Watching the first half of yesterday’s FA cup game against Forest was like watching paint dry for Arsenal fans, but without any smooth finish at the end of it.
I saw just about every player being a yard slow and misplacing passes all over the place, not to mention the wastefulness of our strikers and the complete ineffectiveness of our midfielders.
But just over half an hour into the game, Tavares was the one who was taken off and replaced by Kieran Terney. The left back then stomped off the pitch with the hump, and threw his gloves to the ground showing his anger.
Ian Wright was not happy with Tavares’ reaction. ‘He started very poorly with this bad backpass, and with this one you look at his reaction,’ Wright said on ITV. ‘He is coming off, he’s throwing his gloves down, I think this is the wrong manager to do this with.
‘The disrespect the is showing at the minute is something Mikel Arteta won’t like, he shouldn’t be acting like that with the performance he put in.’
I agree it has been widely acknowledged that the Portugese defender was not playing very well, but he was certainly not the only one, and you could argue that Arteta’s actions even unsettled the rest of the team by showing his angry petulance by singling out one individual for the blame. Would that have helped the atmosphere on the pitch?
There was only ten minutes until half time, so the Boss could have waited and bawled out the whole team, including Tavares if he wanted, but now there is a possibility of him having another unhappy player in his ranks.
Do you think it was sensible to make an example of Tavares so early in the game?
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