Referee blunders, Missed chances & lack of attacking options on bench – How did it go wrong for Mikel Arteta?

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Last weekend Mikel Arteta got it wrong.

He did not recognise Manchester City’s vulnerability, we failed to attack them and lost. Likewise Sunday night was a tough performance to take.

Arteta actually got the line up right on Sunday – with the only debate being whether Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang should be playing down the middle, and if the midfield 3 were in the right positions.

2-nil at half time

We looked good in the first half, creating more chances and attacking at will. We should have gone into half time 2-0 up.

The Lacazette goal that was ruled out was not offside. The linesman clearly thought Aubameyang had touched it in on the fair post when in fact it had hit the post and gone in.

Lacazette then missed an absolute sitter.

Football is a game of margin’s.

Had Lacazette’s first been allowed, I am sure he would have buried the second and there would be no discussion about him getting dropped. Instead, one was disallowed and he fluffed his lines for the second chance.

Lacazette looks like a man playing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. His trademark sharpness within the box is missing.

Arteta now needs to make a tough decision.

He needs to drop the Frenchman and play Aubameyang down the middle.

Aubameyang was fantastic last season on that left hand side, scoring goals for fun. But he creates very little.

When you have him out wide and Lacazette in the middle, you are sacrificing creativity for goals. The problem is when neither are scoring, something has to give.

Arteta needs to get more creativity on the field, and that is done through sacrificing one of his strikers for either Nicolas Pepe or Willian on the left.

Conceding from opponents first chance

Leicester City’s game plan was simple.

10-men behind the ball, stay in the game and bring Jamie Vardy on with 20 minutes to go to against a tired defence. And it worked.

It would not have worked if Arsenal were 2-0 up. But they were not.

When Vardy came on, the dynamic of the game changed.

Leicester started attacking more, balls over the top, into the channels.

Whereas Lacazette missed his chance in the first half, Vardy scored his.

Fine margins again.

Substitutes

Arsenal’s substitutions failed to affect the game.

It would be easy to say “Arteta got them wrong”, but his first 2 changes we driven by injury – firstly to David Luiz and then Bukayo Saka.

Lacazette should really have been taken off with 30 minutes to go, but with Saka hobbling, Arteta was unable to make the change.

Instead the young Englishman went off for Pepe, with Arsenal keeping the formation.

Arteta was also hampered by Willian’s injury.

 The Brazilian would surely have come on for one of the midfielders to make us more attacking. Without him on the bench we had a 4 / 2 split for defensive / attacking players on the bench.

It did not give Arteta many options when looking to chase the game.

Questions do have to be asked why Reiss Nelson was not on the bench. Would he have not been a better option than Eddie Nketiah?

Instead we ended up with 3 strikers on the pitch, but did not have the capability of getting the ball to them.

European hangover?

Sunday’s game was awful. Both teams played Thursday night in the Europa League.

Manchester City v Chelsea was equally as dull.

Manchester City could only draw with West Ham and Liverpool barely scrapped past Sheffield United at home.

With games more congested than ever, I think we will see more tired performances after mid-week European games; more surprise results.

Arteta put out a strong side against Rapid Wien on Thursday.

With our hardest away out the way and 3 points on the board, maybe it is time to rethink that and rest his planned weekend starting XI against Dundalk this Thursday.

Got to think we can beat the Irish side with a second XI. 6 points from 6 will be one foot in the next round.

Moving forward

When we lose a game like Sunday, it is very easy to quickly get into a negative mind set. Especially taking into account we have seen that sort of performance countless times in the last 5 years.

But there were positives to take.

Arsenal looked more attacking in the first half. We just ran out of ideas in the second half and did not have the personnel on the bench to change it up.

Arteta needs to stick to 433, but with a few tweaks.

Granit Xhaka needs to play in the middle of the 3. This allows Thomas Partey and Dani Ceballos to drive forward and offer assistance in the final 3rd.

Pepe needs to start ahead of Lacazette, with Aubameyang down the middle.

Then that gives Arteta an attacking option on the bench in Lacazette.

Lacazette needs to be joined on the bench by Reiss Nelson and one other attacking player. Ideally someone that creates (Willian if fit?).

There is not point having LAcazette, Aubameyang and Nketiah on the pitch if we do not have a plan how to get them the ball.

Sunday was a disappointing result, we are 10th in the table, but this is going to be a roller coaster season.

It is going to be tight as every side can drop points to each other.

After 6 games last season, Arsenal were in 4th place, but already 7 points off top.

This season we are 10th, we 2 points less. But just 4 points off top.

Had we won yesterday, we would have been 4th and Leicester 10th.

It really is going to be a season of fine margins.

Keenos

A hat trick of defeats; a hat trick of bad VAR decisions

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VAR was supposed to bring consistency into the game. To reduce mistakes made by referees on decisions they either missed, or thought were worse (or no as bad) in the heat of the moment.

When it was being bought in, one comment was “it will ruin talking about football as we will no longer have a bad referee mistake to talk about over a pint”.

They were right to an extent that we no longer talk about poor on pitch decisions over a (socially distanced) pint. But instead of VAR bringing consistent and improved decision making, we now spend our time debating if the right decision was made by a referee spending 2 or 3 minutes watching replays from the comfort of somewhere in middle-England.

Arsenal have lost 3 games already this season. Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester City.

Whilst in non of the games did we do enough to win, we have been on the wrong end of poor VAR decisions at key times that could have seen the game swing towards us.

With 2 minutes gone in the game between Arsenal and Liverpool at Anfield, Kieran Tierney and Sadio Mane were both heading towards the byline.

The Senegalese winger took a step towards Tierney, thrusting his elbow into the Arsenal players throat in the process.

It was an unnatural movement and was clearly violent conduct, a red card offence. VAR decided the referee had not made a mistake in only issuing a yellow card.

It would have left Liverpool playing with 10-men for 88 minutes.

In the 25th minute Arsenal took the lead before Liverpool equalised 3 minutes later. Their goal scorer? Sadio Mane.

Liverpool would win 3-1 and Mane would be named man of the match. He should have been sent off.

Arsenal’s next defeat would be against Manchester City.

Just before half time at 1-nil down, Gabriel went up for a corner. He was challenged by Kyle Walker, who went with his feet rather than his head.

Both men were jumping off the ground, with Walker’s foot being at the same height as Gabriel’s head as headed down. It was a high foot. All day long.

VAR gave nothing and the game continued.

Then against Leicester at home.

The score was 0-0 when Alexandre Lacazette rose at the near post to head it in, the ball bouncing off the far post.

The linesman immediately put his flag up, clearly thinking Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had touched it in.

Auba was in an offside position but did not touch the ball, and was not interfering with play. The linesman’s decision should have been overturned.

Instead, VAR supported the linesman’s flag by decided that Granit Xhaka was offside.

As the corner came in, Xhaka was standing on the keeper, but was not offside.

When Lacazette headed the ball, Xhaka had taken a step to his left and Kasper Schmeichel a step to his right.

This meant that whilst Xhaka was ahead of all outfield Leicester players, he was not interfering with the site lines of Schmeichel. He was not in an offside position.

The problem is VAR seemed to not use all the angles.

Based on the top picture, Xhaka was in an offside position, interfering with the keeper. But the side on view removes depth perception.

When you then look at the view from behind the goal, it is clear and obvious that Xhaka and Schmeichel were not as close to each other as the side on picture made it.

VAR should have overruled the linesman’s clear and obvious error and allowed the goal.

Neither Aubameyang or Xhaka were interfering with play, and therefore not offside.

In all 3 games we had further chances to score.

Lacazette missed a chance to make it 1-1 against Liverpool, and 1-0 against Leicester, whilst Aubameyang missed a chance against Manchester City to make it 1-1.

Had the strikers done their job, the poor VAR decisions would not have had an impact.

But as it is, Arsenal were let down by the officials.

A goal incorrectly disallowed, a red card not given, a penalty turned down.

We have lost 3 games this season, siting in 10th place and for the first time there is a little bit of pressure on Mikel Arteta.

A hat trick of defeats; a hat trick of poor VAR decisions.

Keenos

Match Report: Arsenal 0 – 1 Leicester City

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Arsenal (0) 0 Leicester City (0) 1

Premier League

Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU

Sunday, 25th October 2020. Kick-off time: 7.15pm

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Hector Bellerin, David Luiz, Gabriel Magalhães, Kieran Tierney; Dani Ceballos, Granit Xhaka; Thomas Partey, Bukayo Saka, Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Substitutes: Alex Rúnarsson, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pépé, Shkodran Mustafi, Mohamed Elneny, Joe Willock, Eddie Nketiah.

Yellow Cards: Hector Bellerin, Alexandre Lacazette, Granit Xhaka

Arsenal Possession Percentage: 57%

Referee: Craig Pawson

Assistant Referees: Ian Hussin, Harry Lennard

Fourth Official: Graham Scott

VAR Team at Stockley Park: VAR Paul Tierney; AVAR Stephen Child

Attendance: A maximum of 300 attendees due to UK government coronavirus restructions

The omens are good today; we are unbeaten in our previous twenty-seven home games against Leicester City in all competitions, and of those, we have been victorious in twenty of them. Good to see Thomas Partey in the starting line-up for his first game in the Premiership here at the Emirates tonight, and after his excellent performance against Rapid Vienna three days ago, it will be interesting to see his impact on the match tonight. Let’s go!

A very exciting start for both teams! Within two minutes Bernd Leno was called into action, when his poor clearance fell to the feet of James Maddison, who struck a left-footed shot from about thirty-five yards which went just wide of the post. We snapped back into the action merely minutes later when our first corner of the game saw Alexandre Lacazette flick a header into the visitors’ net, which was cancelled out because Granit Xhaka was in an offside position (apparently). This merely strenghened our resolve, and over the next few minutes, David Luiz, Bukayo Saka and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang were all unlucky in not opening the scoring for us, thanks mainly to the goalkeeping prowess of Kasper Schmeichel, particularly in the case of the latter. Both Hector Bellerin and Kieran Tierney were playing exceptionally well in this period of the game, providing superb balls into the Leicester City penalty area for our strikers to run on to. On the half hour, a pass from David Luiz to Keiran Tierney saw the young Scotsman provide an excellent cross for Alexandre Lacazette to head the ball narrowly wide, which to be fair, should have been the opening goal. We continued to press the Foxes back into their own half, and again Alexandre Lacazette was desperately unlucky not to score when young Bukayo Saka’s clever flick-on saw the Frenchman shoot narrowly wide. As half-time beckoned, we were extremely confident and comfortable on (and off the ball, too); so much so that it seemed to be just a matter of time before we scored a goal.

And so, the second half started in earnest with Arsenal pushing the Foxes back into their own half. Unfortunately, David Luiz fell to the ground with an thigh injury and was unable to continue playing, so Shkodran Mustafi replaced him just five minutes after the restart. Bukayo Saka was brutally brought down by Wesley Fofana, and the subsequent free kick became a wasted effort. The visitors started to come back into the match, and audaciously, James Maddison spotted Bernd Leno off his line and tried his luck with a long-range shot, but thankfully our goalkeeper saw the danger as it happened and safely collected the ball. As the visitors’ talisman Jamie Vardy was introduced as a substitute just after the hour, Hector Bellerin was lucky not to receive a second yellow card from referee Craig Pawson when his slide tackle brought down James Justin rather clumsily. Shortly afterwards, Bukayo Saka was replaced by Nicolas Pépé in an effort by Mikel Arteta after sixty-five minutes, to put extra pressure on the Leicester defence, and although Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was unfortunate not to score when a clever ball from Hector Bellerin was picked up easily by Kasper Schmeichel, it was becoming patently obvious that we depserately needed a goal to get something out of this game, which started to level out now, despite the vistors trying to make a decent show of things. And then the unbelievable happened. With just ten minutes left, an inch perfect Youri Tielemans’ cross into our penalty area for who else, but Jamie Vardy to score with a diving header for the Foxes to take the lead. Almost immediately afterwards, Eddie Nketiah replaced Kieran Tierney in order for us to retrieve something from this match with just minutes remaining. Our frustration was becoming evident, as the harder we tried to equalise, the more difficult it became. We had a penalty shout when Eddie Nketiah was flattened in the Foxes’ penalty area, but Craig Pawson brushed away our players’ protests. With five minutes’ injury time, our efforts become more urgent and our frustrations became obvious, when Granit Xhaka got booked for a pointless tackle almost on the final whistle. It all came to nothing anyway a few minutes’ later, as Leicester City took maximum points from the game, their first win here since 1973.

Such a disappointment all round, really. Basically, we fell foul of a very clever game plan by Brendan Rodgers, which saw Leicester City soak up pressure, keep the scores equal and introduce a proven match winner who did the job, unfortunately. As far as we were concerned, it was a real lost opportunity; had we won this match, we would be in the top four tonight, but unfortunately it was not to be. A harsh lesson learned by all here at the Emirates.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Dundalk at the Emirates on Thursday 29th October at 8.00pm (Europa League). Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.