Morning all.
2-0 up and Arsenal royally cocked things up. An early goal from Saka set us up nicely, a second from Hincapie, his first for the club, looked like that was enough to take the points but what followed was awful on the eye. Instead of controlling the game, Mikel Arteta’s players went to pieces.
After the game, Arteta said he was extremely disappointed with the result, disappointed how the game ended and disappointed with the second half performance. We only had ourselves to blame he added and yes, he’s right, that’s not the way a title chasing club should be playing.
Since the turn of the year, Arsenal have been poor in my opinion and I don’t just mean the results although had we ground out victories whilst playing badly, perhaps the players could be forgiven somewhat but no, we have drawn 4, lost 1 and won 3. I’m pretty sure many clubs would be content with that but when the aim is to win the league, it’s simply not good enough.
Great goal from our defender…
I don’t understand why it’s become a bit of a habit to drop off in January/February each year. We cannot blame injuries, lack of squad depth or not having a proper striker. Not this time. Our squad is probably the deepest and most balanced in the league and last night in particular, we were up against a club who had earned just 9 points so far this season. This should have been our night to put pressure on Man City but no, we kicked ourselves in the proverbial teeth.
The cockup between Raya and Gabriel for Wolves equaliser is something seldom seen. Actually I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before. Gabriel had that ball cleared had Raya not intervened. Equally, Raya might have caught it but ultimately, between the two of them they made a right old mess of the situation.
With a 2-0 lead and Arsenal playing poorly in the second half, I wondered why Norgaard wasn’t brought on to steady things. To sit in front of our defence and marshall the troops as he did for so many years for Brentford. We had the goals, we had the points if we controlled the game but we didn’t. Hindsight is easy of course but a manager should be able to something so simple. What did Arteta do? Bring on attacking players and a defender, the latter after 93 minutes..
I’m not for one minute suggesting we should have dropped deep and defend, just get more control of a game. Eze and Jesus were never going to do that.
The crazy thing is, I wasn’t surprised to see Wolves equalise because such a scenario has played out before and I’m pretty sure it will do again. Especially if this group of players and Arteta cannot manage a game better.
That’s the best I can manage…