April 9th – Arsenal 1 Brighton 2

Appalling Arsenal revert back to the start of the season.  In many ways, that was worse than Palace. 5 days to regroup and we came out with no game-plan, no structure and no identity. We have well and truly lost our way. The soul of our team has been stolen. This was like watching Arsenal of the last few years. All the good work of the last six months has evaporated. This team could not find its way into Europe if you gave them boarding tickets to a plane.

We are right and royally fucked. If you can’t get points from Palace and Brighton then there is no way the team could even be consider worthy of the Champions League. We will be lucky to get into the NoHopa Cup at this rate. Actually, we will be lucky to pick up any points. We were just boring, sideways and utterly uninspiring. It’s a sequence like this that can completely undo Arteta. Today his team selection was wrong, his tactics were wrong. And, during half-time, he had no influence on his team. Right from the start of the second half – after one of the worst displays at the Emirates – we proceed to continue passing sideways and backwards. Sure, Xhaka moved into midfield but basically it was more directionless football. We have lost our identity. Everything good from the last six months has disappeared. It feels like we are reverting to type. Once we get in sight of something attenable we implode.

Right from the start you could see there was no idea how to play this game. Gabriel was on the ball too much And, every pass and header from him went to their team. His distribution makes Kolo Toure look like Carzola. This far into a season and I fear for Gabriels’ longevity. Surely Saliba – who I’ve never seen play – is better than this.  Gabriel could not blame Tavares today. Brighton understood this and made sure White was pressed to give the ball up to him. But there was no outlet is midfield either. With Xhaka consigned to left back we had no-one to create. ESR was as poor today as I’ve seen him. He could barely make a pass or win a tackle. He was completely peripheral. Saka was a little better but not much. But then we could not get him the ball either. Odegaard was not involved. So that’s your best three players. And then there is Cigarette. This guy is clearly run out of juice. There was not a single contribution that he made today. That’s two games, back to back, where he was invisible. What does he need to do to get dropped? Can Eddie be any worse than this guy? And he’s our captain.

This is as hard a game to discuss and describe as any of the last year. We had momentum going into this sequence of games. We had identity and clear progress. And it’s all gone now. How can anyone have faith in this team now? How can the progress be this fragile? How can we recover from this? One injury to Tierney and the key loss of Partey and we become a Burnley like team. Our only threat came from corners. But we could barely string any passes together. And Brighton, who were pretty average, were able to tear us apart. As poor as ESR, Gabriel, Cigarette and others were, we, unfortunately, have to look at Arteta. He got his team selection wrong today. Moving Xhaka to left-back neither helped Xhaka nor the team. As much as I hated Tavares performance against Palace, he would have been a better choice. Losing Xhaka from midfield and leaving Samba to link up the team was an utter failure. You could see it after 5 minutes. Yet we persisted until half-time with that. And then how does Cigarette stay on the field for the second half. And how does it take so long to bring on Eddie and Pepe? Everything Arteta did today was wrong.

And yet, we could have gone in at half-time level. It would have been undeserved but nonetheless what the fuck is VAR doing with that disallowed goal? How does it take them 4 minutes to come to an offside decision? If it’s that difficult to determine they cannot overturn the onfield decision? And, because of the way VAR works – there is no accountability not transparency. That goal cannot be disallowed on the evidence. There was an obscured view even with all those cameras. There was no clear view. That’s’ why it took so long. Four fucking minutes? What has happened to this game? Should we bring back all the lawyers to legislate the game? Are they using an atomic microscope to analyze the frames? This was insane. How, can they make this decision? It’s the death of football. And no-one will discuss this. It kills this game (and, for us, this game). It’s pathetic. And there is no voice to push back against this usage of technology. After 1 minute they could have said they can’t tell. Any time after that has them making an arbitrary decision. Because they clearly could not actually tell – that’s why it took 4 minutes to make the wrong decision and override the referee and linesman. What a joke. But entirely in keep with the entire performance today.

It’s so dispiriting to watch this team implode after everything they have produced this season. To have us so close to qualifying for the Champions League. All that hard work and progress just being thrown away against mid-table teams. It’s like season past for fans. And it’s compounded by United losing again. It’s like we’ve decide to hand a lifeline to those wankers down the road. Here, please, take our Champions League place. Instead of putting a knife into their hopes for the future, we are not just killing ourselves but we’re saving them from another year of failure.

So what is Arteta playing at? How can his team come out so listless and devoid of a game plan? This is on him. All the good will he has generated in the last 9 months will quickly disappear if he allows this team to crash and burn. But I see no evidence that he can turn this around now. Without Partey and without Tierney we have no-one else to rescue us. We have to sort out the left back position. Maybe we can get Tommy back and switch Cedric over there. Until we sort that out Gabriel will continue to be a liability. And we can’t ever play Xhaka there. We need him in midfield.

A quick word on that refereeing performance. It was so bad he could have played for Arsenal. He allowed them to foul Saka continuously. He gave our random yellow cards. And caused the game to be stop and start and his decisions were inconsistent. He had very little control of the game. He looked – like Arsenal -out of his depth. It was not the reason we lost today. That was entirely on us. But it makes you truly wonder about the refereeing standards in the league.

Back to us. I have no idea where we go from here. Arteta seems to have lost the plot. He has to create balance in the team. He stuck with the 4-3-3 and that did not work. It was not Sambi’s fault today. He worked hard. But does not provide the link-up play from the back four that Partey does. So, someone has to help. Otherwise White and, god forbid, Gabriel, end up holding onto the ball for too long. And it takes all the pace and energy out of our game.

Today was a disaster in ways I could not have imagined. It was evident from the first minute. The slowness. The indecision. The poor passes. The poor decisions. And there was little evidence we’d learned anything from the Palace game. It was arguably worse. We were at home against a weaker team.  I just don’t know where this leaves us. I dread the next game. I dread the rest of the season. And I wonder again about Arteta. Can he reverse this decay? I’m genuinely not sure. We always knew this team was threadbare – an injury or two away from exposure. But Arteta did not help us today. My fear is he will keep things as they were today. Though any rationale dissection of this game would make you realize more change is needed. But the fact we have no stability or game-plan make it feel like we’ve gone backwards by more than 6 months. We could easily end up 9th or 10th now. And that could be death for Arteta. He can’t afford to let that happen. But does he have the tactical awareness to change things? I’m not sure. He will now be under real pressure. And he has to drop Cigarette. And he needs to find a left-back. And find a balance in this team. Because today was beyond awful. It was as poor as I can remember us playing – even worse than the Palace game. This period will now define Arteta. It’s his own fault. Today he chose the wrong team and did not make the in-game adjustments that were needed. At this rate he’ll be qualified to manage Man United. Today we saw the torch paper put to the last year of development. It’s beyond sad. It’s aggravating and frustrating.

This was as dreary and depressing to write as I feared. There are no silver linings. There is no light at the end of the tunnel (aside from an oncoming train that is just about to run us all over).  We have 7 or 8 game to figure this out. And I’m not optimistic. I’d like to go to sleep now and wake up in June. The next 6 weeks are going to be painful. I don’t know if I can watch much more of this. After taking us to the heights of 4th place Arsenal are destined to break our hearts yet again.

-LB7

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