Good morning, evening or whatever time of the day it is for you my fellow Arsenal fans! We won a game of football after 64 days! I am relieved. It was an away win too! I had honestly forgotten what it felt like and I wasn’t anticipating the game too much.
Let’s be quite fair the first half was so poor. I enjoyed the line up though. It seemed to put all the right players in their right positions. I thought Maitland-Niles was better at right back than Bellerin. I thought dropping Luiz was fair, and Chambers in CB looks so much better than RB. We put Xhaka and Torreira in midfield and Granit made a lot of mistakes again.
But in all honesty, the real masterstroke from Freddy that restored Arsenal pride was the forward line. Martinelli was sensational! Easily one of my favourite players. He encapsulates everything about the club that I’ve been missing. Youth, energy, desire and quality. He slowed his run for his goal and found the space like a real poacher and the finish was excellent.
Another player who introduced himself was Pepe. How good was that goal? Pepe is a player who can cause problems. He can be direct and that is something we’ve been missing. How come we were so poor for 60 minutes, yet score 3 goals in 9? Two things here, first we got some confidence from our first goal and that was vital and second we started playing the ball forward rather than sideways.
We’ve been far too stuck on the idea to control the ball and pass ourselves to the net. Even Man City are struggling with this style of football at the moment. The game has become more direct. Going forward its about pace and moving things quickly. Our forward 3 have devastating pace, which can hurt teams, we just need to utilise it better and the selection helped with that today.
That said, we must remember we only beat West Ham who are just as poor as we were. We didn’t exactly play well for 60 minutes. Freddy mentioned this as a problem against Brighton and here it wasn’t exactly much different yesterday. We must start the games better and we must not concede first every game. A clean sheet is something I’d also love to see, but we’re playing Man City next.
That said, if you want to be accounted for something and restore some Arsenal pride, this is exactly the kind of game where you won’t need additional motivation. We shouldn’t be looking at the league table, only at our recent performances and work on improving them. The fans yesterday saw something they could cheer on and responded immediately. We recognise heart and desire. If we see that in every game, results will eventually come.
This win was so important for Freddy but it also buys the board some time to find a new manager which should still be our priority. If Freddy can mustard up some respectful results against City, Chelsea and United, he might get the job till the end of the season. I would just love a fairytale story where one of the Invincibles takes over the squad and suddenly turns it around and we start winning, but I don’t want this to be an excuse for a board who’ve been hiding in difficult times again.
The manager of this club has always been a shield for a bunch of people who’ve failed miserably at running this club. This win, and it’s only one win, shouldn’t hide the fact we sacked our manager with no real idea of what to do and how to go forward. And the truth is the most probable candidates are Arteta and Vieira, not exactly the world class managers like Simeone or Allegri who can take us forward and come with the commanding respect and pedigree in their CVs.
We still have the Europa League on Thursday. If we can wrap things up there, this could restore Arsenal pride some more and it could be a very enjoyable week for once. Then we can at least face Man City with something positive behind our backs and who knows, maybe the real Arsenal can please stand up. That’s that from me, see you in the comments!
Konstantin