It’s been a long, hard climb to the FA Cup Final!

Arsenal will face London crosstown rivals Chelsea in the 2020 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium on August 1st.

This will be Arsenal’s record-breaking 21st FA Cup Final. The club has won the trophy 13 previous times, which, by the way, is more than any other club. Plus, Arsenal has never lost to Chelsea in an FA Cup Final (2002 and 2017).

I’m so proud of the lads after an amazing performance Saturday v Manchester City. After a really terrific win v Liverpool earlier in the week, the Gunners put together a defensive masterpiece against the defending cup holders.

Imagine this. The Sky Blues held the ball 71% of the game, had 16 shots and 12 corners. However, Arsenal took advantage of their limited time on the ball, with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring twice to ice the win.

The first goal was a thing of beauty. Arsenal brought the ball from the back with quick, tight passing. Then, 17 passes later, the ball was in the back of the net.
The second goal featured a beautiful long ball from Kieren Tierney. Aubameyang was the target and he masterfully worked his way into the back of City’s net once again.

This was not only a game of great individual performances, but a total team win!

After the game, Mikel Arteta said, “We’ve had an incredible week to beat the two best teams in Europe, it doesn’t happen every day. I don’t care who plays, I can trust them. We made changes and everybody was ready. We had to suffer in many moments. We had to be really well-organized and minimize the spaces.”

Kieren Tierney said, “It feels good knowing that we’ve all got each other’s back. You’re in it together.”

It has been a wild rollercoaster of a season for Arsenal, and for its supporters. Beginning with a bad start to the season, then a fired manager, an interim manager, followed by a new manager, a COVID-19 lockdown, then a restart, and now a trip to another Wembley final.

It’s been a long, hard climb to the FA Cup Final!

But, even since we had a slow and somewhat discouraging restart to the season, the team slowly began to grasp the Mikel Arteta philosophy, and that showed more than ever on Saturday. They showed what this team can be, and what many of these players can be.

Even the men we have hammered with criticism during the season showed a tremendous amount of steel in the win over Man City. Case in point David Luiz.
Arsenal great Ian Wright gave this post-game comment about Luiz, “David Luiz!!! As good a performance we’ve seen from ANY Arsenal CB!!!”

Here are my Men of the Match from Saturday…
Martinez, Luiz, Mustafi, Tierney, Xhaka, Ceballos, Maitland-Niles, Bellerin, Pepe, Lacazette, Aubameyang, Holding, Kolasinac, Torreira and Willock!

Now, it’s time to finish the Premier League in style with wins over Aston Villa and Watford.

Then, it’s back to Wembley to beat Chelsea and raise the FA Cup for the 14th time!

COYG!

Cheers, and stay healthy and safe!

Gunner1953