Jermaine Jenas has claimed that Arsenal’s players didn’t believe in the gameplan set out by manager Mikel Arteta on Saturday evening.
The Gunners were dismal as they went onto lose by a three-goal scoreline against Liverpool, and there was not a single element of the display that I could feel positive about.
From the off, the away team was able to dominate much of the possession, and our side was showing very little to try and bring the game to our rivals.
The second-half was no better, and you have to feel frustrated by the attempt of the two managers to change the game. Klopp brought on Diogo Jota, while Arteta simply replaced Dani Ceballos with Mo Elneny, and there was no prize for guessing which change was going to provide the winner.
The Portuguese didn’t just change the game, he scored the opener as well as the third and final goal, and I can’t recall Elneny doing anything personally.
Jenas told BBC Match of the Day (via Football.London) that he believes that the players went out with the wrong attitude from the off however.
“I watched a team today that didn’t believe in the tactics set out by Mikel Arteta, I thought the body language from Arsenal players was poor,” he said.
“I’m struggling to figure out why you’re playing [Pierre-Emerick] Aubameyang, [Alexandre] Lacazette, [Martin] Odegaard, Pepe – all these attacking players and not actually playing on the front foot.
“This pretty much summed it up for me, you’ve got Pepe with his hand in his air asking for it to be kicked up the pitch, but who actually wants the ball? You’ve got Odegaard in a good position behind Fabinho, slide that ball forward, get in the pocket, but they didn’t have any urgency to get on the ball or help the person on the ball.
“I imagine Arsenal fans are sick of this now.”
Was it obvious from the very beginning that the players were not in the right mindset?
Patrick