Unai Emery has paid the price for his tactical failings today, giving his Arsenal side a lack of personnel in attack, and clearly not enough to keep a clean sheet also.
Arsenal had lined up a little defensive for my liking, but playing with a back five is the managers decision, and early on in the match I was struggling to figure out if it was the right decision or not.
We started the game very much on the back foot, with the Hammers very much piling the pressure on us. Whether Emery was expected a tough game and our defence needed that extra, or whether we are shooting ourselves in the foot by giving away the possession due to a lack of attacking players is up for debate.
After 15 minutes however, we finally started to get the ball into Lacazette and our forward players, and are at least giving as good as we got.
Lacazette ran straight through the West Ham defence to give us our first clear-cut opportunity, but unfortunately as close as we got, there was no goal to come in the first half, and once again, we fail to take any lead into the interval.
No changes made at half-time for a change, and we go again.
Unfortunately we didn’t start the match off well, while West Ham very much continued with their impetus, and begrudgingly opened the scoring from a corner. We now have a job to do…
A lot of the time, a goal would be enough to bring enough life into the team, but this team is looking defeated and are a shadow of the team that went over 20 matches unbeaten, and I’m struggling to find out just what is wrong with the mentality.
Our team failed to make any real clear-cut chances, and I have to admit, deserved to lose this match.
Is Unai Emery playing too negative? Are the players not good enough to defend with four defenders? Are our players lacking in fitness or is this seriously a confidence thing?
Pat J