Performance in November were poor despite 2 wins and 3 draws. by KM
Hello! So Arsenal managed to beat Bournemouth, despite surviving yet another scare, after they equalised through a dodgy penalty and this concludes November which starts and ends with victories, the only 2 we recorded in this month.
We haven’t lost since the opening day of the season, but there are reasons to be concerned. Yesterday’s game started with a gift from Bournemouth that Alexis converted, but afterwards Eddie Howe’s side produced the better football and got a penalty which was a real gift. It’s a little worrying that we haven’t had a penalty saved in ages.
Regardless though, we did pull together at the end of the half and in the second our good spell resulted in a Walcott goal. Despite that though Theo didn’t really make much use of his time on the pitch. It was a nervy end until Giroud slipped Alexis and the game was put to bed.
A few things I noticed throughout the game was Ozil and Alexis angrily pointing to other team mates to put another shift in. There was nervousness on the faces of the players and I think it’s a reflection of the bad performances of late. It’s really worrying that whenever we concede it “kills us” like Koscielny said about PSGs equalizer after the game. Sunday I thought apart from Alexis, the Ox was lively as well as Elneny, but overall we’ve lost our discipline.
The performances against Chelsea and Basel seem like distant memories. We were sloppy again and better opposition would’ve scored that free header Bournemouth missed and we would’ve been in trouble. The defence has lost its solidity. Is it down to Bellerin missing? Why did we start Debuchy, who got injured after 15 minutes? Jenko got some game time and I thought he was one of the few decent players against United and he wasn’t even in the group?
I agree with the rotations in the squad! We have a huge squad so managing it is important and our subs have come on and changed a game quite a few times, but the late subs. Unless someone is injured we don’t make a change before minute 70 and when the game is clearly not working, we can try to change it up before we concede.
Another worry for me is the formation. We may change the players, but the formation is always the same and we can predict which players would go where and that makes it easy for the opposition. We are beating teams because of our quality (yes we do have top quality, we’ve been missing for years). If we add better tactics and motivation, we’d be real contenders.
Chelsea changed their formation and it works. I think the sheer surprise of the fact we’ve actually introduced a new system will be enough to beat most opponents. Overall we’re fourth and we’ll finish second in our group, when it was all in our hands. I will judge the season in May, but so far I’m worried, because if we don’t put in a challenge this season, Ozil and Alexis will go in the summer.
We have a good enough squad to compete. Regardless of the injuries we still have enough players to have impactful subs. We have money, we have everything needed. There can be no excuses if we are not challenging in May. So far though, my stand remains that with Arsene we’ve gone as far as we could.
Konstantin