Arsenal were thoroughly embarrassed at home on Wednesday when Southampton unceremoniously dumped us out of the League Cup again. Arsene Wenger made many changes to the starting line-up, but there were many more experienced players on the field than we usually get in the EFL and there were little excuses to be made for our 2-0 defeat.
One of those experienced players, Gabriel Paulista, was asked what his opinion of the game was, and he replied: “It’s hard to say, it was a good opportunity for players that usually don’t get to play a lot, so we have to take this competition with the importance it deserves.
“Unfortunately things didn’t go well, we conceded two goals and we only have ourselves to blame. We have to correct these kind of mistakes and avoid them in the future.”
Arsenal were clearly better in the second half, but why does he think we couldn’t get back in the game? “We had ball possession but we no clear chance on goal. I think we can only score if we shoot, and I think that’s where we have to improve. If we try to shoot more the results will come.”
We actually had 5 shots on target on Wednesday, which is embarrassing, but not as bad as the 3 we had against Bournemouth, but luckily all three of them ended up in the net. Against Man United we had just the one shot on target, and again, luckily it went in (Thankyou Giroud!), and we only had 2 shots on target against Tottenham, with one goal out of them.
Between all those games we have had our top strikers rotating but our goals and shots on target have gone right down since our blistering start to the season. Can anyone say why that is? Surely it can’t be just because Cazorla is out injured?