From Arsenal.com
Morning all.
If Mikel Arteta achieved anything yesterday it was knackering his players who were already knackered. I know we’ve had injuries and we’ve played a few games with ten men etc, but even so, I’m pretty sure he could have rotated his players better than he has again this season. If he’s prepared to bring Sterling on from the bench then what was stopping him from using Butler-Oyedeji, Kabia etc?
What’s been stopping him from using Kiwior a lot more than he did before Gabriel suffered an injury? Or playing Tierney and Zinchenko more often than he has when they have been fit?
If I could be bothered, I’d look up how many times all five substitutes have been used in a game and I bet the simple answer would be, not very often. Just a quick glance back at some of the games we’ve been leading in, there have been opportunities for Arteta to make more and earlier substitutions than he chose to.
I thought both sides started quite brightly yesterday, but we created three really good goal scoring opportunities. One fell to Rice, or was it two, I’ve forgotten, one for Martinelli before Trossard at least hit the target. Finally, we scored through Rice, a lovely goal it was to, but any thoughts of pushing on to win the game soon vanished. Our performance dropped, Bournemouth scored twice and we lost. Their winner was a clear handball and perhaps offside too but it escaped a VAR review and was allowed to stand. How, goodness only knows.
Their first goal came through dreadful defending. No sooner had the commentator mentioned Semenyo had a long throw-in in his locker, the ball was in the back of the net. Dreadful defending is all I can say about that. Same can be said about their second despite it being wrongly awarded in my opinion.
Mikel Arteta on the team performance:
We started and we did the most difficult one to score the goal. I think after that we had four or five very open situations to score the second one. We didn’t kill it and after that, on top of that, you defend the box really poorly, the way we’ve done it in the two set-pieces that we have conceded again. So they’re going to punish you and a team like Bournemouth, they’re going to punish you. And after that the game becomes rushed, very chaotic. That’s why they want big spaces. They have more legs than us, especially with sets and plays that were struggling in the final minutes. And we weren’t able to get the result that we wanted, so we’re very disappointed.
On dropping points from winning positions:
Well, I think every game probably would have a different answer to that. Certainly what happened today is that if you defend the way we’ve done, very few set-pieces but very poorly, in the league you’re going to get punished. It doesn’t matter if you are ahead or behind in the scoring.
Photo from The Daily Mail
What was clear was the difference between both clubs options from the bench. Bournemouth had a game changer in Semeyon, who was given enough time on the pitch to hurt us but we had Sterling, Nwaneri, Zinchenko and Merino coming on with Merino being the only player to get fifteen minutes or more to try and change things. The other three came on with just four minutes of the ninety left. Hopeful, desperation, call it what you like but Arteta’s changes were certainly not tactical.
Finishing second in the league is still possible of course and if we win the remaining three fixtures we cannot be caught but let’s be honest, we’ll be lucky to pick up another point from our remaining matches let alone nine.
We move on to our Champions League match in France on Wednesday night. I’d like to think the occasion alone will focus the players minds, although I’m not sure how much they can give physically. All we can do is hope that over the next four days, training is light, they get plenty of rest and the physios can work their magic.
Martin Odegaard:
It’s a massive game. That’s the good thing, when you’re disappointed now and you’re angry and frustrated, you can use all those emotions into Wednesday. We know what we’re playing for, it’s a massive game, we have to stick together and create energy and be ready.
Mikel Arteta:
We really wanted to create a very different vibe, atmosphere, and energy to go to Paris. But we certainly created a lot of frustration, anger, disappointment, and it’s the time now to show our courage, our resilience, and go there using everything that we’re feeling right now to put an amazing performance there and win the game and be in the final.
On that note, catch up in the comments…