Arsenal lift off the bottom of the table by beating Norwich by Konstantin Mitov
Well lovely Arsenal people, we won a game of football in the premier league. I’m not gonna lie, I didn’t enjoy the performance, but I will take the points. We were bottom 2 weeks and it’s nice to get off there and it was also good to see Patrick Vieira showing Tottenham their place again.
That said, it wasn’t a vintage performance, and anyone who thought that this badly-managed Arsenal team would just smash Norwich also got their perspective straightened.
I was kind of excited for this game, because of all the new faces. To be fair to Arteta for once he actually picked what I feel is close to his best 11 from what was available. And we started the game with the right attitude. We also did it at City though and we all know how things went there.
Unfortunately we again failed to materialize our advantage in goals and the game went an all too familiar frustrating road. Credit to the fans here, because I think they were unbelievable and tried to support the team in every moment.
We missed a few half chances, but it eventually fell for us, when Pepe’s effort almost when in, then he tried again and Auba eventually tapped it in. Honestly, I was amazed the goal stood. When I knew Mike Dean is VAR, I halted my celebrations and I was surprised it stood. Not sure I understand offside rules anymore, but if we had conceded such a goal, I’d be unhappy, because Auba was offaide for me, but at this point I’ll take em any way they come.
We then missed some easy chances again. For a team struggling on goals, wins and confidence we have to do better when we have chances to put the game to bed. Eentually it didn’t cost us, but we need to be more ruthless.
You can see we are a team low on confidence. You can just feel the enormous relief when that goal went in. Everyone is well aware we are performing terribly, and in football winning is the only way to get out of holes like the one we are in right now.
We had a lot of new signings on today. Ramsdale replacing Leno is telling. I like what I saw from Aaron though. He wasn’t afraid to kick the ball long, was alright with his feet and he even nutmegged Pukki.
We finally saw Ben White and Gabriel together, and I can see why we wanted the former Brighton defender to replace Luiz. The guy looked good with his feet and his passing which is essential for our desperate desire to play out of the back.
I wasn’t too impressed with our defending overall though as Norwich sometimes had it too easy to go into our box. I really liked Tomiyasu at right back. He was energetic, and we have to remember that this back line was playing it’s first game together so hopefully that will improve to build a more solid foundation.
In midfield we played Ainsley and Lokonga. I didn’t really like AMNs performance, but that boy Sambi looks one hell of a player for the future. Unfortunately I think a lot of our struggles come from midfield and you can see by the way we attack.
It’s always ‘send it forward to Tierney on one side or Pepe on the other’ and hope something happens. I like what I see from Odegaard, but I remember times where we’d pick teams through the middle with slick combinations trying to walk it in and thinking about it, I feel like our CM players don’t support the attack enough.
We don’t have a ball carrying midfielder like Kevin De Bruyne, someone to drive at the oposition defenses to force them backwards and free more space on the flanks. And that makes us predictable, because teams know we’ll try to give it out wide or loop a long ball over the top for Auba.
That raises even more questions as to why we didn’t buy another midfielder, like Aouar for example? Sadly our best midfield pairing right now remains Xhaka and Partey, although I’d like to swap the Swiss and see what Sambi and Thomas can do together.
Overall, I remain convinced Arteta has to go. I just don’t see what the plan is, and I hope people realize that there is a difference between being negative and being realistic. Our performances will have to be better if we want to climb up the table. Right now the points are absolutely massive, but only when we match them with dominant performances, can we be confident of moving forwards.
Konstantin