Suicidal football almost ended our season by Konstantin Mitov
Welcome back lovely Arsenal people. We somehow managed to make life extremely difficult again. When Ceballos gave away the free kick, I put my laptop aside and I was sure it was flying in. It just wouldn’t make sense to throw away games like we did at Wolves for example, and so many others where one simple mistake cost us everything and in it went.
The second half, we continued to lack ideas and another horror show from Ceballos meant we were 2:1 down. To be honest I felt bad for a second and then relieved. I thought this might trigger an end to our misery under Arteta. I didn’t think we could turn it around and then fortune struck us.
Neither did I really celebrate it when it happened. Moments of individual brilliance gave us the 3 goals that got us over the line, but with that kind of football, I have little hope for the future. Our defense was atrocious. We’re back to having no good center back pair. Gabriel and Luiz were shocking and Holding can’t be trusted every game.
Up front we were back to having an F in chemistry, because our attack was so slow, it was painful to watch us with all that meaningless possession. When City play, there are runners, the ball moves quick, passes have ideas and danger in them. We just go sideways and two walls of 4 players and we have no clue what to do.
I don’t know why we persist with Odegaard. The guy’s had one good game for us and suddenly we moved Smith-Rowe on the right, where he looks lost. At the back it wasn’t great either. What is our best CB pairing out of Mari, Holding, Luiz and Gabriel? I trust none of them enough together and it showed today. We were atrocious in defense, especially Gabriel. Then again Saliba is out there on loan in France rocking solid performances.
Our defensive abyss didn’t pass without the lovely help of Ceballos, who cemented his place on the bench. With a performance like that I’d buy him a one way ticket to Madrid. I feel sorry for Partey. The guy could’ve been bossing La Liga with Atletico, yet now he’s stuck trying to compensate for the lack of presence, power and pace of Xhaka, and he also has to come on early after injury, because we don’t have anyone else good enough.
To be fair to the other sub who made some impact, Willian was involved in our second goal and was lively for the first 5 minutes after coming on, but again, up front we were saved by the one true shining light in this side – Saka. Imagine if he played in a proper team? I wonder how long he’ll put up with this misery.
You probably think I sound like we’ve lost the game, when in fact, we’ve given ourselves two more meaningful games at least for this season, but honestly, with this football, there’s nothing to look forward to. I will keep reiterating my point, that results are the most important, and it’s good to win ugly sometimes, but if you aren’t playing well, results will very quickly catch up to the performances.
The fact that since mid-February we’ve all known that our entire seasons hangs on a cup competition is worrying. So is the fact that we’ve lost 11 games, repeat that in your head again – ELEVEN and bar a miracle, it’ll be 12 this weekend as I don’t see us playing like that and winning at the King Power.
Emery got sacked for results not worse than these. What’s so special about Arteta? Let’s not leave one FA cup win to destroy the next 2 seasons like we did before with Wenger. If Mikel doesn’t deliver the Europa League trophy, he should be packing his bags, but sadly I don’t think we have the guts, nor desire, nor ambition. Hopefully I’m wrong, and just like tha game today, we’ll miraculously turn it around.
Konstantin