Arsenal have underperformed for three matches in a row. Or perhaps they had overperformed previously; I really can't be sure at this stage. But this uninspiring 1-0 loss to Leicester City, on the back of a pretty dreadful performance in Vienna earlier in the week and the unambitious if narrow defeat at The Etihad, has now got me sending out distress signals.
By the way, I did not pay £14.95 to watch the game. It's an outrage that season ticket holders - at the very minimum - cannot have free access to home games. I will not be utilising the Box Office option, and there are other ways of getting access to live feeds (or so I'm told...).
If the Leicester game was a Whodunnit, the script would have been pretty transparent from very early on. Arsenal dominating possession - but not doing much with it - for vast portions of the game, only for the scourge that is Jamie Vardy to (inevitably) come off the bench to take advantage of a Mustafi error (the final photograph in this piece shows quite how far out of position the German was) and score the only goal of the game. Of course, there's a lot more to it than that, but by the end it was so, so predictable.
So firstly to team selection; and as expected with the arrival of Thomas Partey Arteta reverted to his preferred 4-3-3 formation, with Luiz and Gabriel the central defensive selection (of the club's plethora of centre-halves, it's quite astonishing that the returning Mustafi was the only other one available for selection). With Willian out injured, Saka joined Aubameyang and Lacazette up front.
Arsenal scored early, with Ceballos' corner flicked in at the near post by Lacazette. The goal was disallowed, however, for a dubious offside call against Xhaka, who was deemed to be interfering with Schmeichel when in fact he was not.
And this decision changed the course of the game, with Leicester - playing without a recognised centre-forward - adopting the same low block, rope-a-dope tactics so successfully employed by Jose Mourinho late last season.
And truth be told, once more Arsenal - despite dominating possession - created very little. The pace of play was too slow, and apart from the option of Luiz playing long diagonals from right to left all we saw was the sideways passing that has frustrated Arsenal fans for probably 7 or 8 years now. What somebody like Cesc Fabregas could do for this group!
And so Arsenal made it pretty easy for Leicester. There was little threat, with Aubameyang - perhaps not 100% - once more quite ineffective. I can see why Arteta wants to play him from out wide, but his strengths are frankly elsewhere. The midfield were neat and tidy - Partey included - but there was no spark and very few chances were created. One for Lacazette following a move started by one of those Luiz diagonals, and another for Bellerin who had to concentrate too much on hitting the target and who failed to generate enough pace with his volley; and that was pretty much it.
And then to the key part of the game. At pretty much the same time as Vardy was preparing to make his entrance, Luiz went down holding his right quad. The only option on the bench was the returning - and barely match-fit - Mustafi. And whilst he was mostly perfectly adequate in what he did, Mustafi's failure to read the play as Tielemans fed Under, nor to track the run of Vardy, left the striker with a fairly routine header from the Turk's cross. Catastrophe!
And here's the problem. Plan A is not particularly imaginative, and there doesn't seem to be much of a Plan B, with Nketiah currently the only alternative - Pepe flashes more cold than hot, and Martinelli is months away. Answers need to be found, and quickly!
I'll just touch on the performance and result in Vienna on Thursday. A dire first half showing - almost reminiscent of some of the dross Emery served up for us at around this time last season - combined with some Keystone Kops footwork from Leno, left Arsenal trailing... to the third best team in Austria! Thankfully, firstly David Luiz's header and then the one moment of class of the entire game just 4 minutes later, ending with Aubameyang scoring his first goal since the first day of the season, put Arsenal back in control; and from then on it was a cruise. But it needn't be like this. Arsenal need to do better.
I'm not saying that the 'honeymoon period' is coming to an end for Arteta. After all, he delivered the FA Cup and European football. But I do feel that he needs to add an extra dimension, or spark, to the team's play. Whether that will involve pushing Ceballos further up the pitch, or perhaps playing Saka in 'the hole', I don't really know. But it does feel that a new dimension is needed. I hate to mention Mesut Ozil at this stage... but boy, there are days when we really do miss him!
And so to the prospective cakewalk at home to Dundalk on Thursday evening, followed by a visit to Old Trafford. I predict a very low scoring encounter.
Stay safe, one and all. Until next week.
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