Danny Murphy has claimed that none of Arsenal’s midfield knew what they were supposed to be doing in the 0-0 draw with Leeds United.
The Gunners can feel a little fortunate to come away from Elland Road with a point after the Yorkshire side threatened to score on a number of occasions.
At the same time, Arsenal will also feel annoyed at messing up the best chance of the game late on, when Hector Bellerin found Bukayo Saka running in behind the box, only for the goalkeeper to scramble his way to block the shot.
Danny Murphy, who previously played for Leeds, states that the Gunners missed the injured Partey, and the three given the midfield roles didn’t know what to do.
“In midfield, they were missing the injured Thomas Partey, who was so important in their win at Old Trafford at the start of November, and with the three players they had in that area – Granit Xhaka, Dani Ceballos and Joe Willock – they did not look very balanced,” he said.
“None of them seemed to know exactly what they should be doing.”
Our team shouldn’t be second best against many sides, especially not one only recently promoted from the lower divisions, and I can’t even disagree that the midfield had a clue what to do, when they simply failed to do their jobs.
With Mikel Arteta having been an amazing central midfielder, you would think he would be best at working his magic in that area, but that just isn’t the case.
Patrick
It was because xhaka was playing, he is so limited and slow.
Our midfield trio was very ineffective against Leeds and the lack of pace and athleticism in that area was very evident.I have to say the absence of AMN surprised and disappointed me as he has the legs to match any Leeds player.
The truth is that Arsenal lack quality players that can give satisfactory performances week in week out in important areas of the pitch. Seriously, any manager that inherit the squad Arteta inherited must conduct a total overhauling which Arteta couldn’t do in the summer window due to some reasons beyond him. No manager can win games and give satisfactory display with this current Arsenal squad. Even Klopp got out the “pests” in his team and brought in his own “quality” players in vital areas of the pitch over the years before he could make any meaning out of Liverpool! Same goes for Man City the first two years of Pep’s reign. It’s just too difficult with some “no or low quality players”. Bring in some other managers with this “useless” midfield players/wingers and the results/performances wd still be the same. This is not a magic show, it’s real football competition. As an Arsenal fan, you need to have the right expectations and know that it can’t just happen like a magic!
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