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.
Ode has some unusual bite today, which is nice to see
Wilson is clearly trying to get under our skins, which makes sense as we do have a couple players who aren’t adverse to unwisely lashing out
After what they did at our place earlier in the season, it’s laughable to see that wanker Wilson having a pop about time wasting.
They’re trying to goad GX
Is it true Xhaka has been given a role as a UN ambassador?
those misses are going to come back to haunt, especially if we continue down this red card chirpy road
Boutros Boutrous Xhaka
KP-I would suspect that Wilson knows he’s not going to be on the pitch for too long so he’s getting his money’s worth…why not, it’s not like Xhaka won’t take the fucking bait every fucking time
Nick Pope saved Newcastle bacon twice already.
Arsenal playing up.
On another note we might see a meltdown because of Jesus Or Xhaka. Newcastle seems to be trying to rile Xhaka. Don’t know why. Just go past him at full speed and he is an asset to the opposite team
KP
Go hard with the lads don’t let us elders down 😛
To be fair we should’ve 3 up.
if we’re savvy enough to not get carried away with the back-and-forth their antics will continue to provide us with opportunities, as it negatively affects their defensive shape…we need to continue to have our forwards switching up so that we can counter them directly with pace
That chance Willock missed reminded me of many he missed while playing for us. And Ode’s chance right at the end of the half. Neither showed that finisher’s instinct to go for the corners.
Tony-keep in mind they did hit the post in the first 90 seconds and we had 3 very advantageous deflections inside the box which worked in our favour…I think that when HOwe’s tactics didn’t provide the desired results he knew that they could be in trouble, which is why he likely instructed Trippier to start to make it a more scrappy affair
Tony
No way. It’s grumpy old dad-person in a sensible tracksuit top and jeans for me.
Although Junior temporarily lost his balance when I said I’d go in drag.
That sort of shit never happened in the 80s when I was his age. You’d have been laughed off the north bank in fancy dress.
Credit to Ramsdale. Evocative of Gordon Banks. Our goal’s leafing a charmed life
Guimaraes us a persistent fouler. Small time stuff. He’d be great at City.
this could have been a 10-9 affair if the net were merely an inch wider and taller
sometimes I feel as if MA doesn’t even talk strategy at half, as the players seemed to be caught unawares of what we all knew was coming…thankfully that psuh was relatively short-lived and they weren’t able to find an equalizer before the tide turned a bit
not sure we can afford to let Tierney go without having a viable alternative, with some defensive prowess, as Zinchenko will get eaten up next season in the PL and in Europe, as he’s given plenty of film nuggets for opposing managers to take advantage of
that said, not sure I’m a big fan of Tierney being tucked inside…can’t we have just a modicum of tactical nous
we’re getting a bit ridiculous with all the antics
I love Martinelli ❤️
how ironic that with all those missed chances that an own goal takes us 2 clear
Big shout out to our away fans
Howe should get raked over the coals for getting his tactics all wrong, especially knowing that he’s never started Wilson and Isak together…he kind of pulled an early days Arteta maneuver
No ESR then.
STOP PISSING AROUND AT THE BACK
Tony
No, mate. Looks like we’re getting Reiss and Eddie Unket. Madness.
Moaning, cheating, deluded, entitled, plastic mackems owned by corrupt murdering cunts with small dicks! Phew – I feel better for that.
I thought the boys showed a lot of fight and team togetherness today. Maybe Kiwior instead of Holding should have happened earlier ie against West Ham.
Ramsdale, Mart, Ode and, gulp, the belligerent Balkan all did well.
As the old chihuahua headed, zip worrying manager might have said, ‘runner up is a trophy’.
good result and a surprising clean sheet to boot…very watchable affair, which might have been vastly different if the ref took a less card-friendly approach to an exceedingly chippy fixture…nice to see when the opposing manager gets his tactics wrong, instead of the usual reverse notion…for me both Joelinton and Bruno were incredibly poor, in fact, that was the most indecisive performance I’ve witnessed by Bruno this season