of Shaun Burton, say they are “devastated” by the loss.
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Key events
In the opening half an hour against Cape Verde, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch.
Kyle Green gets in touch: “Your highlighting of Lalas and his absurdity is something that has prevented me from wanting to watch the coverage on Fox. While every channel has its pros and cons I just can’t.
“I’m 45 and probably the youngest of anyone who remembers him as a player instead of an opinionated insert insult here. As for the match this could be more competitive than it looks on paper Spain need a win the pressure is on them. Saudi Arabia could hold out for a draw and see what happens in their last match. “
News from the England camp, and it seems to be good news on Declan Rice.
“I’m ready and fit, raring to go. I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.
“In the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it’s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.”
Alex Reid has penned today’s weekend special Football Daily.
Portugal v Uzbekistan on Tuesday enticingly pits the incredibly nice, incredibly 41-year-old-superstar-tolerant Roberto Martínez against Fabio Cannavaro, who’s won a Ballon d’Or as a player and the Chinese Super League as a coach. While the fixture following that game really does see the dream of Thomas Tuchel – in his first international job with England – taking on Queiroz, who is in charge of his ninth national side with Ghana.
The expected formations are 4-2-3-1 for Spain, and 5-3-2 for the Saudi Arabians.
The Saudi team features two Donis changes: Ali Lajami, a defender, and Nasser Al Dawsari, a midfielder, are preferred to Mohammed Abu Al Shamat and Mohamed Kanno. You may recall Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi captain, as the man who scored the winner against Argentina.
An entertaining read, even for those of us who have just seen the clips.
In a conversation where his co-panelist is casually reminiscing about his days playing alongside Messi or exchanging shirts with Ronaldo Nazário at the World Cup, what exactly is Lalas going to talk about – coming on as a second-half substitute for Earnie Stewart in a friendly against Scotland in 1998? Helping the Kansas City Wizards finish last in the 1999 MLS Western Conference? Did Lalas enjoy an elite playing career? No. But does he do the background reading that could compensate for his relative lack of standing in a conversation with titans like Henry and Zlatan? Also no. But is he charming or funny or charismatic or otherwise magnetic on screen? Eh, no.
For the record, I once interviewed Alexi Lalas on the challenge of playing against Romario in the 1994 World Cup. He had this to say:
“He could kill you in so many different ways. If you remember from that World Cup, he scored so many types of goals. That ranged from solo adventures to an outside-of-the-right-foot half-volley off a corner kick. Romario was both the most difficult to play against and the best that I have faced.
“Roberto Baggio was doing his thing, but in terms of consistency and living up to the hype, he [Romario] was the best. As with all stars, there was a moment when the fans sit up in their seats, and that was a feeling I got with Romario. When it got close to him and the potential for his involvement in a play was there, everybody sat up in their seat. They knew that something spectacular would be happening.”
Saturday’s match reports here.
The Saudi Arabia coach, and Blackburn legend, Georgios Donis, spoke about the challenges facing his team: “Spain is not the same team when Yamal or Williams are on the bench.
“While they still have plenty of possession, they lack the individual one-on-one penetration when these two are missing. I’m not saying it’s a problem for Spain, but when those players are missing, they play in a different way. We saw this very clearly against Cape Verde.
“We are playing against one of the best teams in the world, and it’s very important that when you play against these kinds of teams, you should enjoy the experience and respect the opponent, but not too much.
“It is very hard for any team playing against Spain to have any time in possession. So what we must do is to be more in control of our movement and compact, and when the ball goes through the lines, be able to defend dynamically.
“It’s nice to see miracles in football, and we’ve seen favourites losing against underdogs. Of course, it’s great for Saudi football to have a great memory of the result against Argentina, but we aren’t drawing anything from that.
“I think we’ll feel more pressure in that [Cape Verde] game than we will against Spain.”
The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up… It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”
Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.
The teams – Lamine Yamal starts
Spain: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Yamal, Olmo, Baena, Oyarzabal. Subs: Raya, Joan Garcia, Pubill, Grimaldo, Eric Garcia, Llorente, Merino, Torres, Fabian, Gavi, Pino, Williams, Zubimendi, Munoz, Iglesias.
Saudi Arabia: Al Owais, Abdulhamid, Tambakti, Lajami, Al Amri, Al Harbi, Nasser Al Dawsari, Al Khaibari, Al Juwayr, Al Buraikan, Salem Al Dawsari. Subs: Al Aqidi, Al Kassar, Majrashi, Yahya, Al Shehri, Al Boushal, Kadesh, Al Johani, Al Ghannam, Al Hajji, Al Hamdan, Mandash, Kanno, Thakri, Abu Al Shamat.
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)
Perhaps one of the Saudi -players can write themselves into this high-grade selection?
Perhaps it can be their goalkeeper.
Madrid screening of Spain v Saudi Arabia cancelled due to heat
The public screening of Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia in Madrid on Sunday has been cancelled because of extreme heat forecast for the Spanish capital, officials said.
The match, due to kick off at 6pm local time on Sunday, had been scheduled to be shown on a giant screen installed by the Spanish football federation (RFEF) at a fan zone in Plaza de Colón in central Madrid.
Madrid city council and the federation decided to cancel the screening after national weather agency AEMET issued an orange heat warning – the second-highest level – for the Madrid region, with temperatures forecast to reach 40C.
“The decision has been taken with the aim of protecting the health of attendees, event staff and support services involved in the event,” Madrid city hall said in a statement, apologising for any inconvenience.
Officials urged supporters to watch the match indoors in air-conditioned spaces and avoid prolonged exposure to the heat.
Large parts of Spain are experiencing unusually high temperatures for June as a mass of hot air from North Africa moves across the Iberian Peninsula.
A total of 13 of Spain’s 17 regions are on orange alert for heat on Sunday, while the northern Basque Country bordering France is on red alert, the highest level.
Authorities advised residents and visitors to take precautions during the heatwave, including drinking water regularly, staying in cool environments, limiting outdoor physical activity during the hottest hours of the day and taking extra care of vulnerable people. AFP
Can Saudi Arabia repeat the magic of 2022?
Argentina arrived in Qatar on a 36-game unbeaten run. When Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 10 minutes, a comfortable afternoon seemed in the offing. Saleh al-Shehri and Salem al-Dawsari had other ideas, Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in the space of 13 minutes and the greatest comeback in Saudi Arabia football history was made. Argentina went on to lift the trophy, while defeats to Poland and Mexico meant the Saudis did not reach the knock-out stage.
Unai Simon over David Raya is a controversial choice for De la Fuentes. The Arsenal keeper could lay claim to being Europe’s best this season.
“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”
A high pressure game for the European champions, as Sid Lowe reports.
“If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match. “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”
We wait to see what role Lamine Yamal will play today. His coach would surely like to be able to use him.
The worst mistake we could make would be to compare him to anyone. He is the midst of a process. He has exceptional footballing maturity and lives it all with total naturalness. He has great serenity and strength. We have to let him follow his path but those players who have something different are ready for that. They’re geniuses, like Dalí [who] can paint a picture, or Michelangelo. They’re different. What is exceptional to us, isn’t to them. In those extremes, they feel comfortable. Why? Because they are different. What we think is exceptional, they consider normal.
Preamble
Spain’s campaign did not get off to a flying start, and Luis de la Fuentes may wake up in the night to visions of Cape Verde’s Vozinha. He will have Georgia on his mind ever since Monday. Saudi Arabia are no pushovers and gave Uruguay a scare in their opening match. Memories of downing Argentina four years ago still abound, and so Spain might beware. They can ill afford to go into the final game with Uruguay at a disadvantage. All eyes on Lamine Yamal, whose fitness situation remains opaque, though Spain need their other forwards to come to the party.
Kick-off 5pm UK, 1pm ET, 2am AEST. Join me.
A topless man can be seen driving erratically in Edinburgh before abandoning his car and attacking a black man and a delivery rider.
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