Well, we all knew we weren’t a match to Man City with their 33-goal scorer Haaland and the best midfielder on the planet in Kevin De Bruyne. But no one expected that we won’t show up for a fight. In the title race when a win was a 6 pointer, we lost and we lost badly. A 4-1 score is as bad as it gets, but the way we played it could have been worse.
So, where did it go wrong? As a starter, Arteta failed to adjust to the Pep’s tactics. Their first goal was a result of the free space De Bruyne was enjoying between our midfield and defence. In the first 30min, it happened couple of times when the pair of Haaland and De Bruyne were left with our CBs. I don’t think anyone can beat Haaland for the pace, it was a fight to be lost. We should have adapted, we should have dropped down and closed the space . We could have switched back to back 3 and fight on counters.
Second, we stuck to the playing XI which didn’t work against Liverpool, West Ham, and Southampton. Yes, Xhaka was back in place of Vieira but it doesn’t make any difference. Both are poor! If you say what options we had, I would like to point out that it’s our own doing. We haven’t been polishing the bench. We gave Vieira couple of matches in spite of his poor performance in his first, but we didn’t try an ESR. We haven’t tried a Partey + Jorginho midfield pairing. Saka looked knackered but we didn’t see Nelson allowing him some rest. Kiwior was brought into the fold against Liverpool, in last 20 min; I’m sure it wasn’t the perfect time to begin your premier league career.
Arteta’s stubbornness to play his favourites and not adapting to what’s in front, has cost us games. If you expect a player to deliver in 60 games a year, and if he don’t, you switch things up. Jesus might be great in compact spaces and running into 3 opposition players, but where’s the end result? If your CF do not have a goal in him, bring on Eddie. Revert to Trossard at the front who looks more clinical.
I don’t know, there has been a lot of things which we can see is wrong, but our manager sticks to the same old – same style, same player, same tactics.
Here’s the bitter truth. We didn’t lose the title because of this City game. We lost it against Pool (going 2-0 up), West Ham (going 2-0 up again), and Southampton (going 2-0 down at home in first 15min). I understand we are a young team, but young guns can fire too. It don’t matter if it’s your captain, if he is not having a good day, bring on your other no. #10, who saved your career at some point and was considered the next DeBruyne.
I’m not sure how much Arteta will learn from this but I’m sure of this – he is going to spend another 200m to bring some more enforcements, but with this stubbornness and Champions League + Premier League next season, we will have the same conundrum. Unless he buys another playing XI, which is not likely.
Here’s another one – if you think it’s a progress to finish 2nd this season, remember that Arteta was appointed as the head coach of Arsenal on 20th Dec, 2019. It’s been 3.5 years, with half a billion spent on a completely new playing XI bar our academy products. This season has been anomaly, Liverpool is having a bad one, Chelsea are sh*t, Spurs are spursy, and United is going through a rebuild under Tan Hag. If you think allowing 3 years for a manager, only to see him finish second after having a 9 point lead at some point, is considered a progress, then you have very low expectation.
With money coming in for New Castle, Chelsea appointing Poch probably, united getting stronger, Pool back in their form, what happens next? It would be tougher than this season. There will be 2 games a week and more Saliba-esque injuries. Who will we blame? Fixtures? Injuries? Bad weather? Because that’s what we have been doing apparently from like last 10 years.
We need an upgrade. We need an upgrade on Xhaka, whose average performance looks like a world class by his standards. We need a midfield, because you buy all the 50m defenders as you want, but it’s not gonna work if you don’t have functioning midfield. We need a better goal scorer if you don’t have confidence in Eddie. And we need an upgrade on the manager. Learning on the job is not a bad thing, but the pace is too slow for a club as big and as ambitious as Arsenal.
We need courage. We don’t need a captain who goes missing in big games, we have had enough of Ozil for years. We need the winning mentality, not the one we saw against West Ham of dropping performance after going 2-0 up. We need players who make fun of the opposition, on the pitch; who can bully the opposition, who are not satisfied with 2-0 lead at Anfield and want more.
Frankly, it has been a depressing month. We have thrown away the title and there’s no one else to blame. It was ours to lose, and we lost it. I’m angry, I’m frustrated and I’m sure you are, too. I hope the players feel the same, and motivates themselves to make the best of rest of the season.
It’s over for me, but we fight again tomorrow.
Nice!
finally something from distance…worm burner central
Ode leading by example
TRVL
I think it missed Kiwior’s arm anyway.
considering our usual shots to scoring ratio, 1 for 1 is the best case scenario and beyond
KP-I want to agree, but his little arm jerk action suggests otherwise…doesn’t matter though as they rarely give pens for that type of deflection, especially if the arm is logically tucked close to the body
Jorgihno with one of the better platoon auditions, especially in slo-mo.
I do think that potential pen delay helped to restore some order to a previously one-sided affair
by the looks and sounds of things Arteta worked all week on our flopping and yelling techniques…it’s likely why little Jorginho is in the lineup today, as Partey wouold never engage in such obvious antics
Pope looks a little off today, hopefully that pays even more dividends moving forward
one of either Marts or Saka need to finish those kind of grade A chances
Martinelli has been the most dangerous player on the field today
Just to diffuse the tension I’m driving 4 x 18 year old idiots to Burnley dressed like this.
https://www.google.com/search?q=images+of+118+man&oq=images+of+118+man&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l3.11773j0j4&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=XEsiIj6cKWlonM
It’s going to be a long day.
that’s only the 2nd or 3rd time this whole season I’ve seen Xhaka make a direct pass, from the middle of the pitch, to a player making a straight line run…we need to be more direct today as their defensive height will likely negate our crosses, but they can be had on 1 v. 1’s with some pace
Hi Almunia
All fine here thanks mate. Weather warming up and keeping busy. Going to try and get some more GAA under my belt in the coming weeks. Your heart will say Mayo but who’s your top tip this year? Thanks for the other tip about JW. I might try and catch it later.
Jesus’s first touches have been absolute shit as of late
I know why Howe might have started with both Wilson and Isak, considering the absence of Saliba, but I’m surprised that Almiron didn’t get the start instead
Jorginho doing a Xhaka
I saw that KP
we can’t revert back to our inefficient ways in front of goal
That would have been when TA or PV would have grabbed Guimaraes by the scruff of his neck and slapped him. What a cunt
Howe’s decisions are actually helping to protect our vulnerabilities, in that their more narrow attacking approach doesn’t expose our soft midfield belly nearly as much