A first half penalty, harshly awarded against Mikel Merino for handball, was enough for Inter Milan to beat Arsenal 1-0 at the San Siro this evening.
It came at the end of a fairly even first 45, in which thee Gunners could have had a penalty themselves when Merino was caught in the face by Yann Sommer. In the second Arsenal had their moments. Kai Havertz forced Sommer into an excellent save, and had a close range effort brilliantly blocked, while Gabriel’s header from a Bukayo Saka corner was headed off the line.
Arteta’s men couldn’t find the breakthrough though, and now look to Sunday’s clash with Chelsea as a way to respond.
Here’s how the players rated this evening.
Read the Inter Milan 1-0 Arsenal match report and see the goals here
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Inter are a typical Italian team, defensively minded and know all the tricks in rhe book, but that is now 3 away games in a row where we have barely looked like scoring. Sad to say we are turning into a team whose best chance or scoring is at set pieces.
Amen!
And this too shall pass
True. Sadly, our opponents – domestic and European – have figured out how to stymie us. At the moment we simply don’t have enough attacking potential to counter this (certainly not from open play) and our set piece threat is gradually being nulllified. Perhaps a “hail-mary” January hire may enable us to rescue this season. But, as things stand we are lar increasingly toothless, and vulnerable.
Just need to sign Ian Wright and it’ll be the early to mid 90s all over again. A young dynamic and exciting bunch of players turned into a set piece team with no creativity, Arteta has morphed into later George Graham!
Ethan seems creative enough, shame that he gets 10 min per game.
Our midfield is agricultural. There was a reason the great man insisted on purchasing/playing with cesc,cazorlas, nasris,roscikys,wislheres and hlebs… all these guys are wizzards with ball at feet and vision and can split the pitch in two and threes with one pass and/or dribble out of trouble (create numerical advantage) or even hold it +draw fouls. In the good old days we had a hybrid (once ina lifetime footballer, Patrick Vieira) who could so many things ( box to box, break banks of 4, dribble, hold, score with one -two touches and lobbing keepers in the 6 yard box). Declan… Read more »
We are light in attack. Sterling appears to be below par and Jesus and Martinelli have been found out a bit and Trossard is returning to par. This leaves us with Saka and a centre forward who Arteta bought as a midfielder as our attacking options. Thats a problem.
Trossard should be lower. He does nothing when he starts and gets grumpy when only coming on as a sub.
I would give Havertz an extra 0.5 for putting his body on the line. Looked like a nasty cut.
He’s been a disaster for the last 4/5 games. I find it baffling he’s rewarded with a start in a CL game.
Problem is Who do you start, manager does not trust/want to start Nwaneri, Jesus has been poor too. Maybe Sterling has been returned to Chelsea.
Thought Partey grew into the game. Timber was our best performer thought it was baffling replacing him with Zinky. Our performance overall was better than of late but continually crossing was like hitting our heads against a wall.
I think arteta wants to limit timbers minutes. I was surprised any of the starters played in the league cup.
I think its a balance between limiting their minutes and giving them enough game time to build up full match fitness with causing another injury.
White back at RB and Partey back in midfield finally brought some stability to the team.
We’re getting used to be beaten.
Let’s hope not.
We’re basically a better looking, possession based Stoke.
What happened to the vibes of 22/23? Why can’t we play through teams anymore?
Sigh.
We were missing rice and Ødegaard. One drives us forward and the other is the magic between the lines. Without them two it’s easy to bank two lines of 4 and just defend against us
Rice has been ever present bar yesterday so that’s no excuse.
Any team would feel the absence of a player like Ø, but it shouldn’t be to this extent. It’s just everyone other than Saka is toothless going forward.
Martinelli continues to sink deeper into this slump of his, less said about Trossard the better. Havertz is excellent but needs players playing off of him. Worrying times.
Yes, Tross and Marti have been so poor that opposition does not worry about them and instead put 2 or sometimes 3 players on Saka and our only threat without Odegaard is blunted.
At least teams can play trough our midfield easily. Newcastle enjoyed that.
Arteta needs to develop, game management is very poor and there is so much potential in this team that I think needs to be let loose. However, it doesn’t fit into his risk-minimised approach and we are paying a very high price for it.
Bonus rating bang on, they are utterly awful to listen to especially when the game is pretty frustrating too. Not a fan of the behemoth that is Amazon, but the stadium noise only feature on prime is great. Fletch is such an annoying cunt, McCoist, nice chap that he probably is, is also irritating as fuck and the less said about Ferdinand the better.
Ratings bang on. Mostly average to good this evening.
Let’s fucking beat those Chelsea cunts on Sunday to get back on track!
Apologies to any non sweary people x
No apologies needed! Spot on and with you all the way. It was like listening to an inter w&nk fest.
Just stop fucking swearing!
I think you gave the commentary too high a rating. It was terrible, anti Arsenal.
I think the most anti Arsenal thing nowadays is the Arsenal playing like that.
Had to mute the TNT commentary tonight, was unbearable!
Much better and more assured effort that deserved no worse than shared points. In addition to harsh hand ball, it was never a foul in the first place, Martinez is an extremely frustrating player to watch. Mid-field just not clicking and we are way too reliant on chance creation by B and Gab, and the opposition is well aware. Is an enormous boost to have our captain back; really can’t afford to have another important game with Leo starting in his place (much rather see Ethan). So much still to play for, desperately need a bit of good fortune and/or… Read more »
We can’t score goals and are really lacking in attack. Everything what we do in final third currently is too predictable.
With a more direct and clinical striker would we have nicked a goal?
Unlike some of the other teams, we’ve had a very tough start to the season fixture wise, I’m hoping this balances out as the season goes and we get our rhythm going again.
If only our attackers were as good going forward as they are at defending…
Another poor performance imo. Second half especially.
Although there were some signs of life.
The slow pendulum of our form needs to start swinging the other way because we just can’t continue like this.
Not usually one to be up in arms about these ratings, but 5.5 for Trossard is 4 top high. Comfortably our worst player for about 5 games now.
Trossard always comes back from the international breaks with an attitude problem, he’s playing like shit and has a big ego that says he needs to start. He contributes next to nothing lately and I’d really like it if he was sold in the summer along with Jesus. For a team that’s been clearing out deadwood for an age we still have a level of improvement to go, at least this deadwood is saleable.
I hope Havertz is not concussed.
Trossard is so much more effective coming off the bench than when starting. He should be used as an impact sub.
Agreed, he plays so well as a sub that he is rewarded with a start. Its happened several times now and every time as a starter, he is so underwhelming that he is dropped and the whole cycle begins again
Problem is he’s not being dropped now.
We are incapable of scoring from open play and the “Jover is a genius” moment is over, Teams have figured out our set piece strategies – and in some cases have used them against us – it’s time for a serious strategic rethink – not to mention a real striker.
Oh, and Rio “Peanuts” Ferdinand is a complete idiot. How does he have a punditry career?! Makes Neville (& even Carragher) look clever.
Sucks to lose and we started slow, but settled in and dominated though of course couldn’t break through. Was just me or were Saka’s crosses lacking pace and too easily cleared?
I can’t see the ratings, so I’m commenting without knowing the review. Seems like Arteta and many on this forum have a blind spot when it comes to Havertz. He isn’t good enough, he becomes anonymous and toothless for weeks on end. “Works hard” isn’t valuable enough for a team that considers itself a Champion’s League and EPL title contender. One-trick pony that sometimes heads in goals when supply is there. Huge amount of playing time with so little return.
Cool story. Now do Martinelli. Oh you already have! Just exchange him for “Havertz”, replace “heads” with “scuffs”, and don’t change another word.
Disagree on Havertz. I think he’s looked pretty ineffective the last couple of games, sure, but I think that’s as much to do with Trossard’s continued inclusion alongside/behind/ahead of him on the pitch. With Odegaard at #10 I expect we’ll see a return to form for Havertz
Saka is our best player and could be on his way to being a legend but I felt his decision making was very poor.
Could well have had a pen ourselves, and/or a little rub of the green when we had them under the cosh 2nd half. Odegaard on the mend; Benjamin White started. We’re heading back in the right direction. Let’s take some frustration out on Chelsea, take some luck when it comes to us.
Pretty lousy day all around. First, dealing with the election. I’m open to work. I’m Europe. Second, the match. Too slow. So many crosses reminded me of early days after arteta got here. Defense was excellent after the first few minutes. But too reliant on set pieces. Need an upgrade on sterling and Jesus. Need a creator to complete with odegaard. That probably can’t happen until summer. But best Chelsea and the season is back on track.
Did sterling actually move to Arsenal or was it all just a mirage?
I think he did but with a warranty period which Arsenal have exercised. I think he may very well be back at Chelsea.
I know we have become a bit George Graham of late with odegaard out and a few players out of form, but just look where we are compared to a few years ago. That we go away to Inter Milan and dominate the game and are very unlucky to lose. That’s progress. In late Wenger era we were way out of our depth as soon as we played anyone good.
What a thoroughly unlikable team of diving jugheads. And that ref was a knob-end too, blindly buying every trick Inter were selling.
The question is why can’t we play through teams anymore Odegaard notwithstanding. We slow everything down and our opponents get everyone behind the ball. As others have observed this is badly reminiscent of Arsenal 3-4 years ago.
I wasn’t able to watch this last night so caught up with it today. Apart from the comedy penalty, which should never have been given, I think that we were just about OK, nothing better.
We seem short on ideas and the people were should see banging the goals in just aren’t doing it. Hopefully getting Odegaard back will improve things, but as it stands we look pretty average overall. The future doesn’t look good right now.