Arsenal played one of their best games of the season against Leeds last night, and the return to form of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang saw us go 4-0 up just a few minutes into the second half, but then our play got a little more lax, and suddenly we were at 4-2 and defending like crazy to stop Leeds getting a third.
We managed to calm it down enough after to keep the three points, but Hector Bellerin thinks we should not have let our opponents back into the game so easily.
Our right-back told Arsenal.com after the game: “If there’s a team in the Premier League that you know will run for the whole 90 minutes, that’s Leeds,”
“We did really well to score straight away from the re-start but then we conceded a set piece. It’s something that we know they’re strong at and we need to be more careful with that. Then we conceded another goal and even though you’re still two goals up you’re trying to defend the box as much as you can and make sure they don’t get another one.
“That shouldn’t be the way we play, you know? We should manage the game better in a way that when we’re winning 4-0, we should just have the ball and make them run instead of them making us run. There’s still a lot to learn but obviously, especially that first half, was really positive.”
But, despite our lapse at the end, it was good to see us scoring goals again, and to leapfrog Leeds back into the top half of the table. Yes it could have ended better, but three points is three points. As Bellerin remarked in the end: “A performance like today it should have been a completely different second half but as I say, it was a very positive second half and we’ll build on that.”
COYG!
I’m happy this talk is coming from him cos he was at fault for that second goal. Bellerin can do 1 good thing in a match and go ahead to do 15 wrong things at once. He easily loses concentration when it matters. Anyways, playing with Willian was like playing with a red card, so i don’t blame them. Sometimes these players can make a win feel like a loss.
They can do well to cut out silly mistakes and stay switched on till the final whistle.
Better things to come.
Bring Benfica
Everyone knows Leeds – be beating Belsia 10-nil, he won’t setup to sit back but will still be all over you to score and I kinda love it! Once that man fixes his defense, they will be a very tough side to beat.
IMHO once Willian came on, it was as if we were red carded. I liked the guy but I do not even want to believe things aren’t just working for him – he’s been way awful TBVH. One could easily count the very few times he had the ball or made a simple good pass for the entire time he was on, and that’s been the summary of his game all season!
Merely being athletic and running around UNPRODUCTIVELY isn’t any good football trait.
On our possession, it has improved a bit of recent but we can easily do better keeping the ball (something that was easily our tradition) – NEEDLESS loss of possession sadly, has always been our thing of recent and we’ve gotta improve on it.
There’s nothing wrong with Willian. Just that his hunger wasn’t there any more. He’s just a backup player to me.
If am MA I will definitely sell him off n perhaps he’s much better elsewhere n save funds for key players.
For backup players I will always try to promote from talented youth squads.
The problem is not enough depth n funds for Arsenal.
Not many players are being sold to raise funds not many players left.
I can hardly disagree Shine.
We played some excellent football in the first half but Arteta lost his nerve when we conceded a goal and handed the initiative to Leeds. We finished up subbing ESR, Odergaard and Ceballos for El Neny, Holding and Willian. Willian !!!!! 4 goals up and we finished up like a team scrambling to hold on for a draw.
Just like that Leeds took away my bragging rights at our neighbourhood Pub of having the second best defence
We missed Holding’s aerial ability for the first goal and Bellerin, himself was culpable for the second.For all his years at Arsenal his positional sense has not improved defensively.Like Luis, he switches off at vital times and costs us dearly.To be entirely fair, going forward, he played well yesterday.
First goal was because Saka lost his man and he had a free run at that header
Dan, it seems that Bellerin is “the man” for the next scapegoat, even though Grandads summing up of his oerformance yesterday was correct.
Holding was missed, especially for their first goal and yet Luiz gets off scot free from any criticism, while Bellerin gets it in the neck, despite scoring a goal!!!
True but how on earth was Saka chosen to mark him seeing the difference in height?
There’s no doubt Hector Bellerin can “talk the talk”, as he spends plenty of time on social media. However he needs to concentrate himself on his own play and contribution to the team result, as he was 1-1 for the game (one very good finish, plus being left for dead in defense).