October 25th – Arsenal 0 Leicester City 1

Awful Arsenal. It does get much crappier than this. We were awful awful awful. No ideas. No creativity. Arteta was awful. So were half the team. Ceballos barely touched the ball. Cigarette was awful. Bellerin was awful.

And our midfield was awful. No-one created anything. There was no creativity. No passion. No urgency. No ideas.

So depressing. This was an Emery like game. This was so worrying. For the first time in a year I felt like we had no clue. There was no idea here. No identify. The balance was awful. Celballos barely touched the ball. The only activity we had was on the left hand side.

It was sad and dispiriting. The passing was too slow. And it was all sideways. Their goalkeeper had but one save to make. We had nothing. It was all so boring and lacking in imagination.

And Arteta did not change it. You could see from a mile away that we had nothing today. Again, the midfield was non-existence. Pushing Ceballos off to the right did not work. Xhaka passed backwards. The only chances we created in the first half was from David Luiz.

And once he went off we created nothing. Nothing.

We are an average team with average players. We don’t nee Aubameyang. We can’t get him the ball. Why play Cigaratte when he’s like this. He was awful. Everything he did was wrong. His touch. His passing and lack of goals. He had nothing.

This was as bad a performance by the whole team as I can remember. We put them under no pressure. We did not even look like threatening for a goal. There was no drive.

I give up.

Fuck them all.

I had to watch 90 minutes of boring sideways passing. It was all Gabriel and Luiz passing. We never once played through their lines.

Which begs the question – what is Arteta playing at? Losing to Man City – albeit a crap ManCity – away is one thing. But playing like this against a depleted Leicester team is desperate. We were at home. And we created nothing. Nothing.

Sure, we scored in the first 5 minutes from a corner. It should not have been cancelled out. That was a bullshit call. OK, VAR sucks. We know that. And the ref was a wanker all game long. Giving stupid fouls against us all game long. But that’s not the reason we lost. We lost because we were monumentally shit.

We lacked spirit, energy and, most importantly, ideas. Their substitutes won them the game. Ours – Mustafi, forgot to cover Vardy. Xhaka lost his man. They played a forward pass to one of their own players – that’s a very novel concept. Shame we did not try that. They played within their shell. But once they decided to play they were much better than us. Aside from the monotonous sideways passing through to Pepe not being present even when he came on the pitch. Our most expensive signing comes one when we’re 1-0 down and is unable to contribute a single thing. Sure, against Sheffield United he saved us. But today he was as ineffectual as Cigarette. Next game please don’t play him. Put Aubemeyang in the middle. Play Saka again – he at least moves the ball forward. Tierney was fine today. He put in two crosses that neither Aubemeyang nor Cigarette could even get on target.

Today was the day we might just have realized – I might just have realized – how shit we are as a team. It seems that once we solve our defensive shape we lose all creativity. Except we did not keep a clean sheet. Arteta now has some serious work to do. He has some serious thinking to do about this team and his approach. Did he over complicate it today? Did he just get his tactics wrong. But what I don’t get was where was our fight? Why was there no reaction? Where is the leadership on this team. Maybe we have to wait another year or so before we can replace Xhaka, Mustafi, Cigarette, Bellerin and Pepe.

Also, note that we missed Luiz when he went off. And we were more vulnerable when Mustafi came on. We are missing Holding as well.

I never thought we’d win the league. But today we looked like a very solid, serious mid-table team. And it was so so fucking boring to watch. Tedious and dull. It’s not like we peppered their goal and had real chances. We were pedestrian and predictable. And boring.

Boring boring Arsenal. Two game in a row two 1-0 losses. No goals. And before that losing against Liverpool. We can’t play against good teams.

I’m so bored I can’t be fucked to diagnose this fiasco of a game. And next up we play away at Man United. And what team turns up there? Playing against a crap Man United team? And what accountability is there for performances? Does Cigarette start? I hope not. Who plays alongside Gabriel? I fear it will have to be Mustafi. This next game will show us what Arteta is about.  

-LB7

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