Arsenal’s 1-0 loss to relegation contenders Nottingham Forest on Saturday gifted Manchester City their third consecutive PL crown even before they kicked a ball this weekend.
Arsenal headed to the encounter against Forest, bidding to collect three points and prove they are not title bottlers. However, after a sloppy start to the game, they conceded in the 19th minute, courtesy of Taiwo Awoniyi’s beautiful finish past Aaron Ramsdale, to gift the hosts a deserved 1-0 lead at halftime.
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard had an evening to forget against Nottingham Forest. The 24-year-old made a huge mistake as his backpass went straight to Morgan Gibbs-White, who went on to provide the decisive cross to Taiwo Awoniyi, who scored the match’s only goal. “But a sloppy ball like that [from Odegaard] has given the opposition a leg up,” said Tony Adams on Sky Sports about the error that led to Forest’s goal.
Martin Odegaard, with a 6.5 Sofascore match rating, also failed to win 2 of the five ground duels he was involved in, lost possession ten times, was dribbled past, and failed to create chances for the forward players, which saw them unable to threaten the Nottingham Forest backline in the entire game. For the better part of the season, the Norwegian was the player the Gooners “looked at” if they needed something special to happen. But with him having a bad day at the office, they struggled to punish Forest. “Arsenal have been bereft of ideas all game long, and Arteta needs to change it very quickly. In fact, I’m surprised he did not at halftime,” said Carragher on Arsenal’s attacking play.
Tony Adams felt Arteta should have considered introducing Emile Smith Rowe, probably subbing Odegaard for him. “Smith Rowe is a fantastic player, and he’s not had enough game time. Let’s get Emile on! Come on, let’s get a look at you!” said Tony Adams on Sky Sports during halftime of that game.
But that didn’t happen.
Hopefully, next term, Arteta will get someone good enough to deputise him and not over-depend on him so much to avoid burnout. As Adams summarised at the end: “Arsenal have had a fantastic season but have run out of resources and players have lost form. To win titles you need great backup players. When we won the four titles we had players like Martin Keown who came in to do a job for me.”
I think it is pretty certain that we will see yet another overhaul of players this summer as we aim to be an even better team next season. And it looks like rotation of our best players is the way forward if we are going to remain fresh for the whole of the next campaign…
Sam P
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