Arsenal squandered another chance to close the gap on league leaders Liverpool as Everton hung on for a 0-0 draw at the Emirates.
Despite dominating possession from start to finish, Arsenal delivered an insipid attacking display, rarely troubling Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford. Captain Martin Odegaard was among those off the pace, prompting Mikel Arteta to make several second-half changes that refreshed tired legs but failed to add cutting edge in the final third.
After dropping points against Fulham last weekend, the result raises serious questions about Arsenal’s title credentials – understandably a concern for Arteta.
“It’s very disappointing not to win the game, obviously,” he told BBC Sport.
“You don’t concede any shots on target, off target, you dominate the direct play, you dominate the second [ball], they don’t run at all, you don’t concede any set pieces, you do the process with the ball really good, you arrive there [the box], you have chances…it’s about scoring goals, we lacked that today.”
Clearly, the fact he’s created a team who are very good in many aspects of the game but lack a killer instinct is hugely frustrating for the manager.
“We opened them up, we had chances, at the end, you have to put them away.
“We had to run back, we’re one of the best in the world, we had to dominate direct play, the same. The next phase, the same. High press, we regained every ball, but we have to be the best in the last 25 metres when we have those situations to put them in again.
“Against a block like this, it’s not like you’re going to generate 20 open chances, that’s the disappointment. For the rest, I cannot ask much more from the team.
He added: “Everton, at the end, they got a point. We didn’t score so they are happy, without any shots, they have to be happy about the result.”
Just travelling back from taking my son to his first game. Insipid doesn’t even get close to that shower of shit I just watched.
The failure to sign a striker in the summer is what is hunting the team today. I don’t rate Arsenal for the title this season. Maybe next if we get a striker and a better winger.
The worry is that some players will be tempted to leave without a trophies soon. Unbelievable Gabriel Magalhaes is almost 27 and will want his peak years to count.
Players who weren’t good enough to win anything at Arsenal. Good riddance if that’s the case…
So Van Persie and Fsbregas weren’t good enough to win anything at Arsenal? Come on now. Why, if you are a truly great player and you don’t see the necessary additions coming into the club to make you a medal winner, would you stay and waste time?
Failure to keep playing players like Martinelli who doesn’t contribute to goals and assists is also part of the problem.
We desperately need (at least 1) player(s) who can dribble in the box. One quick attack from Partey nearly resulted in a pen. We have our dribblers way out wide on the touch line, not much threat from that. Dribbling inside the 18 puts enormous pressure on the defense and leads directly to goals or to pens.
We could have got eze instead of merino. But we went for a duel winner
Just makes me sad how bad the summer window was. I’m sick of the excuses from some of our fellow supporters
Buy a striker then
Arteta having a dig at Everton here is a really childish. We in fact did NOT open them up, what game was he watching? And how many low blocks have we played? How has MA not figured out a better tactic to deal with it? Also, what was up with those substitutions?
Oh shut up, wenger did it continuously whether it was stoke or Bolton , and you have his name as your tag smh
We are not going for counter attacks. There was a moment at first half, instead of passing forward and counter attack we decided to pass it back.
Even after 90 mins, i think it was Saka who got the ball outside our D and when he looked up there was no one to pass the ball to, to start a counter as all of em were in our half around the D. So he had to slow down and crowd got frustrated with it. Our style of play also needs to evolve, just a new striker won’t help.
There’s a (relatively) famous story from the book Atomic Habits about a photography teacher who splits his class into group A, who are asked to focus on quality and are only required to hand in one photograph per term, and group B who focuses on quantity and are asked to hand in a photo a week. The moral of the story is group B ends up taking better photos because they have more practice and a wider selection to choose from. We’ve obviously decided not to sign a forward this summer, since our preferred options (Sesko at 9 and Williams… Read more »
An extreme example of this is Cole Palmer. There was no indication that he would be as good as he’s been – that’s why City sold him and why nobody else wanted to buy him – but Chelsea bought fucking loads of young talented forwards. The reason they now have a world-class player isn’t because they did an extraordinarily good job of scouting him or there was some massive sign that everybody else had somehow missed, it’s because they signed a high volume of players and that increased the chances of one coming good. We can’t (and shouldn’t) copy their… Read more »
Cole Palmer is good for Chelsea because they let him play on instinct. With City he had to play inside Pep’s system. A player being more important than Pep wouldn’t do. He’s got daddy issues from Messi getting the credit.
That’s a good book but dear me that’s just about the falsest of false equivalences you’ve just made there… by that measure we should just buy dozens of average players completely overflooding our squad with them and in the end we’ll be better for it? The book talks about being less perfectionist just so you can get in the habit of finishing things and learning from your experience, there’s very little there that relates to the art of building a good squad, it’s not like you’re building one squad after the other and putting them aside each time like you’d… Read more »
I’m not talking about buying lots of average players – this is all in the context of well-scouted, high level footballers. I’m talking about having the humility to accept that our scouting department isn’t so exceptionally good that they will get it right first time every time, so the chances of getting a world-class player out of one specifically targeted all-or-nothing chase (Mudryk, Sancho being examples) are available. My basic view is that, unless we have 5 players firing on all cylinders, we should buy a young, talented and hungry forward every few transfer windows rather than fixating on getting… Read more »
I wouldn’t be against that sort of policy, but considering we just had to let two such young, talented and hungry forwards go in the last two summers (Balogun and Biereth) and another even younger one in Obi Martin, you have to acknowledge the reality there that these forwards don’t want to stay at Arsenal and probably don’t want to come to us if they don’t think they’re going to play much given Havertz and Jesus (before this awful season he’s having) would probably be ahead of them. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised whatsoever if the club has had… Read more »
Jesus has been awful long before this season – he has a “I don’t give a fuck as I am picking up a quarter of a million a week” aura about him. Perhaps pay should be graded on performance rather than a contract that guarantees pay regardless of whether you play or not – he would be such a wank stain of a striker then would he?
He has bought a load of average players – Tomiyasu, Jesus, Zinchenko, Merino, Kiwior, Calafiori, Trossard – so blanket signings don’t work either with him…
A lot of substandard players
Cedric, Matilda, willian , Tavares , Lokonga Marquinhos
Mari*
We don’t really create clear cut chances and don’t have anyone in the central attacking zone to speed up the tempo of the game so everything is very one paced.
We need a Cazorla or Fabregas or someone who can play a quick one two in there to open the game up. I even thought Tierney would have been useful for the final 20 minutes
It’s strange because this is exactly the kind of game Jesus is good at. He wouldn’t have scored (the man clearly built a house of broken mirrors on a native burial ground) but he has the quickest feet in the squad and would have made things happen, just like he did against Monaco. I’d like to see him at left wing next time we play a crap team at home.
The problem is the ball just doesn’t move forward from our defence and midfield quick enough so our attackers get very slow ball and a set defence.
I also don’t think we need an inverted full back and Merino on the same side of the pitch
I’d really like to try a Joelinton and move Jesus into that LCM spot!
It looks more instructed to me. The cautious playing around the back and slow transitions when Everton were out of shape.
This is a completely different style of play to two years ago.
It’s called walking football. A game for old men.
Thought Martin Ødegaard today looked like a man who has a small baby at home and isn’t getting as much sleep as usual…. Send Tomiyasu over there to look after the wean so MØ can get some kip, Mikel!!
Unfortunately he’s going to have to give up the kid.
Arsenal are given an opportunity to bridge the gap with the leaders. Arsenal blow that opportunity. Rinse and repeat. The issue is an over reliance on Saka and Odegaard as there was last season and the season before. Martinelli is not delivering on the left and as a result we look disjointed with most of our effective attacking play down the wing coming from the right – so opposition defenders double up on Saka. Martinelli needs to be dropped but there is no one to step into it. Arteta is responsible for all of this – he spent a fortune… Read more »
It’s his style aswell. We are city without haaland. We try to grind teams down into submission but don’t have the player for it. I’m convinced if we had isak on their pitch today he’d of been passing it backwards. Liverpool rely on one player that everyone knows about but they are able to create space for him over and over again. Liverpool can make the pitch look big against low blocks we just make it more congested with slow unimaginative passing
We didn’t need Rice?
Really?
I was referring to Merino. Also, Rice was signed the summer before.
Havertz is a waste of space and the Arteta project has failed. Striker needed but too late
Depends on the players behind him. He is much much better than Gabriel Jesus. But that is no challenge at all.
Odd subs, but I guess there was a rhyme.
You take Ødegaard and Saka out of the team or you keep them quiet then you will eliminate the attacking threat Arsenal has.
To think you are one of the best in the world is one thing but to put it out in the public domain just opens us up to ridicule – don’t the best teams in the world win things?
I hate to say this but Arsenal have little chance of winning anything…
We already scored the share of goals for december last month
I think Arteta squandered that chance.
We should just take a proper striker on loan and see how it works out. It doesn’t need to be a prime name. Even Broja can be a great addition because of his strength and skill. With the kind of support, he will certainly add to our final third.