Just a little bit of history repeating- familiar failings in Arsenal’s 0-0 draw with Crystal Palace
Arsenal’s 0-0 draw at home to Crystal Palace on Sunday had a familiar feeling to it. The Gunners drew six WSL games last season, with opponents like Aston Villa, Brighton and Spurs holding Arsenal to draws, while Manchester United ground out two 0-0 draws in the WSL with Renee Slegers’ side. Late goals were needed to see off Everton and Liverpool at home while an own goal at home to Brighton last autumn.
In isolation, a 0-0 draw with Palace where Arsenal had 30 shots and ran up 2.4XG feels like ‘one of those days.’ The problem is that ‘one of those days’ is meant to be a rare occurrence, which just isn’t the case for Arsenal. They haven’t conceded this season and have restricted Brighton and Palace to a very low number of shots but also just have not been clinical enough with their chances.
One goal from 4.15XG created in their first two WSL games feels like the same story as last season as six draws and nine fewer goals scored than champions Manchester City proved to be their undoing in the title race. Arsenal are also notoriously slow starters in the WSL which has cost them a sustained title charge more than once in recent seasons.
Impressions form as the sample size accumulates. A late 1-0 win over Paris FC in pre-season was either a sign that the Gunners could produce late moments of magic, like the one we saw from Olivia Smith, or a sign that Arsenal were playing too fast and loose with the margins. Exactly the same goes for the 1-0 win over Brighton on the opening day of the season. You could have argued that Arsenal broke open a difficult opponent with a moment of magic from a summer signing.
Equally you could have argued that little had changed but variance was on Arsenal’s side. A host of missed chances and a disappointing draw with newly promoted Palace will reinforce the suspicion with many that little has changed, Arsenal struggle to create separation on the score board and sometimes that is ok and they win by a single goal (Everton, Brighton and Liverpool at home last season and Brighton away this season) and sometimes the variance goes against them (Villa at home and Brighton away last season and Palace this weekend).
In the post-match press conference, Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers whether she broaches these conversations with her players directly or whether they focus on process try to block it out for fear of these issues becoming increasingly heavy psychologically. Initially, Slegers said that she hadn’t decided on that yet, in the immediate aftermath of the game.
‘I would like to make a decision and I’m gonna watch the game back and review and get all my thoughts, but then absolutely there will be discussions with the players. And I think the intent was there on the pitch today. It wasn’t flat, in my opinion. We were constantly trying to drive things, to dictate the game, to dominate, quick restarts from we could, to keep the tempo high and suffocate. So there was a lot of intent and I think the amount of chances created today, if I compare it to last weekend, for example, that was a big step forward, just the ball didn’t go into the net today.’
But as she talked her answer through, it sounded like she would indeed take the bull by the horns in the post-match post mortem, ‘We will stick to processes in the way we review things. But we also reflect on what’s our season ambition and this was not a step we wanted to take towards our season ambition and we’ll do it together with players as always.’
Whatever supporters feel, it is important that a balance is struck between confronting issues but not enlarging them so they become a mental block (assuming that hasn’t already happened). Arsenal have new players to bed in which may explain away some of these issues, but that’s a hard sell when the issues are so familiar. The external talk will be of doubt and scepticism and understandably so. It is up to Renee Slegers, her staff and her players to provide long-term solutions.
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