Are (or were) the expectations of Arsenal fans realistic before the first ball had been kicked; that finally a proper title tilt is/was in sight? I would have thought so, to be frank. But there's a Quantum Leap to be made somewhere between Hope and Expectation, and the pre-season indicated that we could reasonably make that Quantum Leap. But Sunday took the wind very firmly out of our sails - let's hope that it was a blip.
I've given myself a few days to collect my thoughts on what happened on Sunday, and what sort of response one might expect to see from the team. Let's firstly have a look at what went wrong, and try to analyse why:
1. Over-confidence? Arrogance? An expectation that all they needed to do was turn up? Look, the pre-season had gone swimmingly, and home to West Ham didn't look on paper to be the most testing of starts, but one could feel a sort of overwhelming cockiness in the crowd - easily transferred to the players - of 'We've beaten Chelsea. We've signed Petr Cech. Chelsea even obligingly dropped points yesterday. And it's only West Ham.'
To me, this was a major contributory factor to the performance, and it ought to serve as a lesson. Thank goodness it came on Day One! But notwithstanding that it could easily have been 3 or 4-nil before they took the lead, it was distinctly unsatisfactory.
And unlike two years ago, when they lost to Villa on the first day of the season, this was supposed to be a settled, growing side ready to push for the title. On that showing, they can forget it I'm afraid. But it's early days, and for that we should be extremely thankful.
2. The shape of the team was different to last season, even if the personnel really weren't. No Alexis (short of fitness), and that was fair enough. Giroud instead of Walcott? - no problem. Debuchy for Bellerin? - no big deal except for a consequent lack of pace.
But here's the big thing; Ramsey had been making noises about wanting to play in central midfield, and whether it was as a result of that or otherwise, Wenger switched him with Cazorla and sent the Spaniard out on the left of the front three. Which against this opposition did not work; the performance was disjointed; Cazorla was peripheral, and Ramsey lacked discipline. If you add in that Ozil barely fired at all... well, there's the problem in my opinion.
3. The defensive shambles: For the moment, I am going to blame some of the issues on unfamiliarity between the keeper and the back four, but they are going to need to be infinitely more disciplined as the season wears on than they were on Sunday.
Both goals were as a result of a catalogue of errors - for the first Cech set them up too far from his goal, and then came for a ball he had no right to come for. That, combined with a fine delivery and poor positioning by at least one defender, led to the simplest of goals. For the second... well, where do you start? The Ox lost the ball (not for the first time in his career, deep in his own half and leading to a goal), and this was compounded as two defenders didn't move to close Zarate down. But the shot wasn't powerful, yet Cech was going the wrong way, slipped, and it was all very embarrassing. Goodness me, imagine if that had been Szczesny!!!...
4. Inability to move up a gear, or do anything too different. Well, that's nothing new, I'm afraid. Sending Alexis on was a desperate and probably foolhardy move, yet not even he could make much of a difference. They held us off easily.
Wenger claimed later that the team were 'nervous'. To me, that's nonsense. Psychological issues there surely were, but it's difficult to accept that nerves were the issue here.
So now it's a 37-game season. But I don't see that Palace away is necessarily a good start to it. They're a decent side, have bought well in the summer, and Selhurst Park is a tricky place to go. We're going to have to see a vast change in attitude from last week to this in order to achieve the desired result. But Arsenal are a fine side, capable of beating anybody on their day, so it's in their hands.
The issue for us fans, of course, is expectation. We've believed - and indeed contributed to - the hype surrounding the prospects for this season. Perhaps it's no bad thing that this happened so early, and hopefully we can look back on it as an early watershed. Here's hoping.
The only remaining question is on signings. The Benzema thing isn't going away, but I simply can't take it seriously I'm afraid.
I reckon that we do need an alternative up front, but alternatives of sufficient class look to be almost out of stock. Having watched him on Monday, I wouldn't say no to Berahino, to be honest.
But more important is central midfield; I sincerely hope that we're not going to regret not going for Schneiderlin, because for all the impact he has made since January Coquelin is almost certainly not the answer; not on a consistent basis at the level we're striving for. That Polish chap who plays for Seville looked pretty decent when I watched him on Wednesday - and what an incredible game of football that was, by the way! Kongdogbia and Schneiderlin have gone, but he looks a fine alternative. Over to our esteemed leader, then...
I reckon that we do need an alternative up front, but alternatives of sufficient class look to be almost out of stock. Having watched him on Monday, I wouldn't say no to Berahino, to be honest.
But more important is central midfield; I sincerely hope that we're not going to regret not going for Schneiderlin, because for all the impact he has made since January Coquelin is almost certainly not the answer; not on a consistent basis at the level we're striving for. That Polish chap who plays for Seville looked pretty decent when I watched him on Wednesday - and what an incredible game of football that was, by the way! Kongdogbia and Schneiderlin have gone, but he looks a fine alternative. Over to our esteemed leader, then...
On to Sunday, then. Come on Arsenal; let's hit the ground running and forget about last week. Believe.
No comments:
Post a Comment