I think we can all agree that this was a bad day all round for the Arsenal players. A lot of fans are angry and are blaming Arsene Wenger for his team selection and tactics but he cannot have expected the likes of Aaron Ramsey, Mesut Ozil and Santi Cazorla to be so ineffective and for Petr Cech to have made two such glaring errors to cost us all the points was almost unheard of.
The question is then, why did the Gunners have such a bad day both individually and collectively and I have a theory. Nerves. It was understandable for all of us fans and the players and manager to be feeling confident and starting to believe that this could be our year for the Premier League trophy, but with that comes expectations and we seemed to wilt under the weight of them.
Did you see our captain for the day Per Mertesacker in the tunnel before the game? He was wringing his hands and twitching and I have never seen him look so nervous. And he is usually a leader on the pitch so that was not good. The nerves were really showing as our passes went astray, either too long or underhit so many times it was just not Arsenal. And as the game got away from us, it became even harder for the players to play their natural game.
THe attackers were snatching at things and trying too hard to force the game and the defenders never looked calm. So instead of Cech’s authority spreading to his team mates it went the other way and he picked up the Arsenal nerves. I just hope that we have now got this out of our system and can start to play as normal.
Do you agree that Arsenal were nobbled by opening day nerves today?