Review – Arsenal were sloppy and wasteful and let Everton bully us…

I was fully expecting a relegation team with Sean Dyche to show more fight, but our slow start and sloppy passing gave them confidence. We often underhit passes, sometimes 5 yard ones and that made us anxious and them confident. We failed to deal with their corners and we had multiple warnings, even just before half time, when they almost scored and they should’ve been in front anyway.

Then in the second half we immediately made a mistake that gave them an early chance, and the second half rolled on just like the first. Then once Partey went off, they immediately scored. Odegaard was hugging the Everton player all the time, yet still let him have a free header and once we went 1-0 down it was over.

At no point in the game did I feel like a goals is coming. We were anonymous in midfield and our wingers were often doubled and trippled on and we were nullified. Because we gave them confidence they got more physical and bullied us. The ref was a joke and allowed too much to go their way, but we should’ve expected that.

I think Arteta made a lot of mistakes in this game. Our subs were left too late again. Ben White should’ve been subbed at half-time. Tommy was good against City, but unfortunately Arteta wants to win the league with 11 players and that’s impossible. You can say all you want about the performances of the subs, but a player like Vieira who rarely plays with the first can’t do miracles coming on for 10 minutes in games when we are desperate.

We need to manage the squad players better, but Arteta is too stubborn with his style sometimes. For example we should’ve subbed Zinchenko for Tierney and try to be more direct, give some help with overlapping to Martinelli, so that he can be 1:1 with a defender, but we didn’t.

Joeginho came on and unfortunately gave all the people who were massively disappointed with his signing a lot of reason to be even more vocal. It’s in no way his fault alone that we lost, but one moment in the end of the game was really telling.

We’re 1:0 down desperately needing to do something, we have a free kick in our half and some Everton guy throws a second ball on the pitch to waste time and Jorginho hit it so lackluster it didn’t even go out and Rasdale had to go and get rid of it, wasting precious time on laziness.

Honestly this summed up our whole performance. Sometimes those players get away with it too easily. I think the hairdryer should’ve come up at half time to wake them up and some changes too.

There are hardly any positives to take away from this game, but if there is one, it’s a reminder that we’ve won nothing yet. And relying on Tottenham against City is something we shouldn’t be doing, regardless of what the situation is.

They had a 2-0 gifted lead at the Etihad and still blew it and I fully expect City to win an easy 3 points on their ground and our lead will be down to 2.

We will likely go to the game against City in touching distance and they will be licking their lips at the prospect.

The truth is, we have to do the job ourselves and now the next 2 games become must-win. I don’t care that it’s Brentford and City. Last season we had 4 points lead with 3 games left and choked it. The league is brutal, the competition fierce and we can’t waste games like that. I am so gutted. The only hope is that so far, once we’ve dropped points, we’ve responded.

I expect a massive change of attitude against Brentford.