Match Report: Arsenal 2 – 2 Southampton

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Arsenal (1) 2 Southampton (1) 2
Premier League
Emirates Stadium, Drayton Park, London N5 1BU
Saturday, 23rd November 2019. Kick-off time: 3.00pm

(3-4-1-2) Bernd Leno; Calum Chambers, David Luiz, Sokratis Papastathopoulos; Hector Bellerin, Lucas Torreira, Mattéo Guendouzi, Kieran Tierney; Mesut Özil; Alexandre Lacazette, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Substitutes: Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Nicolas Pépé, Shkodran Mustafi, Reiss Nelson, Emiliano Martínez, Joe Willock, Gabriel Martinelli.
Scorers: Alexandre Lacazette (18 mins, 90+6 mins)
Yellow Cards: Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Lucas Torreira, Nicolas Pépé, Mattéo Guendouzi, Kieran Tierney, Alexandre Lacazette
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 62%
Referee: Stuart Attwell
Attendance: 60,295

Upon leaving the Emirates after the Crystal Palace match a few weeks ago, a friend of mine overheard an excited young boy asking his father if they could go to the next game; in reply, Dad said that he couldn’t afford to take him again for a while, but as soon as he could scrape the money together for them to go back, then he would. Contrast that story with the Arsenal Board of Directors, well-heeled, successful and wealthy members to a man.

Their power is absolute; make no mistake, Stan Kroenke’s hand-picked group of bureaucrats hold the future of Arsenal Football Club in their very hands. But remember, the Board of Directors are merely only the custodians of the club, and like us, eventually will pass the torch onto the next generation of Arsenal people. The disconnect is, of course, they are able to make decisions that can alter the direction of the club, and we are unable to do so, therefore making us utterly helpless. Soon, they will be forced to make a decision over the future of the manager, and depending on the outcome, could very well determine as to whether there will be an exodus of both players and supporters at the end of the season; bearing in mind that attending Premiership football matches these days is no longer an affordable day out for many supporters, if the decision that they ultimately arrive at should be the incorrect one, then it could very well be that it will be will not just be the aforementioned father and son that won’t be attending matches at the Emirates over the next few years, it may well be everybody.

Here we go again, what price concentration for our defenders? After just eight minutes of the match, a sense of déjà vupermeated the winter air of The Emirates, when a seemingly innocuous free-kick taken quickly by Ryan Bertrand found the foot of Danny Ings, who wasted no time in placing the visitors ahead with a firm shot that went into the back of our net viathe post. For the next few minutes after conceding the opening goal of the day, we were completely all at sea, with no clue whatsoever how to defend, or even an idea of how to break out of our half; that was until the eighteenth minute, when plucky little Mesut Özil, playing in the deep-lying centre-forward (Puskas) role, appeared on the left side of the pitch and passed the ball to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, whose shot was blocked on the line. Thankfully his striking partner Alexandre Lacazette was on hand to finish the job, to equalise the scores, so early in the game.

Southampton came at us time and time again after our equaliser, as they seemed to realise that our defence is extremely suspect under pressure, which it is, of course. And still we play out from the back, and still we get caught out. Insanity. We received two bookings in the first half from referee Stuart Attwell, one for Lucas Torreira after he performed a reckless challenge on Nathan Redmond, and an unlucky one for Sokratis Papastathopoulos, when his trailing arm caught Danny Ings after half an hour. We had an inability to impose our will on the opposition and ultimately, the match; no surprise when the half-time whistle went, the cat-calls and abuse rang out across the stadium as the players trundled off, leaving this unhappy half of frustration behind them.

Nicolas Pépé replaced Calum Chambers for the second half, and in doing so, Unai Emery changed the team formation in a heartbeat. But even then, it still wasn’t convincing, as the visitors soaked up pressure easily. With the exception of Nicolas Pépé’s shot hitting the bar, and Alex McCarthy stopping Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s shot from close-quarters, the inevitable happened on the seventy-first minute. Southampton took the lead from a James Ward-Prowse penalty, when he scored from the rebound of Bernd Leno’s initial save. From then on, we were totally on the back foot, and were extremely fortunate that we did not concede even more goals. Incredibly, our chance came in the sixth minute of injury time when Alexandre Lacazette equalised from a Gabriel Martinelli cross; embarrassed, he did not seem in the slightest bit interested in celebrating his goal. A minute or so later, the final whistle blew, and the Emirates crowd again showed their displeasure in the way that we have come to expect in recent matches.

This match, from our perspective, was a disgrace. Twelve shots on goal, five on target, whilst Southampton had twenty-one shots on goal, with six on target. And six of our players booked as well; all against a team (no disrespect intended to Southampton) who shipped nine against Leicester City and are languishing second from bottom in the Premiership table. The whole club has now become toxic and needs a root and branch reform, and quickly too. If it is left too long, then I fear the damage could be almost irreversible.

Remember everyone, keep the faith, as this season is going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Our next match: Eintracht Frankfurt at The Emirates on Thursday, 28th November at 8.00pm (Europa League). Be there, if you can. 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.

 

 

Its been 5 long weeks since the last international break

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How quickly things can change in football.

A month ago I, prior to the last international break, I was filled with optimism.

Arsenal were not playing brilliant but were still 3rd in the league. It felt like the international break had come at the right time and Arsenal would kick on after it.

The 2 weeks off would give more time for Hector Bellerin, Kieran Tiernay and Rob Holding to return to match fitness. It would also provide another 2 weeks for Nicolas Pepe to adapt to life in England. With other sides faltering, it felt like 3rd place was our realistic minimum target.

Arsenal did return a different team after the international break. And in the space of 5 weeks we have been multiple different teams.

7 games played, 1 victory.

In those 7 games, we have only played the same starting formation in back to back games once. The last 6 games has seen us play 6 different formations.

Defeats at Sheffield United and Leicester, lost leads against Wolves, Crystal Palace, Liverpool & Vitoria. It has been a horrible 5 weeks.

Unai Emery has to shoulder the blame for Arsenal’s performances. He  is a man who is lost.

He is clearly overthinking things. Over complicating things. Constantly chopping and changing what he is trying to do. Players like confused. Unsure what to do.

The fact that he is putting a positive spin on poor results is baffling.

I am all for “positive mental attitude” but Emery seems to have his head in the sand when it comes to Arsenal’s poor results.

“We did our game plan” was his response to the 2-0 defeat against Leicester.

The fact that he sees thinks not losing when leading is a “positive” shows that he is a man without ideas.

Emery continually talks about the team not playing to the idea in his head, but he seems unable to recognise that it is the idea in his head that is wrong.

He seems to have a different idea for every game, on how to combat the opposition. But that is leading to different formations and an over complication for players.

The players are not playing with freedom. They do not look comfortable. It is like they have so much going on in their heads that they become mentally exhausted.

Proof is in the pudding. Arsenal have yet to win a game not playing 4231.

He has baffling dropped Nicolas Pepe. This follows him not playing Mesut Ozil for much of the season. Hector Bellerin took an age to return to the side. His selections have been confusing.

Prior to the last international break I was optimistic. It came at the right time giving us time to get players back to fitness.

This international break the mentality is different. I am actually looking forward to a weekend without football. I might visit a garden centre. Is it too early to put up my Christmas decorations?

I have backed Emery from day one. He seemed a good fit to take over from Arsene Wenger. But time is now running out for him. The Arsenal senior leadership team have some thinking to do over the next 2 weeks.

Enjoy the break.

Keenos

Match Report: Leicester 2 – 0 Arsenal

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Leicester City (0) 2 Arsenal (0) 0
Premier League
King Power Stadium, Filbert Way, Leicester LE2 7FL
Saturday, 9th November 2019. Kick-off time: 5.30pm

(3-4-1-2) Bernd Leno; Rob Holding, David Luiz, Sead Kolašinac; Hector Bellerin, Lucas Torreira, Calum Chambers, Mattéo Guendouzi; Mesut Özil; Alexandre Lacazette; Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
Substitutes: Kieran Tierney, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Nicolas Pépé, Emiliano Martínez, Joe Willock, Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka.
Yellow Cards: Hector Bellerin
Arsenal Possession Percentage: 49%
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Attendance: 32,211

Make no mistake about it, this match today at the King Power Stadium is truly a pivotal one for us, and so early into the season as well. After recent results and performances, a victory is crucial for so many reasons, but not all of them are football ones. Arsenal find themselves in a position of both flux and confusion, and our multi-talented squad have recently become an enigma of the first order. We may not well find all of our answers on this cold and rainy November evening in Leicestershire, but we could be on our way to at least knowing some of them.

Today’s unusual three-at-the-back formation means that there is no place in the starting line-up for either Kieran Tierney or Sokratis Papastathopoulos; time will tell the wiseness of this decision, along with Mesut Özil being the solitary playmaker in the centre of the park under this system. As expected, the home side came out of the blocks quickly and confidently; in the first ten minutes they made their intentions more than clear with several attacks on our goal in which we were fortunate not to concede so early on in the match. Alexandre Lacazette was desperately unlucky not to score from close range after fifteen minutes, and five minutes later was unlucky when his attempt went wide of the Leicester goal. The match now became a fairly cut-and-thrust game, with both sides having chances which were squandered.

As the first half wore on, we became very sloppy and started to give the ball away in vital areas of the pitch. At times we did give a decent account of ourselves, and although our play wasn’t the most exciting we have played all season, we did manage to hold our own under difficult circumstances. We also rode our luck when the home side created chances that we were unable to neutralise, and a few minutes after a Leicester City free-kick which hit the top of Bernd Leno’s net, the referee’s whistle went for the half-time break and we could all breathe a deep sigh of relief.

The second half arrived and with it, more problems started to mount for us all over the pitch. Just four minutes after the restart, Wilfried Ndidi hit the crossbar with Bernd Leno beaten, but somehow, a little while later, we managed to get a ball up to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who although scored, was offside. All this served to do was wake the home side up; we collapsed, they regrouped, kept their shape and applied more and more pressure, We fell deep, and they simply contained us in our half. Of course, the inevitable happened; not once, but twice in seven minutes. First, their talisman Jamie Vardy, and then James Maddison, their £20 million pound man, applied the coup de grâce. Game over. In a vain attempt to get something out of the game, Nicolas Pépé and Joe Willock were brought on in place of Rob Holding and Lucas Torreira, but the effect was merely cosmetic, and we saw out the end of the game in disarray and our morale at rock bottom.

Let’s face it, we didn’t expect to get anything out of today’s match, and therefore we were not surprised as to the end result here. Hopeless, useless, clueless and feckless; at this moment in time, we are in sixth place in the Premiership and eight points shy of the top four. If anyone even so much as thinks we are going to make the Champions League placings at the end of the year, then they are truly deluded. Eight shots, one on target; the players must take responsibility for this mess as well. What is to be done now; is the manager to be replaced and the side broken up? Whatever the solution is for this gordian knot, the next two weeks are crucial. Let’s hope the time in which we don’t play in the international break fortnight is used wisely. But somehow I doubt it. 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: Southampton at The Emirates on Saturday, 23rd November at 3.00pm (Premier League). Be there, if you can. 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.