Arsenal: Raya, Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori, Partey, Rice, Odegaard, Nwaneri, Merino, Trossard
Subs: Neto, White, Kiwior, Lewis-Skelly, Tierney, Zinchenko, Jorginho, Sterling, Butler-Oyedeji
Arsenal lost the opportunity to reduce the gap to Liverpool to five points after losing 1-0 to West Ham at Emirates Stadium, thanks to a first half goal from Jarrod Bowen.
Mikel Arteta made two changes to the side that beat Leicester last week, with goalscoring hero Mikel Merino starting up front in place of Raheem Sterling and Riccardo Calafiori coming in for Myles Lewis-Skelly.
It was an uneventful start to the game with Arsenal dominating possession as expected, although West Ham were set in their back five and comfortable defending everything in front of their box.
After some nearly moments for the hosts, it was West Ham who had the first sight of goal when Tomas Souček rose highest to meet Aaron Wan-Bissaka’s cross but headed way over.
The Gunners responded quickly though with two efforts of their own, first through Merino who fired over after being found by Calafiori, before the Italian hit a sweet effort towards goal but straight into the hands of Alphonse Areola.
With 25 minutes on the clock, there was a huge let-off for Arteta’s men when Jarrod Bowen shot wide from inside the area after Wan-Bissaka broke down the right with nobody able to catch him.
Arsenal continued to press and probe without creating anything of note, although Declan Rice did find himself in a promising position after being found through the lines by Merino, but delayed and his cutback was intercepted by Max Kilman.
Things went from bad to worse just before half time after Wan-Bissaka was allowed to advance again down the right hand side, before eventually finding Bowen – unmarked in the middle – who headed past David Raya. 1-0.
Wan-Bissaka had been threatening that moment all half, but it felt like an avoidable goal from Arsenal’s perspective with Calafiori not doing enough to stop the initial cross, matched with hesitation from both Gabriel and Rice in the middle.
Arteta sent out an unchanged side after the break but it took just ten minutes for him to make his first substitutions, with Myles Lewis-Skelly and Oleksandr Zinchenko coming on for Calafiori and Rice who had both struggled.
Just after the hour mark, Arsenal were beginning to apply some pressure and Areola was called into action (for the first time in the game) to stop a low Trossard effort, before the Belgian struck another effort wide from the edge of the box shortly after.
However, any chance of an Arsenal comeback would evaporate when Lewis-Skelly was sent off in the 73rd minute. The teenager was caught in possession by Muhammad Kudus and subsequently brought him down as the last man with no other teammate in sight.
Referee Craig Pawson initially gave Lewis-Skelly a yellow card, but after reviewing the incident on the on-pitch monitor, it’s clear the challenge should have been upgraded to red – and it was. RED CARD.
The remainder of the game was a frustrating watch for Arsenal who were trying to create openings but lacked creativity and accuracy in most of their final actions, as West Ham stood firm without issues.
There were eight minutes added on but despite a nearly moment from Gabriel – who curled over when he found himself free at the back post – and another sharp effort from White that flew just past the post, Areola was rarely troubled.
It was a disappointing result and performance for Arteta’s men who had the chance to at least keep some pressure on Liverpool heading into the final weeks, but fell at their first hurdle – with their attacking issues laid bare.
Things don’t get any easier for the Gunners with a trip to Nottingham Forest on Wednesday.
Fuck you PGMOL! Fuck you VAR! There’s no fucking way VAR got involved again to overturn the referee’s decision to make sure we’re punished to the maximum. Oliver gives Lewis-Skelly a wrongful straight red, VAR has a look – that’s a-okay! Pawson gives Lewis-Skelly a rightful yellow, VAR has a look – no no no, that won’t do. Fuck them! Fuck this corruption. We weren’t great today but I don’t care. They give us no chance. There’s no way they’re not doing this to us deliberately. Bournemouth, Saliba borderline yellow – given yellow, VAR overturned to red. Wolves, Lewis-Skelly clear… Read more »
That is as stone cold a red as you’ll ever see. The surprise is that he initially gave it a yellow. I don’t blame MLS – we’re lucky to get a breakout season from him. We were over-committed (eight men) forward hunting for a goal – because our designated goal-scoring options aren’t great. This tends to be the result.
With all the cheap free kicks refs kept given I was very surprised it’s not a foul on kudus before Lewis Skelly brings him down. Tell me you wouldn’t think that be the outcome the other way
How is that a stone cold red? It was on the halfway line, debatably inside West Hams half and Lewis-Skelly got at least one touch on the ball. That’s not a straight red. It was, like Saliba’s earlier in the season a borderline challenge. The referee gave yellow and that’s not a clear and obvious error. VAR had no business getting involved but they’ve shown they’ll take any opportunity to send our players off.
The red car was for denying a clear goal opportunity, which he did as Raya was nowhere near his goal and, had the West Ham player gone through, he’d have been staring at an empty goal.
Sorry but red all day long.
“I don’t blame MLS”… Why not? It was his clear mistake. If he is old enough to play, he’s old enough to take criticism and learn from it. I guarantee you Arteta and his teammates will hold him responsible, as they should.
Totally OK to blame him as long as they also blame themselves for not scoring against a bottom half team at home until that moment without creating any significant scoring opportunities and also letting a cheap one in once again at the back .
That’s the season done.
No penetratration, no decent crossing, no service for our makeshift stiker at all. We just walk ourway into their box with no purpose. It’s more of a midfield problem I think. The red card was scandalous, MLS was bulldozed from behind before the foul.
MLS needed to take one touch and then play it back to Raya. He didn’t. Instead, he invited the pressure in a terrible position against all common sense, and Kudus bullied him. If anything was scandalous about that passage of play, it was his decision-making.
Completely agree, we were really poor and maybe weren’t value for the win even with eleven men but that doesn’t mean Lewis-Skelly’s challenge was a red.
Odegaard the culprit..kept losing the ball in dangerous areas
My view of the play saw Kudos give MLS a forearm to the head before MLS drags him down. That was first contact. Why wasn’t that reviewed?
Nailed on red……if raya wasn’t 40 yards off his line may of been a harder call
It was a clear red-card offense. The denial of a goal-scoring opportunity was obvious. If that were Scarles against Nwaneri, I would have been baying for the WHU player to be sent off.
It was a red card. Face reality. We were shite. It’s the hope that kills ya. It was a pipe dream they we could win games with a front line of Trossard merino and a 17 year old. It was noticeable that they kept a player really close to Nwaneri and left the other two as I think they knew as Trossard is just not a starter and merino was completely lost as centre forward. Two shots on target in 98 minutes. Not good enough today and got lucky last week against Leicester. We all knew in our hearts we… Read more »
It wasn’t an obvious red card. If the referee had given a red straight away then fair enough. It was borderline and we can have no complaints. It’s the fact the referee initially gave a yellow which wasn’t obviously wrong, before VAR yet again got involved to upgrade it to red which is the injustice.
I’m surprised this doesn’t seem to be the general consensus, but that’s the way I see it. VAR is repeatedly being misused to punish us to the maximum.
No man, that was a red card all day. Before that we got to look ourselves. No invention. No passion. Our 2 biggest strengths were our 2 biggest outages today. We created little and defended like So’ton.
It felt in the game that the ref was “protecting” abit WH.. 50 50 calls went their way alot.
In the end the red card perhaps should have been reviewed from the beginning and not only towards the end..
we were shit and no one is to blame than ourselves! we would have lost with 12 men and 3 attackers…
no speed, no urgency, no threat, no courage, no chance to win this…
Sure blame var again lol
Don’t do that.
The performance was shit from start to finish
This team will struggle to finish in the top 4. And then we’ll be looking at the potential exodus of players who want to win silverware and are good enough to play at clubs that actually do so. Should be a awesome summer.
Our first deserved red, but the PGMOL decided it was not our season long ago, still smarting from Arteta’s remarks after Newcastle. Five red cards and playing so long with 10-men has contributed to the injury list.
Playing with so little intensity in the first half is something we should have learnt about long ago.
It has been a completely shit season from the moment those first few flurry of reds cards were flashed at us with glee.
But the fact that we saw Jesus and Saka were out in January and refused to act, is really amateur stuff.
Even if we had a chance in the UCL, there is only so much we can do without a bonafide striker in the team. Another season gone down the drain like that. It’s galling!
I think they looked at officials wanting their revenge this year and thought spending the money was pointless.
Very obviously made the financial decision not to play for the prem once January news of Jesus and Saka broke. They could have tried to get a stopgap, but I think they wrote off the prem, hope for a miracle in the UCL and are looking to spend big in summer. Like, proper big. Only questions are… A… will they do it. B… can Arteta manage a proper superstar. C… will they try to train any individual brilliance out of him and try to squash him into Arteta’s ‘system’?
Would’ve been nice to start a forward or bring one off the bench to turn the heat up on a very unsteady Liverpool. But listen – powder dry, the title was already gone, everyone’s an FM expert etc.
Thank god it will be top 5 that make the champions league this year, we are about to spiral…………nothing to say that hasn’t been said a thousand times, we haven’t addressed our weaknesses for nearly 3 years
Yep, I’ve got a bad feeling about how the season is going to end. Consequences of unambitious owners, 5th will still look good to them when the look at the bottom line.
Will gladly accept the 100 thumbs down I’ll probably get but don’t kid yourself, we have thrown this season away and it’s not just the league, if we scrape by psv in the champions league do you really think trossard merino and nwaneri will get it done against mbappe Rodrigo and vini Jr……. it will be a blood bath and that’s a wrap on our season. A lovely summer transfer window where our main focus will be getting a dm to replace Thomas partey whilst arteta assures us havertz and Jesus being fit is like a new season!!……..rant over
Aye, we’re getting into territory where I’m kinda hoping Liverpool win tomorrow just to keep City at bay. I worry we’ll be looking over our shoulders quite soon
Yeah, top four’s the priority now without any remaining doubt. Not winning the title this season won’t be devastating to our ability to compete but finishing outside the Champions League places almost certainly would be.
We lost it when we went full tilt at the League Cup… Does anyone give a shit about that any more?
Small squad, injuries and red cards and we’re trying to win that? A trophy would be nice but not when it’s worthless and at the cost of the others.
Choose the battles. Went out early in the FA cup so didn’t get to play the youngsters again? Play them in a cup that no team with real ambition cares about.
Well there’s no point throwing away a league cup when you ain’t winning anything else so no
Here’s the thing… we’re a system-based team, and other teams have worked us out. West Ham learnt from how Newcastle dealt with us… play 5 at the back, close the gap between fullbacks and CB, then we don’t have any lines to play through, and watch us horseshoe it around for 90 mins. Score on the break if you’re lucky, if not, take a draw. Unless we work out how to break a low-block 5 with 5 at the back, we won’t win the premier league. We got lucky last week. Even with a striker… if we insist on continuing… Read more »
Brentford put 4 past Leicester city , that’s how bad we’ve been
A system based team is the seria a terminology for……we have no pace and no urgency
Yep, that sounds exactly like us.
Bingo. What was particularly striking to me was the lack of pace at the top end of the pitch. Neither fullback overlapped or crossed. I think we’re missing Saka and Martnelli just as much as Jesus and Havertz, if not more so.
Martinelli keeps opposition defences honest because they know he has pace and can break. We’re missing him more than many will admit. Bukayo is a huge miss, as is Havertz. We’ve managed quite well without Jesus before but ask any Premier League team to play without their four best forwards and it would look like this or worse.
Can only hope that we can manage without them for the PSV games and we don’t lose anyone else
To be honest, I don’t think we can
My point exactly. So many people are fixated on VAR and injuries and referees blah blah blah. The reality is we have lost so many points this season and previous simply because we create very little. We don’t take risks and insist on doing the same thing over and over again, even when it’s clearly not working. It’s so infuriating to watch games in which we create absolutely nothing, then come to this site and read about the need for a striker. Like how is a striker supposed to solve the fact that our manager is afraid of creating chances… Read more »
Any “system” is going to struggle with our injuries and a very specific PGMOL bias. Teams have been defending in numbers for two seasons now and we’ve done ok. What worries me is that for any team other than Man City, success is temporary, and this feels very sliding doors to me. They dropped off, and Liverpool have gotten all the luck at key moments.
Absolutely, watching the game I was thinking(and I’ve thought this many times in the past few years) that Arteta needs to evolve. When things are not working in-game he seems to never change things. Change system in response to how we are being nullified. Arteta lacks this ability and that makes him a limited manager
Exactly this. Thats why Pep is above everyone else. Still remember few seasons ago he played Stones in midfield and last season to deploy central back as fullback. Heck even he can accomodate Haaland and Alvarez in the same lineup. Trust me Arteta wont dare to do such things. Dont get me started with Don Carlo.
Pep is the most over rated manager in all of sports history. “Genius” my hole.
I was thinking similar after this very disappointing display. People have been talking about how Pep may not have it in him to rebuild his clearly aging squad. Our squad is young but does Arteta have the ability to reconfigure it now that he’s been figured out? I love him but it seems like most mid-top table managers know what to do against us. That’s where many of our draws have come from. Throw in a dearth of attacking threat and we look a bit clueless at times. I’m also not sure he’s getting the best out of our key… Read more »
Arteta has literally had to play differently every game / half due to injuries, red cards and suspensions. We’re 2nd in the league (again). Does that mean all managers apart from Slot and Pep are limited?
If you read the whole thing, I said over the years, not just today obviously. Its moot when we win the match but it’s something I get frustrated by many a time. But obviously I would be a grinch to bring it up after we win the match, even tho its true
Also, there a sooo many managers that change things in-game up and down the league table and everywhere else it’s not only Slot and Pep. I think Mikel is risk-averse. Btw, this is not some “Arteta out” nonsense, simply think Arteta needs to add that to his locker, take a risk or just try something different if you see its not working
If only we could play like the 22/23 team that blitzed the first 20 mins to get ahead. The football was compelling.
I think something changed in Arteta’s brain when we fell away that season and the style of play has never returned to that level of excitement consistently since. We’ve had our 5-0s obviously but they’re outliers in an otherwise sterile approach.
Now watch. Arsenal will either lose to PSV or lose in the quarter finals. Like they do EVERY FUCKING SEASON.
Losing to PSV would be catastrophic but we’re not beating either Madrid without a recognized forward. That’s not surprising
Losing to psv saves us from th3 6-0 battering at the bernabeo
Too familiar of a feeling – it’s the hope that kills you
Title gone
Not sure it was ever on with the kind of officiating we’ve been subjected to.
True, but we also haven’t helped ourselves by leaving Arteta a choice of Merino or Trossard up front and Sterling on the wings. It’s a miracle we’re as high as we are in the table. Echos of mid to late Wenger years when his genius got us top 4 every season despite massive holes in the squad that those above never bothered to address.
Can you really say Watkins would have made us champions though. Once Sesko wasn’t available, they list interest.
Who knows? I wouldn’t have minded seeing Watkins come in at all, I’m not an accountant I’m a football fan and I want to see the team do as well as it can, Watkins would have given us something. Apart from goals I think signing a player like Watkins would’ve given the team a boost and probably more belief we can reach our goals this season. They seem to have lost a lot of that belief over the last few weeks.
That’s kind of the point though – we’re not accountants so we want everything on a plate with all the toppings, but the fact is at 60 million (!!!) we wouldn’t be able to buy the players in the summer we need to really push on year after year. So I think the club knew it was a write off and decided to aim for top 4 and go again next year. I hope we get top four asap and then the second it is guaranteed we send all our first team home for the summer and then play whatever… Read more »
Sorry, but you can’t switch ambition on and off like a tap, you can’t say to a team full of some of the best players in the world ‘we’re giving up now half way through the season despite our good position, maybe we’ll have a crack next time’. It sends a terrible message to everyone.
Agreed that we’re not all accountants, but I know £60m on a player not really moving the needle will mean disappointment in the summer when we can’t have a top quality centre forward.
so Arteta is a genius ‘course he delivered top 4 the past two seasons after spending 600 mil in players? c’mon!
With the injuries, refereeing decisions, and lack of investment I believe he’s done a great job this season, I mean look at the forward line and we’re still second!
he’s not a Head Coach, he’’s a manager so I suppose he had at least a say when the club spent 600 mil in 4/5 seasons on players. he got more keepers than strikers! injuries is not just being unlucky but also overplay players cause you failed to build the team properly. officiating was horrible, that is for sure.
Agreed. City lost one top player and they fell apart. Arteta has somehow managed to stay clearly in second with no senior forward line and a serious amount of dodgy decisions.
Well and truly gone
Come on it was gone a long time ago, we were just hanging in there
A front line of Nwaneri, Merino, Trossard, with only Sterling and Butler-Oyedeji available on the bench. That’s the attacking group of a 15th-place side, and that’s exactly how we played today.
Wonder why we are not looking at giving the likes of Sagoe and Edwards from the academy a chance.
I’d say you’re being generous. Going to be a horrible slog until the end of the season.
Agree but when with those we should be beating this west ham team at home ffs! The thing is – odegaard has been so underwhelming most of the season and again today that he shoudnt be wearing the captain’s band. Anyday he clowns around with his inept risk-averse sideways passes like today, we simply don’t play. How many times did we see someone make a run and odegaard pulls the ball back or sideways? He got a couple opportunities to shoot, he didn’t.
I love Odegaard when he’s purring, today way maybe the worst I’ve ever seen him play.
Dear Liverpool. Here’s the premier league trophy. Try not to lick too many bins on your way home. Yours sincerely, the rest of the league. Co-signed Var.
On a serious note, we could have played all weekend and not scored against a bang average West Ham side. Totally deserved nothing today and the red card was justified. I’ll tune in for whatever is left of the CL but my brain is already drifting towards summer.
Agreed, of all the club I diskile – Liverpool is my most hated – would rather city won it again.
Think it was when I was at school (in London) so many kids around supprted Liverpool for the glory
Same Simon, grew up with liverpool fans. One still spams me with salah stats weekly and net spend. I hate liverpool so much I really struggled the time spurs had them in champs final.
I’m seriously contemplating are the few ups in football worth the pain every year. Today reminded me of the wenger years post henry
Just take pity on them and hope like I do that next season they’re on a massive rebuild project without their main players.
They’ll have this one and then be miles away for years again. They’ll don’t have a mega player to sell this time to kick start their project again.
I honestly think that it will be Chelsea and us fighting it out for the next few years. And happy with that as they’re a mess. City will be back I. The prem in 3 or 4 years once they’ve been promoted back up through them all
Not buying a striker in the summer when we sold Smith Rowe & Eddie is just pure negligence, but we all knew that.
You can’t legislate for some of the injuries we have had but we have really lost our pace and skill in the squad, it’s badly put together with four left backs.
We have gotten stronger & resilient but lost our attacking stroke & pace.
As well as a striker we really need a couple of pacy wingers in the summer.
There will be a lot of talk about the red card, which was deserved imo, but the first half performance was appalling. No urgency, no quality, passing was terrible. Why can’t our fullbacks overlap and cross? The narrative has been about how much we need a CF, but we could have had the original Ronaldo up top today and not scored such was the lack of service.
Same performance against Leicester City, but we were lucky, West Ham were organised and pressed well, immediately they got their goal, it became thieir game. If we had played for 6 hours we wouldn’t have scored any goal, Very slow build up play and too many gaps.
MLS’s mistake, made under pressure from the MotM Kudus, killed Arsenal’s chance of a point in the match. Youth and inexperience will sometimes cost you.
Conceded a dreadful goal and never looked like scoring after that. Down to the bare bones and look it.
Fucking hell that was bad. Title gone. Just want a restart to the season really. I miss the attacking displays of last season and the season before. We are so much worse upfront this season. Boring, pedestrian and undeserving of a PL title.
Go grab yourself a dictionary.
Then look up the word ‘injuries.’
A very disappointing performance. One thing is ofcourse all the injuries , but those who played was slow and indecisive. We don’t take shots, but try difficult passes instead. Ødegaard disappointed me the most, not that he played worse than the others, but the boldness in his game from last season has disappeared. I think top 4 is what we can hope for this season and that can also be hard to achieve
I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again million times more; as long as Arteta continues to be our manager, our ceiling is Atletico Madrid; always competitive, tough to play against, might win a trophy, but we’ll never be the dominant force in the league. His mentality is that of a loser; more afraid of losing than more excited about winning. You can point to injuries and VAR and all other kinds of nonsense, but at the end of the day, we have dropped at least 15 points this season simply by playing lethargic, slow, ponderous football while creating… Read more »
Nottingham forest will watch this game and put up an even better performance to finish us off.
Time for a different manager. Early cup exits every year, unable to get over the line. Thank you for your time but time to move on
This is not the time to be cracking jokes
The entitlement of that statement..
Stand on the ball. Pass Ball slowly sideways behind team mate. Repeat until we do this 30 times, get to the edge of the box and give it away. Not a personnel issue today , it’s a coaching problem.
Spot on
I don’t even blame the injuries for today. We could have Haaland up front and it makes no difference. Our style of play is SO one dimensional. Slow, frustrating and boring.
What happened to rice. He didn’t play well but still surprised to see him go off.
He was appalling in their goal. Bowen didn’t do anything special, just ran a straight line and Rice still managed to lose him.
I don’t think we will finish above 4. Is there risk of finishing below 5?
There’s always a risk, but we would have to implode pretty badly. The scary thing is that this kind of thing happens to one type of team at both ends of the table, that being a team that can’t score goals. We could be just 9 points ahead of 6th by the end of the weekend, but luckily this season every team seems flawed.
5 years in and that’s what we had to watch?! Wasted windows!
At least 3
Merino worked out for one game, but it’s not a solution.
I don’t care how “unready” our academy forwards are, throw them in. At least they’ve been playing there their entire lives and know how to do it.
Merino shouldn’t have started, it’s a chaos option if you’re struggling late on. The trouble is that means it’s Sterling, but you could make an argument the youngsters would be a better bet then.
My mum is a better option than Sterling. It’s an embarrassment he came on after his last efforts
Why oh why did Arteta not sign your mum on loan when she was available in January? I heard Edu walked when Arteta said he wasn’t interested and only saw her as a squad player and not a starter.
Would she have really moved the needle that much?
My biggest concern now is for our season not to collapse completely. With our striker issues (plus Rice now) Our top four position is not even assured.
Sad to see that Liverpool will practically stroll to the trophy.
Rice gets away with slowing down our attack week in week out. Timber was dross today, he gave Ethan nothing to work with. Calafiori refused to use the width of the field, he had so much space on the outside and he constantly drifted inwards to where Westham had bodies. Trossard is not a starter. Good luck convincing Saliba to stay with the lac of ambition w have shown during the January transfer window. I cried when Ferguson and Soler came on because these are loan players and we didn’t even bring in one player in January. I feel sick!
Unfortunately most we can hope for now is Champions League qualification and buying 3 world class players in the summer
This one stings. Another missed opportunity to close the gap. Time to protect top 4 at all costs and focus on Europe.
Line up showed that coach hopped for an early goal. Perhaps would be better to start MLS/Sterling and bring Merino/Cala at the end . Don’t think Calafiori was to blame for the goal. He tried to close the winger , seems more of an issue between Rice/Gabriel and Raya. Game is overall very boring. Nothing happens from the right side with captain losing the ball all the time. Sometimes we pass , pass and pass…… Ball movement is too slow. Feels like the late Wenger teams… But in the board this is the board’s doing. We had these problems before… Read more »
Can’t think of a game Rice did well against Ham but shot ourselves on the foot of during the transfer window. The players have tried their best.
Rice gets away with slowing down our attack week in week out. Timber was dross today, he gave Ethan nothing to work with. Calafiori refused to use the width of the field, he had so much space on the outside and he constantly drifted inwards to where Westham had bodies. Trossard is not a starter. Good luck convincing Saliba to stay with the lac of ambition w have shown during the January transfer window. I cried when Ferguson and Soler came on because these are loan players and we didn’t even bring in one player in January. I feel sick
Its still just February but bar some serious turnaround/run of wins and a miraculous ‘pool capitulation we’re out of this one. 2nd place finish as long as we don’t slide further. This season has been tough but I hope MA and his coaching staff, and the higher ups at the club have learned lessons. The games are not going to get any lesser in the moneyfested world of football, and the player recruitment in the summer should beef up for this, its more important than ever to sign key players in key positions, and as ‘pool has shown, start strong… Read more »
They thought it was all over… it is now!
Midfield, except Partey, were woeful. Bad passes, poor decisions, under hit hospital balls and easily dispossessed.
Are Rice and Ode carrying big knocks? Trossard seemed up for it and was the only threat. Cannot complain about the red. Their goal was coming, there were plenty of warnings……and Saliba? Victim of a body snatcher or head turned by tapping up from Spain?
Well done Kronkes, the guy with the massive forehead, the ‘impressive’ Edu replacement whose name I can’t be bothered to remember. You’ve all wasted an entire season and thrown it in the bin. There will be consequences to such a decision and we’re not going to like them. Even if we shithouse our way through to the later stages of the CL it won’t change a thing, the club shat the bed. I don’t go to watch all the games, wonder how people feel having paid a small fortune for a season ticket to see the club give up half… Read more »
We are a boring team and don’t deserve to win fuck all. Arteta has gone back to his early days. People carried away after Leicester and the scousers dropping points. I can’t bear watching this dour slow paced crock of shit!
Bit harsh
Spud alert 🚨
Pissed poor. We managed to pull thru last wk, but it won’t happen every week. We can only hope this season, tts all. The reality is injuries hasnt been kind to us this season + the fact tt we didn’t strengthen in summer… Was it down to complacent or negligence.. idk. But fact now we look flat and we dont really have plan B or C with the current players we have.
We are on plans S and T never mind B and C
Maybe we’ll nail it when we reach x, y, or z
Even with full squad available, arteta doesnt have olan b or c. Think of fulham last season.
Clear red, pretty much the first one this season.
But mistakes happen for young players, and this didn’t lose us the match. Having no attack did, and it’s going to be a problem for the next month or two. Any team that scores first against us is going to do exactly this, and we’re going to be lucky to get anything. I don’t really blame Arteta for tactics in this match, as he’s not really got anything to work with. But it was criminal not to get another option during the winter break.
Odegaard has been a shell of himself since the injury, not a shred of confidence in his play at this point. I’m not blaming him for all our problems at all but I just can’t figure out what happened to his game. It seems like a mental issue but who knows?
He’s recently become a father = he’s getting NO sleep.
When I became a father it felt brutal and my professional performance definitely suffered, in fact I don’t know if I’ve ever recovered to before those days, kids take so much of your energy and focus. Odegaard’s only human so I understand and have a lot of sympathy, but if that’s what it is then the club should really have sorted it out by now and he shouldn’t allow it to affect his performances so badly. Long story short, I don’t believe it is that because for the richest players and clubs in the world it would be an obvious… Read more »
Bring in the mother-in-law or a nanny if that’s what it is. He’s definitely not at his best since the injury, whether that’s a physical problem, or missing Ben and Bukayo. He seems to lack self-belief at the moment, he’s passing backwards when he could be shooting, his decision making is off. I just think this season has been draining for all our players, one way or another, and it’s still a while before we get Gabi and Bukayo back. It’s going to be a real slog to get through this and stay in the top four.
It was a shocking performance and sadly not a one off
We have regressed
Possession obsessed football with no pace or threat
68% possession
2 shots on target.
2 easy saves forced.
37mins to get a corner.
Truly pathetic and it is due to tactics not injuries, not refs. This kind of showing comes all too often for it not to be management over kill
Mate, come on.
Our ENTIRE first choice attack is out injured.
We’ve had Mickey Mouse red cards and dodgy VAR decisions by the bucket load.
To totally dismiss those factors is pathetic.
Show me a team that can afford to lose their four top attacking players without a serious problem.The rest of this season is going to be brutal, it’s what it is. These players are doing their best, they’re humans, not robots, they haven’t thrown down a shit performance because they can’t be asked, it’s because things are really difficult and they’re mentally and physically drained.
Board and maybe Arteta gave up on the season by declining to bring in new signings, just unacceptable and infuriating to fans. We also spend £80m on Merino and Califiori this season, I would have rather bought a proven goal scorer, those 2 have not added much. Arteta hasn’t won a major trophy yet, I like him as a coach but he can be stubborn and has a little but of arrogance of someone who has won a lot in his career, time is ticking for him now.
Merino and Calafiori have played quite a lot this season, we’d have been in a bit of trouble without them. I don’t think it was an either/or with signings, I have no idea why they didn’t sign a forward last summer.
This season is about to collapse into a giant ball of excrement… and it was all very predictable from the start of the season.
The way that the entire club is being run leaves a lot to be desired. Incompetent collective management has brought us here. The manager and those above him simply don’t have what it takes to bring lasting big-time success to this club.
We are a rudderless, unambitious joke of a club that’s going nowhere.
We need new owners and a new start.
I’m going to email some law firms on Monday. I think we could bring a class action against the club for causing emotional turmoil. Who’s with me?
I simply can’t believe that our management has not been able to find and, at least, loan a half-decent striker. Yes, we all want a world-class goalscorer, but in this situation, an average, experienced natural striker would’ve probably made a notable contribution and increased our chances for the title.
Fuck Liverpool, fuck the FA, fuck PGMOL (especially Oliver).
Fuck this season, too. I’ve had enough!
Towards the end, a goal is required, get a free kick, gets passed back to keeper,
Great one arteta , as that’s on you mate 👍🏻
It would’ve been great to have a week where I could distract myself from the horror show that is the news with some nice things written about Arsenal. Horror show it is, I suppose.
For me the horror of the news puts football into some perspective and the pain doesn’t feel so bad.
It’s impossible for any team to keep up a challenge for the league without their whole forward line and without purchasing effective back up. Top four would be an achievement from here and as for winning the Champions League.
I didn’t see the game but I was surprised to see the video of the sending off as it sounded much clearer-cut from reports. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon after MLS was muscled off the ball – that decision could have gone either way to be fair depending on the refs view, VAR wouldn’t have intervened if the ref had given a FK for a Kudus’ foul.
It was harsh in that respect, and for all the ‘nailed on’ red comments I expected it to be a clearer foul like his last one.