Arsenal were second best all through last night’s game at Crystal Palace, despite all our possession. We all hoped that we were ready for our usual fight for the Top Four Trophy, but even that is looking unlikely after yesterday’s embarrassing performance. Most of the players were abused at the end of the game and the team coach was surrounded by angry fans as the team left Selhurst Park.
The only thing that Theo Walcott could do after the game was try to appease the fans was to say sorry. “The biggest thing was letting the fans down tonight,” said Theo. “We all did and that’s not Arsenal at all.
“We thought we’d bounced back well against Manchester City and West Ham at home, but tonight that wasn’t us at all. We’re very disappointed in that dressing room, like the fans are as well because we’ve let them down tonight. We need to respond and that’s only going to come from hard work at training.
“We don’t go out there to lose games, we try to work the best we can but tonight it just didn’t happen. All we can do is apologise for that performance tonight.
“I think they just wanted it more,” he added. “You could tell they wanted it more and you could sense that from kick-off. It was an uphill battle towards the end. This isn’t Arsenal in this moment in time. We thought we’d got out of this little rough patch before. Hopefully we haven’t been dragged straight back into it, but judging on that performance tonight, it looks like we have.
“We go out on the pitch and we try to do a job, so we’ve let the manager down, like we have with the fans. That’s all I can say.“
Something is desperately wrong at the moment, and it doesn’t look like trying harder in training is going to help much. Arsenal have won just 2 of their last 8 League games, and have lost their last 4 away (conceding 3 in each game) and we are away again at Middlesbrough next week. Why should we think we can win that one in this form?
What’s the point of apologising if nothing changes?
Darren N