TOTL still. But, oh dearie me. This was unquestionably 2 points dropped. This felt like deja—vu from last week just without the quality from the opposition.
This will be a short one today (that’s what she said). I don’t have the heart or soul to relive todays game. It’s just too painful. And wasteful. We had this in the palm of our hands. Another perfect start only to make a stupid mistake and change the entire momentum of the game.
This was the poorest game I’ve seen Partey play for us this season. After another brilliant start it felt like we decided the game was done. Partey was taking too many touches and being too nonchalant. And then Gabriel foolishly jumped in where no tackle was required as Holding was just about the hoof the ball clear. Between the two of them we handed them their first goal.
I feel sorry for Saka. That was a crucial penalty to miss. For him, it will rank alongside his Euro miss. Though, of course, this one was way more important. No-one should care about a stupid England result. But this could have helped pave the way to our first premier league title. Of course, we’d not be anywhere close to this level without him. So, no hard feelings Saka.
At this stage though we are suffering from a crisis of confidence. We are making mistakes that are just born from pressure. I don’t believe for a minute this is unrelated to the shadow of the devil in the northwest that is lurking just behind us. But if you want to win the league you have to find ways of overcoming this mental pressure.
That first 35 minutes again was so smooth and dominant. We must though find a way to go from 1-0 up to 3-0. Maybe we can score the second and third goal simultaneously. Because, that 2-0 score line just kills us. We seem to slip into a trance and then loose drive and focus. Once they scored their first goal we barely regained control of the game. I think we were shell-shocked.
Our issue is not creating chances or scoring goals. Our issue is our defense. Today we were severely hampered by the lack of both Saliba and Zinny. I have often stated that we need our Big Willie back to have any chance of winning the league. But, today, this was compounded with Zinny not playing. Our defense, along with a poor Partey performance – seemed under constant pressure. Neither Holding or Tierney have the composure or positional sense to play in our current team.
I’m not blaming Holding. He’s playing to the best of his ability. But, he was outrun and out played by Antonio. His distribution is uncertain and his speed is lacking. I had thought though we’d be able to get away with it against WHU. But losing Zinny disrupted our creativity on the left. Tierney tried to play as an inverted full-back but it just not come naturally to him.
There is just no way we can win the league when we carry these two. When we needed help to retain the ball and keep possession, Tierney was not able to help. And his marking for their second goal was non-existent.
After that first 35 minutes – as last week – it’s soul destroying to watch us throw away 2 points to a bang average team. It speaks, yet again, to our collapse at the end of last season. We have this title within reach. Yet, you don’t deserve to win the league if you can’t put these types of games away.
Beyond the replacements, Partey, as mentioned was poor today. As poor as I can remember. And Saka was, after the first goal, too quiet. Jesus worked hard but neither Xhaka or Martinelli (beyond his assist) impacted the game. Odegaard worked hard, making himself available at all times. But too often we were left with Gabriel and Holding on the ball.
But, I’ll come back to our defense. The stupid mistakes that Gabriel is making – the penalty and the dithering when he was being challenged by Antonio – is as a result of not having his usual partner alongside him. We need Willie back. I worry though we will go into our next 2 games without him. And for that, I fear for our chances.
Sure, there were many other results this weekend that made me laugh out loud. You have to love Bournemouth coming back to North London and, this time, leaving with all three points. Somehow, they managed to replicate us but this time against that lot. Even down to scoring the winner with the last kick of the game.
Maybe all that laughing resulted in me messing with my own Karma.
And then there was LA Chelsea being soundly outplayed and smashed by Brighton. More laughing. And more Karma for me. I mean, who in their right mind would sit down and after spending £20m on your manager decide, without the influence of alcohol or weed, that in any world we know that Lampard is a better manager than Potter?
Unfortunately, that was all yesterday. Today we can only look at ourselves. Our lack of composure and our inability to control the ball killed us today. And for that I look to Partey. OK, maybe he was also impacted by not having Zinny near him. But, once we swapped Partey for Jorginho, we finally started to regain control. Saka, after the penalty, had one more breakaway from which he failed to trouble them. And from that point on we barely tested their goal.
However, if you score twice away from home – and against WHU – you should rightly expect to win. You have to be able to defend. And today – as last week – we just looked too shaky, too unsteady.
I have to remind myself, even as we enter this seemingly dark phase of the season, that I’ve enjoyed our football this year more so than at any time in the last 19 years. We have been the most entertaining team in the league. We have elevated our game to a level that no-one expected. We have enjoyed more explosive moments, more pure Arsenal football and more progress than any of us had a right to expect. I remind myself of this as a wipe away the tears from todays result. Knowing, that we have too many critical games coming up – not just City but Newcastle and Brighton – not to ignore Southampton – just when we seemed to have lost our momentum.
We have seen other runs where we have faltered and then recovered. But this feels different. I’m not so worried about Fridays game. But I am fearful of City. Especially if our Rob has to play. We need to find that backbone that we showed towards the end of the Liverpool game. I did not see it today. We need to improve our concentration levels and not look at the scoreline.
I had hoped that we’d learned something from last week but alas this was like a painful groundhog day experience. That is worrying. You would have thought we’d have know better.
The psychological damage from this game, last weeks result and the implosion at the end of last season could become our biggest barrier now to any long-term success. If we, as a suspect we will, fail to win the league, this will further damage this young team. Even with the self-evident progress from last year and the imminent qualification for the Champions League, this will leave an enduring scar on the team. It will define us for next year. Our ability to not crack under pressure. It will become an albatross around the neck of this team. I don’t want that specter hanging over us. So, let’s hope and pray that, come Friday, we recover to make lite of Southampton, that Theo remembers his true loyalty and that Big Willie finds a witch-doctor or medicine man to enable him to put in a few minutes on the pitch.
For the moment though, we remain TOTL.
-LB7