Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
The morning after and the cold light of day have made little difference to me with regards yesterday’s 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth. We turned what was a big opportunity to take a significant step towards the title into something far more damaging. My gut feeling, and I realise it’s just that, is that winning yesterday would demonstrate this team’s ability to go the distance. Losing, especially in the manner we did, makes me strongly doubt that we can do it.
And look, I know yesterday wasn’t fatal, per se, but it really felt like we’d given everyone else the ammunition they need, not least Man City who will surely feel far differently going into their game against Chelsea today than if we’d taken three points against Bournemouth. We didn’t close the door over, we opened it up for them to stick their size 115 boots through.
The team selection worried me, I have to say. With no Martin Odegaard, Kai Havertz was deployed in midfield; Myles Lewis-Skelly came in at left-back in the absence of Riccardo Calafiori; and the front three of Gabriel Martinelli, Viktor Gyokeres, and Noni Madueke, is the most toothpaste and orange juice combination available to this manager. It just doesn’t work, it has never really worked, and while I appreciate injuries played a part in the team Mikel Arteta chose, and was perhaps hamstrung by, it should be no surprise that it was completely ineffective.
So too was our game overall though. Bournemouth, as everyone knows, are a well organised team who press high up the pitch. From the off we couldn’t play through that press, but nor could we go over it. Havertz looks half fit, and in Gyokeres we have a centre-forward who doesn’t win duels or hold the ball up well. In midfield, the Martin Zubimendi/Declan Rice double-pivot was completely disconnected from Kai, so we lacked cohesion in that area of the pitch.
Going behind was certainly not part of the plan, but that’s exactly what happened. Zubimendi misplaced a routine pass to Ben White, Bournemouth got a throw, worked it from one side to the other then, with White dragged inside, their full back was allowed to run into space too easily by Noni Madueke. There was a touch of bad luck when the ball deflected off William Saliba’s foot, but at the back post Eli Junior Kroupi ran off the back of an unware Lewis-Skelly at the back post to tuck it home. Defensively we switched off more than once, and for a team built on solidity at the back, that was a really poor goal to concede.
Then it was about how we’d respond. It wasn’t full on, by 30 minutes we’d only had one attempt all game, a Havertz header that he should scored with from a corner, but after a Rice shot was deflected behind for a corner, Gabriel tried to knock it back into the middle, it hit a hand and the referee pointed to the spot after giving himself a moment to think. Gyokeres stepped up and made no mistake, thumping the penalty home to make it 1-1. It was, obviously, much needed, but it made little difference to our overall performance. We failed to gather any moment after equalising, and didn’t have a shot between then and half-time.
You have to imagine there were some words spoken at the break about needing more from certain players, so it wasn’t a complete surprise to see the manager make changes relatively early in the second half. Less than 10 minutes in he dragged off the ineffective trio of Martinelli, Madueke and Havertz, replacing them with Leandro Trossard, Max Dowman and Eberechi Eze. Some will say decisive management, but I do wonder if he might have staggered those subs a bit. The stylistic shift from the two wingers in particular didn’t really provide us any greater balance, and I can’t remember a game where a triple change as early as this has had the desired effect.
We had plenty of the ball, but most of it seemed to be with David Raya rather than at the business end of the pitch. Full disclosure, I praised him after we scored that late goal against Everton. When we wanted him to use it, he held onto it, Everton pressed and he played it wide to Gabriel, from where we went up the other end to take the lead. The key difference yesterday is that Bournemouth didn’t fall into that very obvious trap, and he was forced to make a series of increasingly difficult or ineffective passes. One, with the outside of his foot, was so casual it bounced off Evanilson when it could easily have resulted in a goal. I don’t know what he was thinking.
There’s a fine balance between confidence and carelessness, and he added to the nerves yesterday in a way that isn’t usual for him. Beyond that, I think the passing statistics in this game are interesting. This is a game Arsenal wanted to win, but to do that you have to have the ball in dangerous areas. We couldn’t get it there, and I think the team used Raya as a kind of safety blanket. Rather than take a risk high up the pitch, they chose to give it to a player who gives them comfort. Look at the list of attempted passes yesterday:
1: Declan Rice – 502: David Raya – 493: Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel – 40
To me that’s absurd. However good your goalkeeper is, he shouldn’t be almost your leading passer in any game. That reticence to go forward is, I think, multi-factored. I think nerves played a big part in our performance yesterday, pressure in sport can be crippling when there’s a lot on the line, and that was evident to me, at least. The midfield, even when Eze came on, just didn’t function properly. Zubimendi looks like a shell of the player who was so impressive in the first part of the season, Rice is stationed out on the left wing too often when he needs to be pulling the strings centrally, and our centre-forward isn’t the kind of player who can make it stick and bring others into play around him. So much so you can see others choose not to make passes to him. Not just yesterday by the way, but that has been obvious throughout this season.
The second goal we conceded is an illustration of how this team defaulted to safety first. Look at where we win the ball back:
Six seconds later it’s at the feet of Raya. From there, Gabriel’s attempted cross field ball is deflected into the air, we don’t challenge for the second ball, Lewis-Skelly is beaten in an aerial duel, Alex Scott then runs off the back of Zubimendi and puts Bournemouth 2-1 up. The goal that ultimately cost us the game. I see these players in training videos doing the rondos and playing intricate passes in tight areas, but when it really matters they don’t produce that. Won’t produce that.
Gabriel Jesus came on for Zubimendi, but seemed to want to play in our half more than theirs. I also thought there were two really good opportunities for Gyokeres in the final stages, but he whiffed at both of them. One when he slipped when striking the ball, the other when he put it wide after making space inside the box. There are those who feel like the team doesn’t give him enough service, but they were the exact situations people say we need to provide for him. I’m not sure comments from him about the pitch being a bit dry help his cause, by the way, but ultimately, he was found wanting.
As were most of his teammates yesterday though, because this was a dismal afternoon for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta. A collective failure of performance and mentality. Fans were urged to bring their dinner and to get behind the team, but you can’t ask the supporters to show up then not bother yourselves. We looked like a team hit by injury, of course, but also one paralysed by the fear of what this part of the season means when you’re in the position we’re in. Regardless of who was absent, we should have been capable of far better than that, because this was, by some distance, the worst performance of the season.
The old adage about timing being the key to good comedy might apply in a football sense too. Arsenal falling to pieces right now would be hilarious to everyone else, and however much you’re capable of blocking out the external noise, you can’t be immune from it. This is a team I badly want to succeed and go the distance, but after yesterday I can’t sit here this morning and not admit I’m massively concerned about our ability to do that. My glass isn’t so much half-empty as smashed all over the floor.
Afterwards, Arteta said:
It’s a big punch in the face, but what I said to the boys, now it’s about how we react to that. When you have a defeat at home, you have to accept it. That’s it. There are no excuses, there is no this or that. All the things that I hear are about how we’re going to stand up, first of all, individually, and then as a team, to change that immediately on Wednesday.
Of course it has to be about the response, but my faith in our ability to do that is intrinsically tied with my faith in our ability to produce in the first place. Surely the dressing room messaging before this game was about how they needed to perform and to produce a display that would send us, temporarily at least, 12 points clear. Now they have to say ‘Come on lads, we can do it in our most difficult away game of the season!’, and we have to believe in that?
Ultimately, I suppose that’s exactly it. Yesterday was blow, but not a fatal one. Next weekend could change the mood completely. If we avoid defeat at the Etihad, I think we still have a good chance, but if we lose, I can’t see any other scenario than Man City storming past us. Maybe that’s the cold light of day shining too harshly on my brain, but it’s also the reality that this team and this manager need to face.
Unless there’s a massive improvement, and very quickly, a season that promised so much could very well end with nothing. I don’t want to get into the potential consequences of that, because there is still lots to play for and it remains in our hands, but we were butterfingers yesterday, and there’s almost no scope for any further slips.
This team has the chance to be remembered in two ways now. As the one that stood up and got counted as they brought home the first title in 24 22 years, or the biggest bunch of nearly-men we’ve ever seen. I know which I prefer, I know which you prefer, and I know which they prefer.
But no amount of us bringing our breakfast, lunch, dinner or midnight snack changes the fact that it’s down to what they do on the pitch, and how the manager helps them produce that. And they need to sort that shit out straight away.
Because yesterday was shit. Nobody can sugarcoat that.
