Third spot pressure the cause of subdued Arsenal second-half performance
Arsenal now sits third in the Premier League after beating Bournemouth 1-0 in a nervy affair at the Emirates this afternoon.
A ninth-minute header from David Luiz secured all three points in a game of very few chances. Neither team excelled and according to Unai Emery pressure may have got to the Arsenal players on occasions.
Speaking to the press after the game, when asked if being third in the table is a fair reflection, Emery said
“That was our objective today. We knew if we won, we’d go third.
For our confidence and our way, it was important, but not feeling the pressure of that. Maybe in the second half, we were winning 1-0, maybe in some moments we felt that pressure.
But for me, it’s one step more, above all for the young players and for us.
It’s our objective and we didn’t fear that moment, when the opposition was pushing us. Really, I think the second half, we can analyse, we can improve, and we will do – but in 90 minutes I think we deserved to win.”
If that is true then it is a good thing that it happened and that the players handled the stresses of the game. Arsenal may be making life hard for themselves but they are winning and sit just one point behind Man City.
Maintaining third comes with a lot of pressure and the more the players are exposed to it, the better. They need to avoid another end of season collapse and managing pressure will be a crucial factor.
Temporary position… After christmas we’ll know where each teams stand quality-wise. but for Arsenal FC that will be after March/April 2020
Temporary position yes,but are we improving,getting worse or stagnant?I say we are improving and after the International break he will ease in the hungry youngsters of Tierney and Martinelli,and these coming out of injury Bellerin,Holding and Laca.And i beleive the internation break has come at the right time for Nicolas Pepe because pressure was begining to build so it will take his mind off that abit.So,we will loose that position at some point but we will gain it again and thats where we will be at the end of the season.For me,the top 3 will be as it is now at the end of the season
Help me see the improvement. Honestly, I want to see it but I don’t see us much better than last season this time when we were also scraping by with a little unbeaten run that looked void of substance.
You are looking for the improvement in points tally,which when you go by we are actually worse off than last season at this point,by 3points by the way.Because we had 18Points at this stage last season.
What are you smoking, damwng. We will lose 3rd spot wich is 3 points above we can be 8th, losing at Sheffield, and Chelsea infront of us for good, Spurs one point behind until we host Palace and those fearless Wolves! By then; MU will be back on or above us…
Leicester third with Chelsea on 4th, Spurs above us then, just as Wolves. Palace is playing City next, if they win, be above us as Chelsea if we lose. We cant cope with pressure playing so called smaller teams; Palace can slam us just as Wolves, we have a retarded coach…
We lost to Reds, lucky to not more games, drawing 4 or winning 3 in chaotic ways!!! Out of 8 games! That is beyond mediocre! At this pace and not so lucky, we will be 7th to 9th place by winter!
Then we can hope to see that coach fired for Christmas, not have a awful Holliday.
If this clown remains, Auba will leave for Real or MU who did not replace Lukaku and will keep Pogba doing so!
Chelsea coach understands and respects football, offers a very pleasant display with a great mix of youngsters and experienced top players all over the pitch.
He has Giroud watching games from bench or on TV, playing youngsters! We bench them and take all Arsenal style-of-play out. They wont sake that coach til next year!
We will go far in Europa with Ozil and the kids, win it, but by 1/4 or semi -final, Xhaka and co will be played first. Total joke!
Emery is alwaulys analysing games but will never analyse why we fail to create goal scoring opportunities. What a manager
How long shall they be killing our prophet why we stand aside and look…
Have no fear for Emerick energy cus none of it can stop the time😂😂
Is any one else bored to death watching us play? If this continues under UE than soon we will hear same chants we use to hear before wenger boring boring Arsenal. Winning is important but how you win is equally if not more important as well. We will loose a lot of fan base if we continue like this even if we accumulate points to come in top 4.
It’s about winning and scoring goals
Emery needs to have the courage and commitment to start with more of the youngsters in the first XI, especially when they’re performances are worthy of this.
Joe Willock is currently playing sensational football when given the opportunity as is Martinelli yet both only start on the bench in league fixtures despite the repeated poor form of our more senior players.
I appreciate that Sako is getting opportunities however Emery should show trust in this current crop of young players and not stifle their careers as has happened to numerous young players at the club in the past.
Going by his logic, if pressure to be third made the team fight so hard, then pressure to win the league, Euros,or silverware period, should make them fight even harder in every match… IJS
I agree, and glad the pressure is on. They should feel pressure of CL qualification, also feel pressure of competition and that no one’s spot is safe in starting 11.
Josh has done his job, Raul and Edu done theirs, and Freddie has done and continues to do his job with youth.
Time for players to do their jobs and Emery to push them for more.
I would have thought winning today and three points in the bag should be enough. But for some, no. They are forever looking for something negative to moan about the team or the manager. Or the selection. Or the pattern of play. Or the position of some team on the table. Or something …
Why can’t people just be satisfied?
Because we’ve come to expect better from our beloved team. Yes we are in third place but why should we be satisfied with boring defensive football? We want pace, enthusiasm, skill and goals. If the B team can do it, why can’t the A team?
I promise you come end of season, y’all will be begging for that 3rd spot even if we get it by playing anti-football like Atletico Madrid.
Emery has brought us from 6th place to 5th and Europa league final and now we are 3Rd place.
We can definitely do better with a manager like Allegri, Enrique, Sarri. But until that day is a reality we should support our manager who is improving us. Criticism is fine. I criticised him today for playing Xhaka but calling for him to be fired when we are 3rd place is the height of ridiculousness and unfair.
As long as we are improving that’s all that matters to me. If we get worse and go down the table that’s a different matter and I’ll deal with that when and if it happens
Spot on @Innit.
Today, we didn’t score a lot, but we won and didn’t concede any. Nobody seems to be injured, no red cards, good day for the team. And the manager.
If we are in the 2nd half of the season would agree with you Innit. But at this stage of the season, our 3rd place should not blind us from the unconvincing performances.
IMO we are 3rd as much because of the failures from our direct competitors as it is a result of our own strengths.
For me, winning a game, every game, is enough. That is the only thing that helps our position in the table. Aside from the number of goals scored for us and the tighter our defence is, nothing else matters.
Oh, except that I wish every player wearing the red and white of Arsenal an injury-free game all season.
Nothing else matters to me.
We used to win with style. We scored today in I think the 8th minute and then basically held on hoping the opposition wouldn’t equalise.
We used to lose with “style” too.
And remember the good old days of one nil to the arsenal
If we’re getting a job done then we’re heading in the right direction
The manager has been playing with 2 bad wing backs or sometims just one actual wb
We’re making progress now something we all wanted to see
With tierny and bellerin back we’re going to get a much better shape forward and defending
Then holding chambers taking a spot at CB to be calm and lay the ball off with a ragging bull next to them
Pepe is going to explode onto the pitch soon there’s a great interview from back in the day of pieres and Henry both talking about there discussions together about the league how they were shxt scarred it was to quick ect
Then they found form and whala 👊👊
Then ozil
last year emery was praised for not picking the bigger names when they don’t deserve it
This year people are seeing it as a conspiracy against certain players
The funny thing I can see people who were screaming out for these underperforming players to be benched 🤔🤔
I’m not saying ozil is crap I loved him as a player but more goes on than we see
We need to get behind the team and manager
They are aiming for top four and europa final and I think they’ll make it
Then emery is up for review so let’s do the same
For those bemoaning our lack of style constantly all I can say is look at the Europa/Cup form…. That is Emery’s playstyle, its just been easier to implement there than the PL because of easing youngsters in and injured players slowly returning to fitness and it won’t be long before we can replicate it in the league.
For those wishing for Ozil’s return, ask yourself this do you want Ozil creating a few beautiful passes or do you want Laca, who can pick out a pass himself, tracks back to help defense, drops deep to collect the ball, plays it forward and then becomes a meaningful part of the attack instead?
We played a really poor Bournemouth team today. If the aThursday night team had played them we would have won by 4 or 5 goals.
How about playing both of them? You have just answered your own question PAL
@Declan… and if they were fit I’m sure the main components of the Thursday night squad would have been played… The defence was already better today just with Chambers at right back, with KT, Holding and Bellerin back it will give confidence to the squad going forward just like it does in Europa
@Phil – so who do you suggest playing out of position to accommodate everyone? Personally I like the balance the squad has now with Auba central rather than on the left, which means for me Laca (who offers so much more than Ozil) slots in behind Auba like Bergkamp did with Henry leaving no room for Ozil unless you want to play him out of position and as I don’t think just offering creativity and nothing much else is enough to get in the squad anyway, I doubt very much playing him out of position will help matters much eh Pal? 🤷♂️
Too many on here are not giving credit to the improvement in FC Bournmouth this season. Before this match did anyone look at their record and points tally. They will cause a lot of teams problems this season.
city, spud, Utd are going…
Liverfool is guarantee to win the league unbeatable and unless we self destruct we are going to finish top for sure
At least after this bloody boring international break, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Tierney, Bellerin, Holding & Laca! Can’t wait!
Me too! Especially Tierney. And with the Man U V Liv game starting us off it will be fun to watch Man U continue their painful trudge towards midtable mediocrity.
😂👍 it will indeed, QD. How much longer will OGS last?! He’s aged quite a bit recently!!
Hopefully till the end of this season 🙏
Pressure is we are one loss and a draw away from 10th position, of we keep looking at teams below is. If we want to strive and be better, we would have been 3 points behind Liverpool, given the fact that we lost to them abjectly.
Nuno Gomez showed yesterday how to beard the lion in its own den and that is what should be our approach. Wear that Invincibles badge proudly and go with an positive/aggressive mindset and this team can win a lot. Instead what we have is “our way, our capacity” mumbo jumbo.
The positives from yesterday’s game is basically pyrhhic victory, and nothing else. Last week we had the best chance to annihilate ManU at OT and we came away with a draw. Same with Spurs at home, if only we look at how Brighton beat them 3-0 but we fought back to draw 2-2.
We have a much better attack than Bournemouth so how the F*** did they take over in the second half?
Relax guys. There are 30 games to go. The most important thing is that we are putting points on the board. There are a host of injuries to first team players. Someone could say that 3 of 4 of the back line today were second team players. Lacazette is also not available. Pepe hasn’t kicked on yet. Ozil hasn’t played a role at all. All this, yet we sit in 3rd place, one point behind Man City. As another plus, we’re seeing a host of young players shining and pushing their way into the First Team. There’s a lot to be happy about. A lot to improve as well. However we can be happy with where we stand as at this stage of the season.
To the guys that say, “why can’t we play like the midweek team?” Bournemouth is a very good team which is competitive year after year in probably the toughest football league on the planet. Give them a bit of credit. Standard Liege is, well, Standard Liege. An “also ran” in a mediocre league. With that in mind, you can’t reasonably expect the same level of performance (and score line) against much better opposition.
Bottom line: we won; we kept a “clean sheet”; other key teams lost (City, United, Sp*rs, Leicester, West Ham); and we go into the international break on a good note.
COYG!!!!!!!
👍
I’m quite amused to see comparisons being made with ManC, saying we are one point behind them. With all due respects to them, they have lost to Norwich and Wolves, so be my guest and keep aspiring for those results then! We would have known the reality of Auba hadn’t scored 7 goals out of 13, and letting in 11. At some stage our GD will come back to bite us, until then we can glorify boring football, just because we won!!! When it came to Watford, Spurs and ManU, we should have been saying that but the reality is we drew winnable games.
Until such time Emery learns to play attacking football, we will be delirious with “but we are 3rd in the table”.
Our new identity under Emery is play not to lose. Our football is dour; we play defensive against mid table teams like Bournemouth at home. Emery is gutless, and our brand of football is dull. I would gladly take a tactical win against a top six team. But nowadays there seems to be no difference to our approach whether it is Liverpool or Watford! My only hope is that things improve when we have everyone in defense back.
Your last sentence says it all.
Tierney, Holding, Bellerin and our most consistent player, Lacazette all fully fit to play in the EPL.
it was an okay performance from a side that has been pretty unspectacular so far this season, but it puts us in 3rd so little to complain about. Whether playing like this and expecting top4 finish is sustainable for the whole season… highly, highly improbable.
And remember the good old days of one nil to the arsenal
If we’re getting a job done then we’re heading in the right direction
The manager has been playing with 2 bad wing backs or sometims just one actual wb
We’re making progress now something we all wanted to see
With tierny and bellerin back we’re going to get a much better shape forward and defending
Then holding chambers taking a spot at CB to be calm and lay the ball off with a ragging bull next to them
Pepe is going to explode onto the pitch soon there’s a great interview from back in the day of pieres and Henry both talking about there discussions together about the league how they were shxt scarred it was to quick ect
Then they found form and whala 👊👊
Then ozil
last year emery was praised for not picking the bigger names when they don’t deserve it
This year people are seeing it as a conspiracy against certain players
The funny thing I can see people who were screaming out for these underperforming players to be benched 🤔🤔
I’m not saying ozil is crap I loved him as a player but more goes on than we see
We need to get behind the team and manager
They are aiming for top four and europa final and I think they’ll make it
Then emery is up for review so let’s do the same
C o y gunners 👊👊👊👊👊
Of all the dumb excuses we used to get from wenger this won tops the lot …. It’s plain to see that we have lost our verve our nerve and our way under Emery … There would have been no surprise if we had drawn yday and for 80minutes we failed to impress against bmouth at home … But we won and we are third so shut up and enjoy the poor results of rivals … which is fair enough I guess but heard that over and over and over again in the last decade until of course we aren’t and they don’t cos it’s sadly short sighted when the quality of football is so visibly poor … We are also a point behind city but does anyone think that will be the case come late April? Of course not …The third way has a history of exciting people …ask the idiot Blair …but people eventually see through the bs … Ask Blair again … And the same goes for third place as we hit the second international break … Sad truth is we have the players to move on just not a manager to find the way