Arsenal’s title chances were shattered on Wednesday night. They had hoped to leave the Etihad Stadium with a memorable triumph, but that was not the case. Manchester City demonstrated their class by defeating them 4-1.
The Gunners were once in command of the Premier League title race. They led Manchester City by eight points. As you read this, they are no longer in control following three draws and the 4-1 defeat on Wednesday night, surrendering nine points in their last four games. They are now only two points ahead of Manchester City, despite having played two more games.
Mikel Arteta spoke to the media after his team was humiliated in Manchester. The Spaniard agreed tha the best team triumphed. However, he believes that his team’s game plan was thwarted because they did not begin the game as they should have, executing the basics.
Additionally, he also denied reports that his players froze.
“I don’t think they were scared, but the way we started the game, we put ourselves on trouble in many situations. When that happens we could not grab the game the way we wanted,” the Arsenal boss said.
Anyway, Arteta is still confident things may go his team’s way. He feels the league is not decided yet. About that, he said, “The stats at the start of the season said we’d finish sixth or seventh, and we are where we are. There’s still five games to go. I’ve been in this country 22 years, and things change a lot. They’re an exceptional team, but we are an exceptional team as well.”
Losing at the Etihad wasn’t what many Gooners expected, but it has happened.
What do you think the manager should do going forward?
Daniel O
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Arteta must look for ways to motivate the players and make some tactical changes if we still want to make one last push for the title. However, everytime I watch Odegaard, I can’t help but have a feeling that we can’t win a title or UCL, which is our ultimate goal, with him as captain and guaranteed starter. He is too weak, less of a fighter and less imposing in high pressure matches, and all these he transmits to the rest of the team being our captain and perceived source of creativity. Saka, Martinelli or Gabriel Malgalheas would be beasts if they were playing in that City team. If you also replaced Xhaka, Odegaard and Arteta with Gundogan, Debruyne and Pep, respectively, in the Arsenal team, we could have achieved better than what we’ve achieved so far this season, all other things being equal. In the end, it comes down to the players available and how a manager is able to individualize every opponent and adjust tactics, if necessary, to achieve results. Thankfully, we have qualified for UCL, which was our goal this season, and the boys can now play with less pressure.
In the Summer window, our first signings should be Caicedo or a player in that mould who can play the Kante role then we can add a big centre forward followed by a Jude Bellingham and a RCB.
I fear if we don’t go all out to address the team’s weakness, we will become just like Spurs’ golden generation, who always had prospects every year but never won anything till their star players got old and weak. Sometimes, the line between success and failure can be very thin and a better team may just falter at few decisive moments due to poor mentality and tactics. This happened severally during Wenger era and is now happening the 2nd time in this Arteta era. In other words, we can become an ‘almost’ team every year.
City are a beast but they have dropped points this season to teams ‘not as good’ as us which means they are not all perfect. Let’s hope they at least lose 1 and draw 1 in their remaining 7 games and we somehow snap out of our poor form and win our remaining 5 games. All these are still within the realm of possibility. COYG.
There are times when Manangers attempt to take pressure off their players by admitting their tactics may not have been appropriate for the occasion.After the transfer of Cancello Pep has switched to a more defensive set up using Stones and Rodri, who both played at CB in the World Cup, as defensive midfielders.along with Gundagan and KDB ,these four are overpowering opponents as demonstrated last night.Faced with that system Arteta decided to go with his preferred attacking 4-3-3 set up with Zinchenko tucked in.While in theory this should lead to more midfield possession it also leaves spaces down our left which teams like Southampton and Bournemouth have exploited.To think that Man City would not be able to follow suit shows a naivety which has cost us dear.Fundamentally Arteta needs to revise his tactics to include Tierney at LB to try to bring some stability to our defence which is leaking goals at an alarming rate, to the extent that I don’t know if we are capable of winning another match this season.Sorry to sound so despondent but changes are needed in terms of personelle and tactic.
Hope Arteta doesn’t turn up to be a psychologist to manage fans with nice to hear words like his master Wenger, but remains a coach to spot the arsenal troubles and develop the team to the next level that of winning trophies