Kevin Campbell wants to shift any blame for Crystal Palace’s goal away from Gabriel Magalhaes, claiming that Arsenal’s Thomas Partey was the one at fault.
The Gunners let a 1-0 lead slip on Monday when the midfielder was dispossessed inside his own half by Jordan Ayew, who played in Christian Benteke to cut across Gabriel’s left before placing his effort in the net.
Campbell insists that the onus on the goal should fall on Partey however, and not the defender for his failure to stop the former Liverpool striker.
“Well, you cannot blame Gabriel because once Benteke picks it up he has so much room,” Campbell told the Football Insider. “It is very difficult to stop someone when they have the width of the 18-yard box to shift the ball. It is hard. You need a bit of help.
“Unfortunately, if you allow the opposition to turn the ball over in a dangerous area you are in trouble. That was Thomas Partey’s fault.
“He is a top, top player but Palace trapped him. They won it in a dangerous area and we paid the price.
“It was all our own doing. If you don’t give the ball away you take away a lot of Palace’s threat. They set the trap up and Arsenal fell into it.”
Once again, Arsenal are conceding goals from errors in our own half, and occurrence which was all-too familiar through-out last season, something we cannot get over it seems.
The error most definitely comes from Partey, putting Gabriel on the backfoot and struggling to rescue the situation this time. Saying that, the defender could have done better this time around…
Can the international break be used an excuse for such mistakes?
Patrick
There’s more than enough blame to go around on that first goal. Tomiyasu made an ill-judged pass to put Partey under pressure, Partey was indecisive and Gabriel showed Benteke onto his stronger foot.
Having said that, credit to Viera and Palace for setting the trap. It happens. That goal didn’t cost us the win. The 30 minutes before and that 20 minutes after cost us the win.
It goes some way in assessing what sort of character James MacAthur is,a really nasty individual person
Premier league can hardly expect fans to behave
responsible when players endanger a player’s career,and witness thuggery of this kind. Gm
Referee Mike Dean,it’s just another chronic disaster in decision making ,in which we have come to expect .
They were both culpable and if Campbell cannot recognise this, he is clueless.Throughout his career, Benteke has never been known for his ability to drift past defenders with the ball at his feet, yet he went past Gabriel as though he was not there.I’m afraid the Brazilian who like Mari, is painfully slow on the turn, is all at sea in one for one situations, and this fact will now be well known to every opposing team Manager in the Premier League.
Tomi’s pass was totally ill-advised, as he didn’t even provide Partey with a plausible out by quickly moving into a deeper-lying position so that he could receive a far less problematic return pass…fact remains when you continue to invite pressure, play 11 men behind the ball and show your opponents that you’re constantly looking to pass sideways and backwards, you’re bound to create these exact scenarios…at one point, the Palace players were actually looking to steal the ball by defending against a negative or sideways pass, which is a rarity at this level…it just shows how obvious we are in possession
Agree, he put him in trouble with that pass, Partey had three players round him and nothing on.
And what about Gabriel’s involvement in the goal? Are you suggesting he was blameless?
It was a team goal.
There was probably some “blame” to be shared but Partey was most at fault for this.
One expects a midfielder at this level to have the nous to avoid getting caught out as he was.
And one would not expect a quality centre back to be beaten so easily by a big ponderous CF who’s strength is in the air.