“Today we were not a team” – I couldn’t have summed it up better myself!
After the rather disappointing loss on the weekend the Arsenal gaffer was brutally honest in his post-match press conference which is just what I like to hear!
Many managers once suffering a loss will normally take the time to belittle the referee’s or find some other excuse, but this is the sort of comment that we like to hear from our gaffer, an honest and non-holding back statement, that we as fans are aware of, so the acknowledgment from the gaffer himself is also nice to see.
Watching the game over the weekend, when we went down 1-0 in the first few minutes, I thought here we go again but although VAR helped us and ruled the goal out, we just could not capitalise and wake up in time to realise that Villa had brought to us a tough test that was ultimately on the road to end in a loss if we did not pull our socks up!
Arteta spoke to Sky Sports after the game in his post-match statement and goal.com quoted from his statement: “I take full responsibility. We didn’t start well enough, we got away with VAR for an offside situation but we lost all the races, the duels and we were sloppy on the ball. When we created chances we didn’t hit the target. It’s a really bad combination. We left spaces and on the counter we looked really vulnerable. I take full responsibility. I am responsible to make the team perform on the pitch and today we were not a team and it is my job. It is why I am standing here.
“It is a frustration. It takes a lot to build momentum, to build a way of being, living and performing and when something like that comes up it’s a hard one to take but in a hard moment you learn more than in a positive moment and I want to see how we react… but today we were not a team.”
As sad as it is, the statement from the gaffer is 100% right and pretty much sums up the Arsenal team and their inconsistent performances right now.
The Villa game really did show how much the team solidarity and togetherness has been lost for the first time since Arteta has been manager, albeit just on the pitch, but whatever the reason is, it needs to be quickly rectified.
A below par performance is just not acceptable for a club like ours, and if we want to get back to the top of our game then let’s hope this sort of performance is a one time thing and that togetherness on the pitch comes back quickly after the international break, as we know it is apparent off the pitch! Gooners?
Shenel Osman
The truth is that Arsenal didn’t prepare for the game. They were still basking in the euphoria of their Old Trafford victory and, to a lesser extent, the midweek Europa game.
What surprised me most was that, going by Arteta’s pre match press conference, they knew exactly what to expect from Villa, yet they didn’t prepare for it.
Arteta said he expected Villa to go for the jugular having lost their previous two games. And that’s exactly what they did from the first blast of the whistle. Not even a first-minute disallowed goal could waken the team to the impending doom.
It was a terrible watch for me!
And I begin to wonder where we are going from here.
Leicester came and “parked the bus”; we couldn’t break them down, and we lost. Villa came attacking us in an open game and we lost woefully.
Something is definitely wrong!
He should even admit he axed Özil, and despite he knew he would at thé start of the PL the that, he did not buy a playmaker of world class like Özil.