Our greatest foes, and whom we must chiefly combat, are within.
[Miguel de Cervantes](https://www.azquotes.com/author/2661-Miguel_de_Cervantes)
A few days after the Pool game and the transfer window closed, we can all relax again. The big picture is that Arteta has a great squad to work with now: brilliant signings in all areas and many at good value for money. Happy days.
The unfortunate and untimely loss v the champions will hurt for a while. This game simply came too early in the season, and I think that Pool were lucky to play home first. It made a huge difference.
Arsenal controlled large parts of the game and kept the Anfield crowd pretty quiet. This is a major achievement. It wasn’t a game for the purist, and for some reason the lazy, shallow media blamed Arsenal/Arteta for it – if Arsenal had scored that free-kick instead of Liverpool they would all have focused on them rather than Arsenal…
The truth is that our attack did struggle to break the Pool defence down, and apparently it’s all Arteta’s fault for his lack of adventure/desire to control everything. The fact that Pool’s equally expensive and talented attack hardly sparkled and was ineffective, doesn’t seem to be mentioned anywhere. The victors always seem to get a let off, just because the won.
We lost to a sublime free-kick late on. It’s as simple as that. Arne Slot, who impresses more and more as a decent guy, summarised it simply and effectively: “If we play this game 10 times more in the same fashion then I think it’s eight times a draw, we win it one time and Arsenal wins it one time because it was an uneventful game, which is something sometimes positive as well because both teams were really good in rest defence and in defending.”
An attack of Merino (with a defensive remit), Madueke (just arrived), Martinelli (out of form) and Gyokeres (just arrived) is unlikely to click and be awesome in the third game of the season, at Anfield. It was always going to be an encounter in which Arsenal had to control the game and hope to score one or two goals, most likely through a set-piece and/or a moment of class. If we could have started with a more established and fully fit set of Odegaard/Merino, Saka, Madueke, Havertz/Gyokeres in a game of this importance, I believe our attack would have been much more effective. To expect the same of those four who started on Sunday is simply naive.
Let’s take this one on the chin, celebrate the progress Arteta has made and the huge quality of the squad, and accept that the moment of magic/and a bit of luck just went the other way. C’est la vie.
THIS TEAM IS GOING PLACES.
It’s going to be truly awesome.
Oh, and Marquinhos, welcome to the Arsenal proper. That was an amazing performance.
By TotalArsenal