What went wrong against West Ham
Mikel Arteta and his Arsenal squad dropped 3 very important points against West Ham at the Emirates on Thursday night in which could be a result we look back on later in the season with a lot of ‘what if’s. Arsenal, in my opinion, were the better team on the night and for me, it all came down to luck and not being clinical enough.
Both goals that West Ham scored for me, could have been easily prevented. The first goal, not only was questionable due to VAR but could have easily been cleared out of play by either Gabriel or Zinchenko, but after what looked like some miscommunication by the two defenders, the ball ended up into the path of Bowen and then onto Soucek who made no mistake but to smash the ball into the back of the net, leaving Raya standing between the sticks, wondering what had just happened.
In my opinion, the ball went out of play and I understand that VAR can’t rule out a goal unless they’re 100% sure, but from the still pictures that have been shared everywhere, for me, I see the goal go out past the line and unfortunately because Bowens body is in the way of the camera’s view, VAR couldn’t say the ball had for a fact gone out and West Ham were awarded the goal. Almost the same as what happened against Newcastle, and I think that really took the life out of the squad.
Probably feeling very hard done by, but the Arsenal lads didn’t give up and tried to push forward and create as much as possible. With West Ham sitting back, staying solid and playing a low block, while allowing Arsenal to come at them, worked in their favour, and we just couldn’t punish West Ham for their mistakes.
Odegaard was creating a lot, but the end product wasn’t there, and you can blame that on luck or just not being clinical enough but for me, our front line just isn’t clicking like it was last season. I’m not sure what’s changed. Rice had another great game up to the last minutes when he gave away a penalty, but Raya saved his blushes by saving the shot from the spot, but it just felt like the players around him weren’t giving him the right options.
I think we missed Havertz in the midfield, Trossard had a fantastic game, but Havertz’s height would have been very handy against a tall West Ham backline and Havertz, since joining the club, has made a habit of getting Arsenal back into a game and even scoring a few late goals.
With so many chances, Arsenal fans are understandably starting to worry about the front line and why they don’t seem to be linking up as well as last season. With our titles hopes starting to get worrying, Arteta needs to either invest in a new striker or fix whatever seems to be holding our frontline back this season.
What’s your thoughts Gooners? What went wrong in your opinion?
Daisy Mae
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No plan B…Jus sayin
That’s true but we also don’t have a decent striker. As I’ve said before, you can have the best looking car at the races, but if you don’t have a good driver you’re going to suffer. We are missing the the main ingredient to make us tick. Having options up front would also give us a plan B and a plan C. Jesus is not going to score us lots of goals and neither is Nketiah. I also appreciate we only have so much to spend every summer but surely a striker should have been a priority after Rice?
Declan Rice scores as many goals as our “forward” Gabriel Jesus.
Jesus brings nothing to Arsenal from a forward position.
Arsenal need someone like Osimhen, Vlahovic or Toney.
I wonder if Jesus deployed on the left or behind the main striker would bring out the best of him. He is an exceptionally creative player.
Vlahovic is not a prolific goal scorer
Toney not kicked a ball in 6 months, and 12 months ago would have been a laughing stock at £80m
Osimhen, well may be, but not in January and +£100m
none of them would have conjured 3 goals from nothing to beat West Ham = fact = fantasy
Exactly my opinion. Couldn’t have been said better, or shorter. Last season Arsenal surprised some teams with their way of playing the game. But as early as the spring of 23 the other teams starting to learn how to defend, and even attack, that game. Now in the second year, it’s necessary to be able to change plan during the match. Just keep playing the same way will cost Gunners more defeats. And it will make them look stupid. They had 30-6 in shots, 75 % ball control versus WHU – and lost 2-0. Ain’t good enough. A striker, a striker, an EPL title for a striker!
1. A “striker” who cannot score goals – in fact, who has said that his game does not centre around goal scoring.
2. A manager that has seemingly abandoned what we do best – attack teams for a more balanced and controlled approach which, in fairness has worked to an extent but has blunted our attacking players.
3. Our top four attacking players scoring just fourteen goals between them in the Premiership this season. Simply not enough.
4. Players receiving huge new contracts and seemingly losing some of the fire that made them deserving of new contracts – Martinelli and Saka are perfect examples.
5. The goal keeping fiasco has had some impact this season.
6. The feeling of being aggrieved when VAR decisions go against them – you could see it yesterday. The best way to respond is to beat your opponent.
7. Believing the media hype has also had an impact – teams like Man City just win games and ignore the bullshit – Arsenal need to learn this.
Truth is a game like this was going to happen sooner or later. All season we have struggled to break teams down when they play the low block and double up on our wingers.
MA has to show innovation, think outside the box and fix this problem; if it is by signing a clinical center forward, changing our formation, making our set pieces translate to goals, playing at a faster tempo, shooting more from outside the box…whatever it takes, MA should find a solution fast before our title ambition evaporates.
All hope is not lost yet.
Arteta should improve his tactics, I think we lost because westham decided to rely on counter attacks. These guys know Rice’s strength and weakness so Arteta should not have centered his game plan around him. This was a game that Elneny would have done better with his runs . Or even Joginho with his passes.
Firstly, what I saw last night was a hard working Saka and Martinelli looking tired and frustrated. Our game plan is always the same. Ship the ball out wide and attack from the wings. That’s the problem. It’s all we do. Over and over again. Every manager in the world can see how to stop our attack. Nullify our wingers with heavy marking. We have no decent striker who can occupy and terrorize refences.
Secondly, Odegaard has the ability to pick out a killer pass. But, how often did we see the ball end up at the feet of the opposition due to our poor movement off the ball?
And thirdly, what has happened to our tempo? It’s all way too slow to cause an issue to any defense. We play out from the back with what looks like meaningful push forward, only to stop at the halfway line and play the ball sideways and backwards until we feel we have to pass because time is running out. Again, our movement off the ball is too slow and predictable. our one touch passing is poor and our final attack breaks down. Usually ending with the opposition countering us and scoring.
Something has to change if we are going to mount a serious challenge and quickly. There are son many teams this year who can cause an upset. We’re not looking like one of them at the moment!
Excellent points, I agree fully. We have become too predictable with out 1 dimensional tactics. Everything through the wings and nothing through the middle.
Add the fact that we have no striker presence in the box, and it is no surprise we struggle to score goals.
Saka and Martinelli doubled on the wings and Jesus offers no threat through the middle.
It’s time Arteta admits this tactic is sussed and implements new tactics. A clinical striker would be great, but tactics have to change to make proper use of the upgrade.
A very realistic summation by the writer.
I saw the outcome as chicken coming home to roost, as all season long and also lcst year after Christmas, we rarely looked like scoring ENOUGH goals.
And that entirely predictable weakness is now regularly tripping up our title chase. Most realistc fans have been correctly calling for a club of our enormous stature to bring in AT LEAST ONE, better still TWO top quality strikers to replace th non scoring Jesus and the not effective enough Eddie. Bpth are likeable and hard working as most agree but NEITHER, in reality land , are GOOD ENOUGH scorers at the level we need. Hence my realistic take of “chickens coming home to roost”!
I will be very interested to see if ANY fan who disagrees can explain WHY he/she disagrees, as I KNOW some do, even though only a minority, as it appears.
I doubt many would disagree with your statement, Jon. Problem is, you will not get a world class striker in January. If you do, you will have paid much, much more than you would in the summer.
Sadly, dear Gunner Ray, we both KNOW you are right! I see any title chance for us now as being very remote indeed, for many reasons and yours also being a prime reason too.
two top quality strikers?
1) are there 2 out there? Haarland aside
2) are two they moving in January = no
3) can Arsenal afford 2x £80m = no
4) are there areas of greater need more affordable = yes, defensive midfield and Saliba back-up
Immediately I saw the confirmed match lineup on JA, I voiced my concern with the midfield. I thought Jorginho should have started instead of Trossard. Jorginho would have done better against the physicality of West Ham and their counter-attacking tactics
Anyway, no point crying over spilt milk. Let’s reset against the Cottagers on Sunday. We must keep pace with the top and see where we we end up in May
All the blame is on the players. It’s the managers job to get them playing in a way that allows them to win games, which MA has done.
We dominated the game, created the chances, but as has been the case this season, we just cannot finish. Saka, Matinelli, Jesus, and Odegaard are not scoring anywhere near enough. All out of form at the same time, although Odegaard was very good last night.
Saka needs competition. Martinelli and Jesus need benching, but until we sign new players, that isn’t happening.
The blame falls squarely on the manager.
1. we saw this coming based on how the team played this season. we have the same forward line as last season but we barely create enough chances. The slow tempo and toothless possession is one of the changes MA made from last season.
2. The defense had carried this team and it’s hard ask to overcome a 2 goal deficit when the forwards are goal shy. One dimensional attack of always playing through the wing is predictable and toothless. Everyone has caught on to that and it’s MA’s responsibility to figure out how to overcome that.
3. We don’t have a clinical striker and everyone knows Jesus is not a striker. Whose fault is that?
You are completely wrong, and I even have to question how much you’ve even watched us play this season?
Almost every game, we create plenty of chances, but we just cannot finish as we saw against West Ham.
again whose fault is that we don’t have clinical finishers? what chances did we create aside from the missed header from Jesus in Westham game?
Hopefully they get another forward in January, but MA was correct to start the season with Saka, Gabby, Jesus and Odegaard as our main attackers given how good they were last season. Unless you think they did not perform last season?
Also, there’s a little thing called FFP. Yes it doesn’t apply to the likes of Chelsea, City, PSG etc, but it does for us. We spent a lot in the summer, and didn’t bring a lot in. So we couldn’t do anything more after the Rice signing.
Hopefully we can get rid of Tomi, Party, ESR, Vieira and raise some funds.
I saw Saka one on one with the keeper twice, Martineli was in the box twice and still couldn’t get a shot on target. Martineli have done that twice in each of our last 5 matches, you can’t blame Arteta for that. However, it is Arteta’s job to challenge the bench to step up like Klopp have done with the likes of Curtis Jones and Harvey Eliot.
Daisy Mae, you’re judging the first goal on pictures of where the ball was before Bowen crossed, but there is video available which shows incremental shots of positioning, and it does look out, but the VAR people still judged it in.
…and if you’d watched the game live they showed it numerous times.