After the Shakhtar game in Champions League Arteta promised that Arsenal will be flying. Indeed we came out flying on Sunday…sadly only for the first half.
In the first half we were aggressive, we pushed Liverpool, we were creative and powerful. Saka produced another moment of sheer brilliance after and an excellent pass from Ben White. What a goal! What a captain-level of performance! I loved his comment after the game: “I feel like we didn’t show our best selves for 90 minutes and it cost us in the end. We believe we should have won it.”. This is the mentality of a title winner.
Martinelli made runs into the box, Trossard was turning the opponents and distributing the ball, Rice cleared up any sniff Liverpool had at counterattacks, he has also put in amazing crosses. One of those gave us the fully deserved lead just before half time. To be fair, Liverpool almost posed no threat and all the attacking attempts were coming from Luiz Diaz trying to exploit Partey’s weaknesses. One of them ended with a very well executed corner, but that was about it from the guests.
Partey by the way, who was my biggest concern pre-match, did very well against Diaz. He used his size and great positioning to anticipate Diaz’s movements and not let him even try to speed up. And even if on couple of occasions Diaz made into the box, it is normal for most of his opponents.
Back to defending the castle
The second half was completely different. Yes, Liverpool needed to score and they were more aggressive. But we had absolutely no counter game. Our first shot came on 75th minute only. I know people are saying about the injury problems. But until 75th minute the only change we did from the first half is Kiwior for Gabriel. And Kiwior had actually a pretty decent game except the episode conceded goal. So I am not sure this change is good enough justification for being extra conservative on the pitch and not continue doing what we did in the first half.
Actually, we were much more aggressive with two teenagers on the pitch and without Saka and Martinelli. So it’s not about the team feeling not confident in their setup, it’s the general tendency driven by Arteta that can be noticed in many matches this year.
The performance on Etihad was a miracle and I think it is ironically hurting us in assessing our abilities. Holding out the tight lead is not a great long-term strategy. It doesn’t work against a team of very strong individuals, like Liverpool. It’s very hard to have a mistake-free game. It’s not how Man City wins game after game – they concede a decent amount of goals, but they always press to score more than the opponent, because they have higher quality of players. And what’s important it’s not how we did our successful run in the first four months of the year – we were dominating the opponents for the whole game, we were beating Chelsea by 5 goals at home.
There were a couple of games where we defended the lead, like the one on Old Trafford. Remember, how nervous it was! Thankfully, Ten Hag’s Man United was quite impotent. The news of him getting sacked is just tragic! Now, if they hire Amorim or Xavi, we will have problems again on that stadium.
Moreover, I believe that the defending in the low block sucks out energy of our attacking players, like Saka and Trossard. Do you recall how they were driving past the Liverpool players in the first half? None of that after the break. Don’t get me wrong, Saka tries to defend with the team. But he doesn’t have the same attacking spark, as when we are going at the opponent.
If we set up a low block, then we need to setup proper counter attacking patterns. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen Liverpool reach the opponent’s box in three passes after they defended their own corner, already once in this season. Why can they do this and we can’t? We have quick players in the likes of Martinelli, Havertz and Saka. We have the players to give long precise passes – we don’t need look further than the authors of two assists in Rice and White.
The problem is our defensive 4-4-2 structure that locks wingers quite deep in our own half and the only one who could make the runs behind the defence line is actually Havertz. I know that it’s harder to crack up the 4-4-2 setup, but I believe it would be beneficial to sacrifice some of that defensive solidity for the constant counter attacking threat.
So, what are the conclusions from the game?
One of the main takeaways from Sunday is that Slot’s Liverpool is not at the explosive levels of Klopp’s team. They are more conservative, they pay more attention to the defensive structure and they don’t get these famous energy bursts. They won’t turn a 1-0 defeat into a 3-1 victory in the 15 minute span. Which means two things: they are hard to score against, but if somebody manages to do that, they will have a hard time to make a comeback. This was basically the pattern of their only defeat to Nottingham Forest.
We still have a bunch of players who stepped up their level in a very important game – Partey, Rice, Benjamin White. Timber had a very impressive defensive display. Merino also, who is actually a very interesting case. On one hand, he looks quite clumsy with the ball at times. On the other hand he was quite efficient – he distributes the ball, poses aerial threat and even catches a ball trying to replicate Bergkamp and broke his back at the same time. It’s interesting that both of our summer signings scored their single goals vs Liverpool and Man City. That speaks of a mentality of players that we are hiring and that’s definitely inspiring.
At the same time we still have finishing issues. Havertz and Martinelli had a couple of opportunities to increase our lead in the first half, especially the chance after Konate’s slide in the box that Kai should have put in the net.
There are complaints on Kiwior not being at the needed level. Well, first, Arteta doesn’t give him much gaming time and calls up only when there’s a problem with the main defenders. And then fans complain that he was surprisingly bad without the gaming practice. Isn’t game practice making most of the players better? Partey looks a level better than he was at the start of this season and two levels better than the end of last season. Why couldn’t Kiwior start against Shakhtar, since we knew Saliba was out for Liverpool? Maybe it would save Gabriel from the injury. Why couldn’t Nwaneri play 30-40 minutes against Shakhtar?
It’s still a pattern that Arteta plays the small trusted set of players whenever possible and then we one of them breaks we are all surprised that the replacement is not decent. It’s actually a miracle that Nwaneri comes out and looks quite well connected with the team, considering how much real practice he had.
League table
We are 4 points behind Liverpool and 5 points behind City. Considering the observations about Liverpool and the fact that City struggles to claim their wins easily, we can still catch up with them around January.
If we count 96 points as the needed number to win the league, it makes 48 points in first round, which means that we need to have 10 straight victories to keep up with the pace. In theory considering our calendar it is not impossible. The main test would be two next games, especially the one on Stamford Bridge, where we were the second best team a year ago. If we manage to get six points out of those two, then we will have Odegaard back from injury and a good calendar to finish the year.
Annoying referees
The referee display was not as outrageous as some displays before. Yes, he blew most of 50/50 decisions in Liverpool’s favour. Yes Diaz kicked the ball away and was not booked. Yes, he could have given a penalty on Martinelli and VAR wouldn’t overturn it and the only reason why it wasn’t given is because he didn’t give it initially.
However, the annoying part is the last cancelled goal. And it’s not because I think it should have counted. I think Havertz fouled on Trent right before Jesus has scored and VAR would never let that slide. It’s because this demonstrative pause he took before the actual episode and the whistle and because he stopped the game as soon as understood there might be a goal.
Squad for Preston
We play with Preston on Wednesday evening. With the amount of injuries I don’t want to see any critical players. I don’t want to see White and Timber. I don’t want to see Rice and Partey. I don’t want to see Havertz, Saka and Martinelli. We can’t risk one more injury before such a critical away week of Newcastle/Inter/Chelsea. Carabao Cup is not the trophy worthy of the performances this team had and it’s for surely not worthy of risking two main competitions. If we win – great, we might reconsider our attitude in the semifinal, when the CL group phase is over. If we lose – one less source of worries for injuries.
My preferred line up would be: Raya – Nicholls, Saliba, Kiwior, Zinchenko, MLS, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Jesus, Sterling and either some unknown name or Trossard for 60 + Martinelli for 30. And Merino also as the one to strengthen the team from the bench.
I think line-up will be stronger, it doesn’t fit Arteta’s approach. What would be your starting eleven?