Arsenal “have to dominate from the beginning”

There is no doubt that Arsenal were completely overrun by West Ham in the first half hour of yesterday’s game at the London Stadium, and it looked like the Hammers were fully awake while we were still yawning coming down the stairs.

It was good to see Thomas Partey fit and able to play the full 90 minutes for a change, but he must have been stunned by the way that West Ham ran through our defences like butter. I’m sure that didn’t happen very often when he was at Atletico! But luckily we came back stronger in the second half. “I think we could have done better from the beginning,” he told Arsenal.com. “They dominated from the beginning and we were completely lost.

“I think they came out very strong. They overloaded us on the outside and they are strong with crossing. We allowed them too much time with the crossing and that hurt us a lot. Second half, we made sure we blocked all the crosses. From there we started to dominate.

“We stuck to our plan. We know how to hurt them, we went all-out and everybody was fighting as a team. I think the spirit was high after we conceded three goals. From there, we started to give our all. But we have to start as we ended, in both halves.

“I think we have to learn from all these mistakes, we have to know when we have to go out strong, when we have to dominate from the beginning. It’s important in the Premier League to start winning from the beginning to be in the top. You have to start good and end well.”

In an ideal world, Thomas, that would be the case. This particular Arsenal team seem to run hot and cold on a regular basis without any rhyme or reason.

Hopefully now he is back, he can help us to be a bit more solid under pressure. I can but hope, eh!

Tags Arsenal v West Ham Partey

14 Comments

  1. This is a real “pet hate” of mine.

    In too many games we start far too slowly, with the same “culprits” slowing our game down chronically.

    The mystifying thing is over the years (perhaps more so the “modern” era) we have been so much more impressive when playing with plenty of pace in our game, breaking the lines and getting in behind defences quickly.

    When starting at such a sluggish tempo, it is really difficult to “flick a switch” and up your game.

    Yes , to have to “feel” your way into games (particularly away from home), but not at the expense of ending up on the back foot and under pressure.

    Yesterday was a classic example.

    Absolutely no pace in our game for most of the first half, resulting in West Ham being all over us.

    The lads must have got a nuclear rocket at half time, resulting in the 2nd half being so much better – being played with a much higher tempo and being far more direct.

    We must cut out being so sloppy, slow/sluggish/ switched off in the first fifteen of matches.

    1. YES, YES, YES, AJ. HOW VERY TRUE! And who is the slowest thinking, slowest acting, slowest moving regular in our squad I wonder. Because I DO wonder, don’t I Xhaka!

      1. Yes Jon, whatever other attributes Granit Xhaka may or may not possess he tends to slow our game down something chronic.

        Also Bellerin (amongst others), makes 20 yards then checks back with passes to where we started!

        There’s “keeping possession” & there’s “keeping possession” – I know you get my drift !

  2. Oh how I agree. If…..and I mean if, Arteta tactically asked the team to lay back and allow West Ham to pressure, for whatever tactical reason…..he should leave tomorrow. A real team, like Man City, dominates from the off and deliberately nurture that method. We need a set of players, manager and tactics that dominate and assert themselves from the first whistle. If the first half was Arteta’s tactics then he is lost. Most stupid tactics I have seen in years.

  3. I want Partey to be great and he does have periods during games where he is excellent. But,
    1. we need 90 minutes of hustle from him not 75 or 80. Is it a fitness issue or attitude?
    2. I recognize that very very few shots from outside the box end up in the net, but he misses very wide and very high. Has even one of his range shots troubled a keeper? The issue is that his shooting kills attacks until he can figure out how to target. Yesterday, he short after we had loaded the field with attackers. He should know that he was the last person who should shoot.
    3. That said, Xhaka was lumbering the whole game. Slow on defense and slow on attack.

    1. Partey’s shooting was good at Atletico Madrid. Remember how good Xhaka was when he first came before Arsene told him to curtail shooting from outside the box?

      1. That could not be true because I checked the stats and Xhaka actually has better conversion rate from long shots than Partey.

  4. Negative thoughts and negative football will and is killing us. We are coached in a style that is taking us to mid table obscurity and some fans cant or wont see it.

      1. I believe negativity was passed to the player by the coach. They were so concerned with the opposition quality and forgot to play to our strength. Obviously they were scared. Playing Auba on the right and Saka on the left and playing Chambers because of his height (Thank Goodness that worked out) and all those bullshit. Sometimes I wonder if Arteta truly learnt anything from pep. When all hope was lost he decided to bring all our attackers into the fold. What stoped him from going all out from the beginning. Midtable Mentality

  5. Lacazette openly stated in his post game interview that the team had failed to implement the Manager’s instructions. Arteta was obviously furious after the game.

      1. Reggie please go pick a five aside team and implement “ingrained coaching”

        some fans though……………

    1. This was the exact quote ozziegunner, “We did not respect the game plan from the coach.” To me, this is hinting at fundamental differences between the manager and the players.

Comments are closed

Top Blog Sponsors