Arsenal battled to a 1-1 draw against Benfica in their last competitive game, but they set an unwanted record in the match.
It was a game that they should have won by a decent margin, but Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was in terrible form.
Arsenal showed their dominance by the number of chances they wasted in the encounter, but even more interestingly, they also had so many offsides that it broke an unwanted record.
Mikel Arteta’s team had 10 offside calls go against them in the game as they tried to get the win in Rome.
That number is the highest number of offside involving an English team this season and it is two ahead of Manchester United’s 8 offsides against Liverpool earlier in the season.
Aubameyang will not watch his goal misses in the encounter, but his blushes were spared by Bukayo Saka who scored Arsenal equalizer moments after Pizzi had opened the scoring for the hosts.
Arsenal will now face Manchester City in their next game and that will also be a tough game.
They beat Leeds United 4-2 in their last league game and look to be in good form ahead of the showdown with the league leaders.
Aubameyang will not want to be in poor form because Arsenal will have to make use of the few scoring chances that will come their way.
Arsenal are in a battle for 5th/ 6th/7th place with Tottenham Everton Westham Villa Liverpool and Leeds. It will be a ding dong battle right to the seasons end. So the Europa League remains out way into the Champions League. If United and Leicester make top 4 from the league they won’t need to win the Europa League. Spurs become the main danger as they are unlikely to make top 4 from the League. Lazio Roma Napoli Villareal may also need to win the Europa league to make the Champions league. Lille Ajax Shakhtar will qualify from their Leagues while Rangers make the third qualifying round. A lot to look forward to.
Players drifting offside is due to players in motion mistiming their runs, players on the ball delaying the pass and the defenders operating the offside trap.
The Leeds United and Benfica games were the first games in over 2 years that Arsenal have fielded the same team in consequetive games. Teamwork is essential to avoiding offsides and teamwork can only be built by the same players training and playing together.
In addition some Arsenal players are too slow on the ball, slow in their vision, slow in their decision making and take too many touches, making it difficult for attacking players to time their runs. Hopefully two of ESR, Odegaard and Ceballos playing with Partey will improve the speed of play and understanding and teamwork with Arsenal’s attack.
We were too lethargic vs Benfica – a habit I thought we were breaking. By lethargic I dont mean how fast we ran. We were not thinking or passing quickly enough on the ball. Our recent successes have been based upon everything happening at pace – almost throwing cation to the wind defensily and not worrying about making mistakes. This has been possible now that we trust our defence to cover for any errors. Slow the thinking down by telling the guys to be careful, or start badly or slowly so you now worry about conceding, dwell on the ball, two touches instead of one, means that our quick strikers are beyond the offide line when the ball comes. It throws our great timing out and makes us look incompetant. Quick movement, muliple runs, good passing yes, but coordinated with quick thought, single touch, brave passing and we can beat any team, including Man City.
Slow build up play, poor vision and sloppy play, lead to that many offsides. It was an horrible performance and a poorly disciplined game as far as game management again.