Abject Arsenal can’t even beat a shit Southampton. And Southampton should have won. They had more clear chances and should have been 3 or 4 up before Cigarette equalized.
Where to start with such a shit game. It’s barely worth watching these days. The inability to gel as a team is so clear. You’d have to be a blind man or Unai Emery not to see it. There is so much wrong with this team – not the group of players – it’s hard to know where to start.
As ever the formation – starting at home against the worst team in the league with a back three. How ambitious is that? From the start Southampton closed us down with more energy and desire. We barely built from the back and then at snails pace. By the time the ball got the half way line everyone was asleep. This team mirrors the energy and outlook of our manager – devoid of ideas and fast asleep.
It’s been evident for months now. We had the chance post Leicester to take the initiative and dump this failed manager. Instead we let the other north London team show how to move forward. They actually had a great manager but still fired him. We have a shit one but decide to retain him. They got to the Champions League final and lost because of a tough penalty call. They fired their manager. We struggled into the Europa League final and were catatonic . Yet we the club that retains our manager.
Today demonstrated again that this team does not respond to him. We struggled the entire game. If we wanted culprits we had Sokratis and Atwell. This was, by far, the most indecisive performance by Sokratis today. Will he be held accountable? Will Holding start the next game. Of course not. He tried to hand them multiple goals. His distribution was awful and he lingered on the ball in all the wrong areas.
I felt sorry for Tierney today. In the first half all the attacking creativity came down his side. Contrast that with the other side – Bellerin was awful today. His touch was crap and his contributions were non-existent. Our right hand side was unused for the first half and most of the second. Yet Tierney gave up a penalty. Even with VAR focusing on the potential offside that was as slight a penalty as you could hope for. Not enough to overturn on VAR. But Atwell was a cunt the entire game. He allowed Southampton to waste time as soon as they scored. He then awarded free-kicks for the slighted infractions. I still have the sound of his whistle rattling in my head. It was non-stop. And the spate of yellow cards – most of which were trivial – were inconsistent. But this all helped to disrupt the flow of the game. Yes we are shit but there’s not reason for him to impact the flow of the game so much nor to so randomly give or not give free kicks.
It’s hard to get to upset because this is all so predictable. It inevitably ends up with Emery gone. It’s so obvious. A blind man can see this. There are complicated things in this world. What is dark matter? How do you control climate change? Why is nationalism on the rise? But, as for who should manage Arsenal I think we all know it should not be Emery. So we have to consign this season to the dustbin? We have to wade through the another 60% of the season watching this? Why waste time? I know the club don’t want to be seen as a hire and fire club. But when it’s so clearly wrong why waste time? Show leadership and admit it did not work out. We are now a middle table team. An average team. I can remember when this team was mid-table. Go back to the ‘70s and ‘80s if you want to see average. But that was not on the manager. That was the team – the lack of ability and class. That’s not the case here. This group of players is better than last year. Emery has found a way to get less out of more. Just the opposite of what we were looking for.
I bet some fans are wondering whether it would have been better to not have scored the equalizer. Would we have been better off if we’d have lost. Would this have placed more pressure on Emery and Arsenal and hastened his departure. That is not, unfortunately, an irrational idea. As a life long fan I wonder whether – for our long-term good – we’d be better off losing our forthcoming games in order to assure ourselves of the departure of this goat. If the club thought that Wenger had lost the supporters and the players how can they not conclude the same with Emery?
On balance though I still want us to win. I don’t want a string of losses to drive out Emery. I want the club to see what’s happening (or not happening) on the pitch and that they step forward, take responsibility and fire him before we lose more games and drop more points. How bad do our performances have to be? How many points do we have to drop before they realize what we already know. That Emery must go.
What does Emery have to do to get fired? If not draw at home to Southampton and Crystal Palace, lose at Leicester. When did we last win a game? And what signs of progress and development is there? None. Is Emery our Trump? Neither can get pinned down for any responsibility while chaos surrounds them. In the latter case we’ll have to wait till next November. But for the former, this November should be sufficient. Emery will take more games to waste the talent in front of him.
Cigarette scored two crucial goals today. He saved Emery. And, aside from the ridiculous yellow card he was given, was excellent today. He was our best player. It’s so good to finally see him back in form rid of his prior injuries. He worked so hard the entire game and literally saved Emery today.
Torreira, though he gave the ball away, was improved today. But there is not clear relationship with Guendouzi. Often they got in each others way or Guendouzi was too far away from Torreira. And neither came to pick up the ball from our back three.
Pepe did make a difference when we came on. He blew one clear opportunity when he should have taken the responsibility rather than tried to pass to Ozil. That’s what happens when your confidence is low. And then he hit the bar later on.
Wilcock saved this game for us with his goal line clearance. And saved Emery. How Southampton did not score before we equalized shows that there is someone up there that does not like Arsenal. Those misses saved Emery.
How bad are we. With 5 minutes left in added time, we can’t even play the ball out of defense. Sokratis is passing the ball backwards and sideways. No-one is demanding the ball or driving forward. Everyone’s head is down. It’s only by good fortunate the ball ends up headed out to Martinelli before Cigarette controls with one foot and scores with the other.
No-one celebrates. Not the players. Not the fans. Because we all know we’re shit. And Emery is lucky. So now we have to sit around and suffer through more meanderings from our incoherent manager. Watch more games where our defense will get torn apart. Drop more points and wait for the hammer to drop on Emery. It’s so inevitable it’s boring. It’s even hard to get too upset – though I seem to be doing a good job.
This is the most obvious case of an underperforming team with an unsuitable manager I’ve seen since Sherwood was at Aston Villa and Sp*rs. Maybe I can find a tranquilizer to put me out for the next 4 or 5 games. It’s too tedious to watch this team. To watch the abject waste of talent. And to watch our manager prowl the touchline with no clue of how to solve the problems he can created. Maybe he can bring back Xhaka. Maybe we need Mustafi. Can we buy back Iwobi? Because that limited progress is being wasted. The Green Party should be up in arms at the waste of resources at Arsenal. Even at its worst under Wenger – even at the end – we were never this poor. Never this lost. Never this directionless. So again, I ask, what will it take for the club to rescue this team. You can’t ask Emery to fire himself – he would miss anyway. It was a good idea that just has not worked out. What’s their plan B (or C)? Do they have one. They invested a lot of money (though not on a net basis) this summer. How can they accept such a witless, idealess, ponderous, turgid, inept performance such as this – at home – against one of the worst teams in the league. A team to whom, in all honesty, we deserved to lose to? If not now when?
-LB7