When do Arsenal cut out the mistakes and become a solid team? by Konstantin Mitov
Well ladies and gentleman, we cannot string 2 decent performances in a row and that’s that. Our first 30 minutes against West Ham were utterly shocking. The first goal was a great strike with nobody opposing Lingard, then we fell asleep for their second, and their third was so easy for them, Antonio barely celebrated…
Our starting line up was poor. Why was Aubameyang playing? It was like we were playing with 10 men – and that’s our captain. This is Arteta being weak and circling towards certain players. He was shocking midweek and didn’t deserve to start. Arteta tried to make a statement by publicly declaring why Auba missed the Spurs game and now he’s spitting on his own words and playing him.
Willian is another player who’s gotten an enormous amount of chances, after being poor multiple games in a row. Why did we drop Smith-Rowe? Why does it take till minute 80 to put Martinelli on for a bang average Auba? It was like fate told him something, because we scored an equalizer the moment he was off.
That wasn’t the only mistake though. Mari was awful, but what I don’t get is why drop Gabriel when he picked up form? If you want to play Mari, play him against Olympiacos where the game is mostly done, why risk West Ham? Then again, when Mari and Luiz had a good run in the league and he was on form, we dropped him for Gabriel who had a stinker, because he was again out of form.
These rotations make players lose form, confidence and morale. Ever since we dropped Saka to give him a break, he’s not been up to his standards. I am sorry, but Arteta’s man management has been shocking. The way we started the game was so slow and poor.
It was great that we showed character to come back, but here’s the thing, we didn’t win. We’re 9th in the table. If we don’t win the Europa what are we doing next season? We again missed a lot of chances. Saka really should’ve scored his 1:1 with Fabianski. Pepe should’ve done better in the end. We had chances, but didn’t take them. We needed two own goals to level it.
Not that we didn’t pressure them though. I thought Chambers showed how it’s done with the crosses. They were sublime and often had nobody on their end. I was really happy with Lacazette. The difference between him and Aubameyang is that one works his socks off and the other scores tap ins. I feel bad for him, because since the start of the season, when he has 1 bad game, he’s dropped. Same with Pepe, but Willian and Auba are safe to go.
This kind of management is why we are 9th. I hear the constant talk of progress, of how good we play. Look at our squad, and compare it to West Ham. Is theirs better? No way! We have a squad good enough to compete for the top 4 and we’re languishing in 9th. We cannot play like Man City with Xhaka at the base of our midfield. He was atrocious again.
How are we buying Partey a new partner in midfield if we don’t get CL football? We loaned 120 million from the bank to cover Covid losses, I’m not sure Arteta realises that the league actually matters. I will reiterate the point that Chelsea were close to us in the table when Lampard packed his bags, and they are now in the top 4 while we are still mid-table.
I think we need a new keeper, because Leno should’ve done miles better on their second goal. How many more mistakes are we going to take from him? It’s clear that some of the players are not good enough for this club, but why are we giving them chance after chance? We were ruthless with Mustafi and Ozil, yet soft-hearted for Xhaka and Auba? Sure some of the players are not good enough, but mid-table?
Our squad with a decent manager is easily top 6 material. And before some people put their favourite “he’s always negative” jibe, I hope you enjoy following the results of Aston Villa and Leeds in the fight for 9th place, because we ain’t moving up the table even though we were given countless opportunities by the inconsistencies of other teams. We just refuse to take them.
Konstantin