It has been continually remarked about Arsenal this season, that when they get a one-goal lead, against any opposition at all, they immediately sit back and just try to defend their lead.
Even Arteta has mentioned it many times himself this season after games, but during our unbeaten run it was thanks to our great defence keeping clean sheets in most games which stopped us surrendering our lead.
But it certainly didn’t work against Man United, but we failed even more against Everton, in fact we have conceded 9 goals in our last 4 games including the 4-0 at Liverpool.
But there is absolutely no excuses for letting a very poor Everton side to come back into the game, and in fact they could have scored many more, but if only we didn’t stop putting the pressure on once we had taken the lead.
Odegaard was asked if it was a mentality problem after the Everton game and he said, “I think it is. When you’re leading 1-0 you get afraid to lose the win and in my opinion that’s what we did wrong today.
“You go for the second goal and that was the intention, but we didn’t manage to do that on the pitch.”
“It’s very disappointing. I think it’s a game we should win or at least get a point. It’s not our best game, but still they they gave us so much space to play.
“I think in my opinion we stopped doing what we had to do. We stopped playing football after after we got the lead, especially in the second half. We just kicked the ball long and and gave them the game they want to play.
“We have to keep keep the ball better.”
So, Arteta has said it himself that it is a problem in the side, so the question needs to be asked; Can he fix it?
It’s certainly happening a bit too often of late…
He can’t it has happened so many times.Why has he not fixed it.
We list in Manchester where it was there for all to see attack was tge way to go.It was easier to attack than defend.
Man U defenders could have caved in. I am not a fan of Arteta and I don’t think I will ever be he is too inconsistent and we are heading to another no 8 finish
Nobody knows whether Arteta actually says to the players ‘ okay, if we go 1-0 up let’s sit back and defend ‘ or whether it’s in our players nature to do this but that is where we need a strong and vocal captain. Whether Auba, Xhaka or whoever is captain there doesn’t seem to be a vocal presence on the pitch to alter things therefore the game just drifts away from us.
Your spot on Martey, I think it’s a mental thing with the players. Under wenger in the successful years, he knew he had good defenders so the attitude was if you score we’ll score 3. But those teams would never give up on their will to attack, cause end of the day the team with the most goals wins 3 pts. Not the team who says well just stop you from scoring now. For the first time in 12 years I think we have a cracking defense which is so yound and will get better.
There seems to be alot of nervous energy when we score first especially away from home. I don’t think that can be attributed to the manager, it’s literally like someone flicks a switch. There’s a lack of a true leader in the middle of the park. When we go one up there should be a player saying “come on its 0-0 we keep f@#kin going no mercy we here to batter these let’s do it”.
To me the squad is 2 teams in one, one wants to keep a clean sheet the other wants to go and win the game. Players like Tierney, Tavares, ESR, Saka, Odegaard want to attack not defend. Then we have Partey, Xhaka, White, Gabriel and Tomiyasu who want to keep a clean sheet pulling the team deeper into their own half.
A teams ability to attack relies on the defense to push it towards the halfway and box in the opposition. We do this for 10-20 mins like against Utd and Everton, score then camp on the edge of the box. We did the same against Palace and against Liverpool for the full 90. The lads paid them too much respect and sat back trying to stop them scoring and we paid for it. The only time I’ve seen us play to our best was the first 45 against Spurs, we were relentless, and that’s how we should be playing every game from the first minute until the game is out of sight.
The team needs to be one at the moment they look like 2 units
If it is a mental thing on the players, it is the duty and responsibility of the coach to fix it. It has happened too many times this season and we have lost so many points. Arteta has to address the issue first hand.
While I agree Arsenal have a problem holding onto the lead, can’t agree with Odegaard’s assessment that they stopped playing versus Everton once going up one nil. Arsenal were poot before scoring and poor after scoring. The only time they played with any purpose was when they went down 2-1.