One bad day doesn’t change what Arsenal are
As the fallout from the defeat on Saturday continues in the social media discourse of Arsenal fans, I am still not feeling as angry as I thought I would be, which is strange. Perhaps it is because we’ve had a few years of this Arsenal team being really good defensively, and so this feels very much like an anomaly. Our superpower has been the ability to restrict opponents to basically nothing on goal, and this season alone, we have four data points which prove that, and one outlining. Those numbers are far more in our favour than not, so I have confidence that, definitely, this was certainly a blip.
I think the question that I, and I am sure you are, is a little more concerned with is our attacking end of the pitch. On Saturday it felt very paltry indeed; we may have created better chances than Brighton from an xG perspective, but if anything, that makes me feel more worried, because not taking them is an issue if you’re going to win the Premier League again. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to have to go through another season like last season, because that was torture. I think we rewrote the definition of ‘laboured’ with our end of the season until we got over the line. After four games, looking impressive, having everyone hand Arsenal flowers and telling us that we’d walk the league, I started to believe it myself deep down. And that is dangerous, as this weekend proved, because this league has quality all over it.
Even Sunderland proved that yesterday. I didn’t watch that game, but that result was mental, and looking at the stats, Sunderland were absolutely value for at least a draw. But ProRef be ProReffing, and if we don’t see another apology from them this week following what was the clearest and most obvious handball by Elliot Anderson at 3-2 to City, I’ll be very surprised. So that’s two massive calls that have gone City’s way in the space of just over a week in the Premier League. Funny that, eh? People talking about how Arsenal get all the decisions need to sit back down, because City should be nowhere near the perfect record they’ve amassed so far this season.
It is frustrating, but looking at City’s results and the way they play, I guess we can take some comfort in that. They were hardly convincing at home to Bournemouth in match week one. They certainly were against a Palace team under a new guy who is finding their feet. At home to Coventry, they scraped past a newly promoted side. They shafted Man United with a goal that should never have been, then they had their share of – shall we say – ‘fortune’ in the game yesterday. They have a 100% record; there might be people talking them up as the real deal, and they might well be, but this is what happened with Liverpool last season after five games, so I’m hoping for a similar story.
Our story needs to kick in, though, and we need to show ourselves as the imperious engine that grinds teams down, because when you think about it, we haven’t been super sparkling. We got criticism on match week two for not putting Villa to the sword. That felt a little harsh to me, because Villa are a good side; it was under the lights, and whilst their team hadn’t got any new signings in to gel, they’re still a side in the Champions League and will come good eventually. Then we beat Chelsea at home with a superb and free-flowing performance that we deserved to win. After that, last weekend, we came up against a physical Sunderland side on their own patch, and we managed to get that over the line. There have been a few ‘grind’ games already, and this weekend we just came up against a situation in which Brighton were essentially having their cup final; they had a celebratory day, they got their tactics spot on, we were the exact opposite of doing what we do best, and it all formed a perfect storm in which we got caught. I talked about this on the Same Old Arsenal podcast yesterday with Amanda, but sometimes you just find yourselves in a situation that is unfortunate for that particular moment. Against Villa, we were up against a team who had mass turnover of playing staff, hadn’t managed to bed in their team, and we probably got the benefit of playing what is going to be a tough away day trip, early in the season. Play Villa in a couple of months, and it’ll probably be different. It’s probably the same for Brighton. They won’t have this ‘special celebration day’ in a couple of months; they’ll be deep into multiple competitions, and so rotation will need to be a factor. They may have dropped a few points, and so their form isn’t what it is right now. Man City go to Brighton on 23rd January – I GUARANTEE that Brighton won’t have the same level of intensity by then, because they’ll have played waaaaay more games than they usually do in a season, because of their European participation.
I’m not trying to excuse Arsenal, I’m not lamenting our luck, or take anything away from what was an excellent Brighton performance; I’m just saying I can’t see them playing like that all season and if they do, then they will be title challengers too. Ask Brighton fans if they believe they’ll play like that every game. I don’t think you’ll get many who will say ‘yes’.
As for us, I’ve seen a few people online suggest that our lack of pace up top is a worry. Perhaps. But we had pace in Martinelli last season, and when he played, we hardly saw a guy who was rapido and getting in behind defences, did we? That’s because most teams don’t play like Brighton. I agree, having Martinelli yesterday might have been a better out-ball than Tzolis, but I think that kind of game happens maybe two or three times a season. Most of the time we’re facing compact sides who won’t press so high. I can tell you this for free: Leeds won’t press us as Brighton did on Saturday in our next game.
So whilst I get it, and I do think we do lack a little bit of pace, I don’t think it is going to make too much of a material difference too many times this season. The difference will be the defence not having brain farts, the tactics perhaps being tweaked for an opponent like Brighton (which I don’t think Arteta did on Saturday), and the key cogs in our machine dictating play, like Odegaard, Havertz, and Saka.
That – the attack and how we make the most of what we have (including what to make of our rotation options) is probably a blog in its own right, so I might keep my powder dry on that one for now, then write something over this extended international slog we now have to endure. So I’ll park any further thoughts until tomorrow, then be back tomorrow with some more musings for you. Catch you then.