Arsenal fans were treated to a rare spectacle of the Gunners completely dominating Manchester United at home on Saturday, having 75% possession and 33 shots on David De Gea’s goal, but somehow still managed to lose the game by 3 goals to 1. It seems that the Match of the Day pundits at the BBC were extremely critical of the Arsenal performance and many fans were protesting about an ‘anti-Arsenal bias’ on the programme.
Alan Shearer has now responded to those accusations, and he thinks that the complaining Gooners have got it all wrong. He said on Twitter “This is my last word on #ARSMNU. It’s pretty simple. 33 shots & 1 goal is a terrible return. Your forwards were not good enough. Conceded 3 goals at home. Your defence & keeper had a very bad day. Still you’re saying how great @Arsenal were. Do me a favour man! No bias. Fact.”
Even the Arsenal legend Ian Wright, who scored 100s of goals for the Gunners, came out in defence of the show. “Why am I seeing so much blame being attached to @BBCMOTD pundits about Arsenal not getting credit for 33 shots and 70 odd % possession! What are we supposed to say about 5 players rushing to close down Pogba, leaving Valencia free ? Just asking . Maybe the refs fault”
It was fantastic seeing Arsenal attack United right up until the end trying to claw back the goals we gave away from our early mistakes, but do our players deserve credit despite only having a 3% shots-to-goals conversion rate?
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Is there a trophy for dominating matches?? We dominate them, they win trophies and watch who walks away happy that season..
These credits given to these average guys are over the top, we lost the match but still talking about how we dominated them. Remember, they took 3 points from our own ground, FA should award us at least 1 point for domination
Haha! Are we still talking about how great we are after losing 3-1 at home?
Wenger saw positives after 1-5 with Bayern. It’s a shame what’s happening.
Shearer is dead right. Great attacking play, exciting game, no end product. Yes their GK played out of his skin and their defence defended well. Our defence was all over the place and Cech was at fault and also lucky a few times. Our forwards couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo.
Truth hurts and hurts me to say it.
Mourinho let Arsenal dominated his team after the first goal. Before the first goal, Manchester United attacked Arsenal aggressively.
If Arsenal can dominate under heavy pressure of a big team, Arsenal would have been able to keep up with Manchester City at the Etihad. Mourinho and some managers in Premier League already know that Wenger’s team always have difficulties with their opponent’s ultra defensive tactic and always vulnerable to quick counter-attacks.
De Gea was superb, but other goalkeepers that faced Arsenal often looked great as well, because of Arsenal’s inability to improvize when attacking a very defensive team. Namely Fraser Forster, Jordan Pickford and Jack Butland got praised on their “performance” against Arsenal, because of Arsenal’s lack of creativity and lack of open play sharpness.
Domination wins nothing, only goals and good defending \ goal-keeping win games with the aide of the ref hopefully giving the right decisions the right way. It may be great to watch pretty flowing football with amazing assists but a good team of players should be able to defend and scrape a 1-0 win or even draw 0-0 no matter who the opposition are unless its Man City this season.
So then , all the good teams, even when playing EACH OTHER , “will scrape a win 1-0 or even draw”. An interesting scenario for both teams to win 1-0, wouldn’t you say?
Great attacking play but zero points and to top it a penalty aint awarded.
I believe all refs shd be answerable when apenaty is not given. You never know.
I don’t trust these mo ,linesmen included. The Sterling os comes to mind.
Ifthe ref deems apenalty not given,he shd explain why when the stakes are so high.
It was aglorious defeat but it really hurt all gunners fans..
Agreed, but I would extend that to all officials so if a linesman misses a foul or say an offside through not keeping up with play they should be accountable too.
They certainly would have had we taken at least 20% chances that we had coz I’m sure that we would’ve scored at least 4 goals by doing so and hence,been victorious….
We lost end of! Please move on…. we have a game on Thursday, let’s focus on that!!
What shambolic performance from the gooners, Wenger has lost it. His tactics no longer work. He should go but the board is also as guilty as he is
Does anyone think we would have had 33 shots on goal and 70% possession if we had gone 2-0 up after 14 minutes? Teams protecting a lead play differently.
I don’t think you can judge anything that happened after United put the game out of reach. The last 75 minutes of the game were a valiant but fruitless effort. It is time Arsenal learn to play for the full 90 minutes, not the last 75 minutes.
You give Mourinho a 2-0 lead and he will give you the ball and soak up the pressure and wait for the counter-attack.
Our team defending was weak at the beginning of the game and our forwards finishing was weak for the remainder of the game. It is ambitious to somehow combine these two factors into a dominating display if you ask me.
I watched the game and any other GK would have let in half a dozen of our shots, DDG deserves all the credit IMO, he had such a game that it felt unbelievable. That man not only had skill but luck on his side, he was outstanding and I actually felt bad that MOTM was given to an attacker who scored goals instead of their GK who saved them at least half a dozen… maybe more.
Best GK display I have seen for… Well… Too many years 🙁
Since Bob Wilson left our coaching staff our GKs have been underwhelming and to watch DDG… That was painful. Our attackers was fantastic, their shots wasn’t bad shots but forced very good saves and TONS of them.
If DDG had AFC GK coach training him then UTD would have lost 6-3 at least and people blame the def… Did Seaman let the def do such stupid things? Did Mad Jens?
You make a fair point. Though , I believe we would still have had the overwhelming possession stats in our favour, just less onesided than it was, say 60-40 instead of 75-25, which is still overwhelming for two major sides playing each other. But obviously goals always alter games , esp early ones. All a matter of degree I believe.
Yes Arsenal do deserve credit, DDG for UTD was man of the match and Lacazette would have had a hatrick against any other keeper.
Xhaka let us down if anyone, he may improve and just turn his fortunes around but he needs to be dropped for someone who has more mobility.
I still maintain we do not have a bad def, we just crumble when we conceded but do not forget that we have kept a number of clean sheets already. With a better holding CM alongside Ramsey and I do believe we will make a massive difference in how well we defend.
I would look at Kondogbia and Carvalho in Jan, they are 24 and 25 years old and prime ahead of them and both over 6 foot, they both can put in a meaty tackle.
I want to suggest that Nelsons Column has more mobility and almost as much pace as Xhaka. If we could also get the Trafalgar Square lions as well, then we might have a real team. To be serious , most of us fully realise Xhaka will never be at the level we need and realise he was a bad buy and should be moved on and replaced from elsewhere. But our “wonderful flexible manager” will never agree. After all, he surely thinks Walcott, after twelve wasted years, might prove him right. Otherwise why keep him and on huge wages for all that time?
Some of us realists have pointed out that we DO deserve huge credit for the attitude against United but obviously not for the three huge defensive mistakes by Kos and Mustafi. We have also pointed out that, refreshing though the fighting spirit was, that it must happen CONSISTENTLY ALL SEASON before any real credit can be given to the team. We also pointed out that for the last decade under Wenger we have been mostly unmotivated at this level and warned not to raise our hopes. That is why we are realists. We still want Wenger out and a proper manager installed.