Arsenal lost to Watford at the Emirates Stadium last night, and Petr Cech for one is disgusted with their performance.
The Gunners were dominated in the opening half, and within 20 mnutes of the match, found themselves 2-0 down, and on course for an embarrassing defeat. Luckily the Hornets were unable to convert their dominant first-half display into more goals, and the score stayed 2-0 coming into half-time.
Arsenal managed to pull one back early into the second-half, but failed to complete their comeback and lost the match, and Cech has admitted that his side deserved to be trailing.
Petr said: ‘We had a very bad start, I think we didn’t play well at all.
‘We were second best in the first half. We made so many bad passes, we lost every challenge, we were simply second best.
‘I always say that at this level you cannot play 80 minutes, or 85. You have to play 90 minutes with full concentration and everybody on top of their game.’
He did talk up our performance after the interval however, and says the second-half performance deserved a result, but after the display earlier in the match, luck isn’t something they deserved.
He added: ‘In the second half we improved, we had a lot of chances. I thought we were brilliant second half, but obviously we only scored one goal.
‘We had chances but the keeper made some very good saves, we hit the bar and we could say we were unlucky in that way. But for the first-half performance, we actually didn’t deserve a little bit of luck.’
Is Wenger or Bould to blame for the dismal first-half display? Did we deserve a point or more?
Pat J
I don’t get why our players are so scared to shoot. They want to pass the ball into the net. Özil is particulary frustrating in that regard. I also feel like Sanchez should shoot more instead of always looking for the perfect pass (although he often finds it).
Every time we win, Walcott or Ramsey are the ones that talk on Arsenal.com or other media. Ramsey even had the nerve to say ‘it will go down to the wire’ a couple weeks back. Yeah maybe it will but Arsenal will be no where near in the end. Walcott tweeted so proud of the guy showing fighitng spirit when our late winner against Burnley went in. So he comes on at halftime and why didn’t he show the fighting spirit?
Every time we lose, Cech has to come and talk.
How could it be Boulds fault for the slow start? In this season alone in all competition probably had around 10 games only where we had fast starts. All the other 20 or so games were slow starts.
It’s Wenger fault and most of the players.
Manager is the reflection of the team. If the team has weak mentality, it derives from the manager. If the manager is spineless, then the team will be spineless. Simple as.
I agree to your point. Spineless may be taking it too far but the mental strength is obviously missing and over the last 10 years that I have been a fan countless players have come and gone and everytime its the same story; so it has to be the manager. I so want to know who can play the attractive game that we are used to and also improve our mental strength.
Apologies upfront for my next line – but Poch seems to have done a good job but realistically may be Koeman is the man to take us forward. Not sure if Allegri would be an improvement.
Nice. For me I really like Thomas tuchel. Really attracted to his style of play. A less prolific but more polished version of klopp.
I don’t know why you are all surprised by this defeat.We make the same mistakes every year .Last season it was Swansea and right on cue we will loose at Chelsea on sat followed by Munich.The worse thing about supporting Arsenal is that we keep close enough to have hope we can win the title but the result is always the same.Top 4 .
then we rinse, then next season we repeat the same sh*t. how many times can you watch the same movie without getting tired? we are very tired but we have no way out, just have to watch it to the very end, then repeat again and again and again and …..
OT: The root of it all is Wenger … I don’t know what it will take to have new manager !!
I think the time has come. There will and should be wide spread protests if Wenger is given an extension this time around. Incredible work to help us stay up for so long but it’s farewell time for Wenger.
I don’t think he will sign any extension. We wont even get his trophy ie 4th position. Many players looked disinterested even when we were losing. As for Ramsey, Coquelin, Giroud…it really looked like match-fixing!
hahahaha
Someone said it you want to start strongly, play Sanchez and if you want to finish strongly bring on Giroud. With Giroud we usually start slowly.
I have to be honest, sometimes even starting with Sanchez we start slowly. Everything is too casual play upuntil a certain point in the game where we play good for 30-40 minutes. But I agree start Sanchez upfront more than Giroud.
Who we played up front has f… all to do with our problem. We could have had Ronaldo and Messi up front, but when most of our midfielders and wingers aren’t organized to defend teams who attack us, we give away chances and goals. It has been our problem for years, nd that is why we can’t reach the top. We score plenty of goals compared to the league winners, but we always let too many in. It is Wengers blind spot since the problem has persisted for so many years.
Discussing who should play up front is simply a waste of time.
@AndersS
I think you should put it in CAPS next time. Then again, I still don’t think it would matter. Many here are too stuck on blaming AW and wanting him out, to admit the obvious…
I’m not about to go and join a Wenger lynch mob but even his most ardent supporters must have some concern that this is at least the third time he had come out after a dismal performance and said something like “we weren’t mentally ready.” Maybe in this world of overpaid prima donnas Wenger’s old school and probably quite honourable methods (treating them like rational individuals who can take responsibility for putting 100% into a game they are handsomely paid for) doesn’t work anymore.
True I think the issue at the core is the following
(1) Wenger is very loyal to his players
(2) Wenger is untouchable at Arsenal and knows he cannot be fired until he himself decides to leave
The above 2 factors mean that Wenger is never threatened and consequently the players aren’t too. Eg: in case Ramsey- how can someone be so average game after game and still start. There is no urgency. he knows that as long as wenger stays he will be in the team. Same is with Ozil. (Yes he is a great classy player- but class does not win championships) Consequently there is no hurt and hence no pride and improvement.
If you want to see real hunger in the team then we should be playing with Sanchez, Perez and Welbeck in any order. Thats the great thing about playing these three they can switch to any position on the front line if things aren’t going well. Not one the same level but our MSN.
Iwobi does great in some games as well for me he is way, way ahead of Walcott. Iwobi just needs to get into those physical challenges and power through players like he sometimes does more often then he will be noticed more.
100 per cent agree with starting off with Sanchez, Welbeck and Lucas. They would set the tone.
good analysis, all 3 look hungry and the pace will be so confusing to defenders
Well, Cech can blame his colleagues as he likes for the Watford defeat. But let him be reminded that he’s part of the problem that led to that lose to Watford. What was he keeping to have allowed the Watford free kick beat him despite the deflection which wasn’t a huge one? I’ve noticed Cech to be player watching instead of to be ball watching in close free kicks and penalty kicks. That’s why he’s been conceding in this kind of close dead ball kick situations. He has to admit his fault and change for the better for Arsenal.
Arsenal can use the Chelsea game to recover from the sudden slump they suffered against Watford if the Gunners approach the game at the Bridge on Saturday with totally confidence and commitment and not be afraid of Chelsea in the game. And also concentrate on the game 100% not taking their minds and eyes off Chelsea during the playing of the game for 90 minutes plus of the game.
If Le Prof will agree to put out a mostly pacy Gunners team for this game who can play at high tempo throughout the whole time the game will last, I think Arsenal will beat Chelsea to the collection of all the 3 points at stake in the game. More so if Ozil will turnout a high level performance for Arsenal.
My starts:
Ospina
Bellerin Mustafi Koscielny Gibbs
Maitland-Niles Chamberlain
Walcott Ozil Walcott
Sanchez.
My bench:
Cech Paulista Holding Monreal Coquelin Iwobi Perez.
I’ve gone for pace, that’s why I dropped Mertesacker and Giroud from my 18 man match day squad for Chelsea. Hopefully, Le Prof will agree with my option.
You serious? The deflection wrong footed him…
So, you’d play Walcott on both sides ? ?