Mixed emotions

What a strange, frustrating but equally enthralling game. I think most of us would’ve taken a draw away to Arsenal, both before the season started and probably before the match started today too. It’s a good result on paper but I somehow come away from that game full of frustration and feeling like an opportunity missed.

It’s an old footballing cliche but today was a good time to play Arsenal, especially away from home. Their excellent defence has been decimated with injuries and suspensions recently and with Saliba suspended and their highly rated new signing Calafiori injured, they started the game with Ben White and Gabriel at CB. While that is a more than decent partnership in its own right, the fact they were forced to play Partey at RB and the lesser spotted Timber on the left, it was very much a patched up, makeshift Arsenal back four. Add to that the fact they’re missing their captain and chief creator in Odegaard, along with Saka amongst others facing late fitness tests, there were reasons to believe we could go to the Emirates and come away with a statement victory.

The strange nature of the game started almost straight away however. Arsenal are the best set piece team in the league, it’s a major part of their offense which we MUST have known, yet in the opening 10 minutes Virgil – our captain and most experienced player, decides to get in an off the ball wrestling match with Havertz I think it was, not only bundling him over right in front of the ref but also petulantly kicking out at him not once but twice, which could easily have resulted in an early card for him. As it was, he conceded a silly and needless free kick in our final third. It thankfully came to nothing but I couldn’t believe what I was seeing from him.

Elsewhere, any hope that Saka might be a bit subdued or rusty after his recent injury woes, proved to be nothing more than that as he’s clearly been straining at the leash. He was bang on it from the minute the game started and causing problems down our left and for the second game running, Robbo didn’t looked right. In my opinion, he has the look of a player who doesn’t trust his body not to break down at the moment. He looks scared to run flat out and he’s not as aggressive or physical in his challenges and personal duels as we’re used to seeing. When aggression, physicality and recovery pace are as big a part of your game as they are for Robbo, that’s not good and is hopefully just a psychological issue after his recent injury problems, rather than the beginning of the end for him physically.

Saka was giving him a torrid time though and we soon paid the price, as a long ball forward from White left Saka and Robbo one v one, with Saka coming out on top and scoring the opening goal. I don’t think Robbo can take all the blame for the goal though. Much like ourselves through the Klopp era, everyone knows that Arsenal’s wide players are their danger men and yet Van Dijk made no attempt whatsoever to get back and help his LB out, he just nonchalantly jogged back. I could understand that if we’re playing City and his biggest concern is dealing with Haaland but against Arsenal, it’s Havertz playing through the middle – a CF in name only, very much made in the Bobby Firmino mould. He should’ve got back to double up on Saka, as we see teams do to Salah every week. I also don’t think Kelleher covered himself in glory either and he was another who played some very poor passes and made some strange decisions today.

Anyway, it is what it is. We concede early but quickly find the perfect response, with a goal from a set piece of our own. I mentioned on the thread that it goes unnoticed most of the time that one of Gravenberch’s biggest strengths is how resistant to the press he is and for the goal, I felt it was another of our players unheralded traits that made the difference and that was the hunger and effort that Diaz plays with. He never stops trying, never stops moving and makes his opponent work for absolutely everything when up against him, which we saw with the goal. He was initially messing about on the goal line, making a nuisance of himself but at the last minute, he darts in front of two Arsenal defenders, wins the ball with a deft flick and Virgil made up for his earlier mistakes by nodding home the equaliser. At this point I’m thinking right, happy days. Sloppy start and conceded an early goal but we’ve got away with it, now give ourselves a mental slap, reset and start playing properly. How wrong I was…

The remainder of the first half was arguably the worst we’ve played all season, as Arsenal were better than us in almost every measurable footballing metric there is. We were losing almost every individual duel on the pitch, we were sloppy in possession with some horrendous passing at times, we looked shaky in defence and were totally toothless in attack as our front three along with Jones, were totally isolated and not impacting the game at all. I’m not sure if Darwin touched the ball in the opening 20 minutes and it wasn’t much better for the others as our midfield was being overrun. The fix seemed obvious to me though and that was for Jones to drop deeper and play more as an 8 than a 10. I think that was a system flaw rather than player issue, as I’ve noticed a few times this season that it’s often Dom who instigates the press, running past our CF and I noticed Jones do it twice today as well so it’s clearly a tactic but we can’t become one of those teams that is just stuck in the system and can’t think for themselves, unable to deviate from or adjust the system if it’s obviously not working. Games like today are where I like a midfielder like Endo, who’s sole responsibility is breaking up the opposition attacks. Macca and Gravenberch had way too much to do in the first half just trying to contain Arsenal so when they did get the ball, their attempts to launch attacks were either rushed or they were trying to force it and so we just kept conceding possession again and again. A player like Endo relieves a fair chunk of that pressure defensively, while he himself isn’t saddled with the responsibility of trying to launch attacks or dictate play himself. ‘Keep it simple stupid’ as we used to say in the army. Modern football has a habit of overcomplicating things.

I actually think the biggest miss today was Jota. I know I wax lyrical about Jota a lot but it’s because of the whole package he brings to the table, not just what he does on the ball. Jota’s footballing intelligence and in-game IQ is as good as anybody’s and arguably the best in our team. He reads a game brilliantly and adapts to it accordingly, both in our attacking but also our defensive play. He recognises when he needs to drop deeper as the CF and beef up the numbers in midfield and I feel he’d have recognised that in the first half today and either told Curtis to drop deeper, or done it himself. There’s a reason he so often opens the scoring for us and it’s because he reads the game and recognises the opposition’s tactics so well. To that end he makes the runs and/or takes up the positions where he knows he can hurt the opposition. He’s basically the polar opposite of Darwin, who has every single physical advantage there is over Jota – pace, power, robustness, physicality etc etc. Jota’s only advantage over Nunez is between his ears but it’s that which makes him an infinitely more effective player than Darwin and I feel he was badly missed today. Not to mention I’m sure he’s got a pretty good scoring record against Arsenal too.

Anyway, back to the game. After we equalised in the first half, Arsenal were well on top and we were riding our luck. Another foolishly conceded set piece gave us a big warning of things to come, as Rice picked out Merino who made a complete mess of his side footed volley from four yards out. Unfortunately we didn’t learn our lesson, Diaz concedes a needless free kick in a similar area and the same combination of players made no mistake the second time, as a very similar free kick was this time met with a bullet header from Merino, giving Kelleher no chance. 2-1 down heading into the break and we could have no complaints as if we’re being honest, it could’ve been worse.

Second half we looked much better, although I’m not sure if that was because we’d significantly improved, or because Arsenal have become much more defensive this season and more inclined to try and see out a one goal advantage, rather than chase a second. Probably a bit of both but at least we were having a bit more possession and starting to look more of an attacking threat, although our game was still littered with poor decision making and some diabolical passing. It wasn’t long before Slot had seen enough and made a triple change. I wasn’t surprised by the players coming on but was a little surprised to see Diaz subbed over the hopelessly ineffective Nunez up to that point in the game, as well as Macca off instead of Jones, who had also been anonymous. Slot may have been remembering last week’s display from the deeper midfield role in his case though and in fairness, he did get more involved once he dropped a bit deeper.

Furthermore, Lady Luck continued to smile on us while sticking the boot into Arsenal as we saw Gabriel go off injured first, followed shortly by Timber. If their defence was makeshift before, if was positively threadbare now as they had a LB who pretty much never plays filling in at RCB and a youth player at RB up against Mo Salah and it was down that right that we finally made a breakthrough. There were a number of our players guilty of poor passing today but Trent’s particularly stood out, probably due to his usual high standards but today his passing was atrocious. The one time he did find his usual standard, he picked out Darwin who had run the channel between RB and CB with a lovely weighted ball, who in turn showed a rare display of composure by pausing and getting his head up, before playing a nice ball to Salah which saw the Egyptian get his customary goal against Arsenal, who I believe are his favourite opponent statistically in the goal scoring department.

At this point I’m thinking go for the kill. Their plan to see out the lead hasn’t worked, their defence is decimated and this game is now there for the taking. Unfortunately, if anything is was Arsenal that looked the more dangerous in the latter stages and if anyone was going to score the winner, it was probably them. Thankfully we were able to see the game out, as the late introduction of Endo indicated was our intention in the closing stages which was understandable given our performance.

With that the game was done, spoils shared which as I opened the article by saying, is a good result on paper but I’m frustrated as it feels like a good chance squandered. One thing though, this fixture rarely disappoints as a spectacle and once again these two clubs served up a thoroughly entertaining game, especially for a neutral.

The games between the biggest teams actually living up to their hype has been a welcome change in recent years. When Chelsea were consistently challenging – first against United and later against City, the games against each other were so often boring letdowns after so much buildup. Both teams more concerned with not losing than actually trying to win and so often it was blatantly obviously that had you just offered both managers a point each beforehand and not bother playing the game, they’d have happily accepted that. I made this point a number of times through the Klopp v Pep rivalry, both teams always tried to win and we’ve had some epic encounters against city in the last decade. To be fair to Arsenal, since they’ve joined the two of us at the top table, they play to win every game too. It’s refreshing and the way it should be so I applaud the teams and managers for it.

It is what it is then, a decent result from a frustrating performance. I must admit I’m really struggling with McMOTM this week but I’m going to go for Konate, for no other reason than I think he drew my ire the fewest times out of everyone on the pitch and his expert dealing with Martinelli in a first half one v one stands out in my head. Feel free to name your own though, if you think anyone more worthy.

On a positive note, our excellent start to the season continues and we prevented the gunners gaining any ground on us, while exacerbating their injury crisis in the process so… every cloud and all that…

Until next time troops, walk on!!