Arsenal lost three out of the last 4 games at St James Park. And the only win was a very tough game with an Odegaard long shot as an opener. In these four years Arteta hasn’t truly learned to open up Newcastle’s defence in away games. It is quite a surprising turn of events, given that we’ve gotten much better at Etihad and Anfield.
However, some of the mistakes could have been avoided today. In the preview I wrote that we need wingbacks that will help wingers with overlaps, free up them from additional marking and put additional pressure on their wingbacks. I feared we would see Partey on the right and Timber on the left and Arteta walked right into that. It was so predictable that Eddie Howe even didn’t bother to put a true winger on the right side, but just rolled out a bully Joelington, since he knew there would be no need to track the runs deep into Newcastle’s defence. He expected an extra body in our midfield and put an even bigger body into theirs.
On the opposite side there was Timber, who is a right sided player and is naturally moving into centre when playing there, since he can’t support the attacking threat with his left leg. So instead of two players who can help our wingers, we got two that crowded up the midfield, which was already overcrowded with large Newcastle bodies. Our pass map with average position pretty much demonstrates that.
We played like this for 60 minutes, out of which around 45 we were trailing behind and there has been no change. How does Arteta not see that? If our most creative player on the field is Saka, shouldn’t we get around him as much attacking support as he needs and not complement him with a prolific defensive midfielder? In the end, as soon as he received the ball, Joelington just pulled back to double up on Bukayo and minimise the threat from him. The same happened with Martinelli.
I think Arteta’s logic probably was “defensive stability first” and with regard to attack – we will cross the bridge at some point. So the defenders were selected accordingly. We are coming back to the “defending the castle” mentality. It doesn’t work in the Premier League because of the quality of players. There are many teams that have great players that can produce moments of individual brilliance irrespective of how their team plays. And that’s exactly what happened when Gordon delivered that beautiful cross and Newcastle was pretty much non-threatening ever since. We also don’t have to go far for a confirmation of this rule – just look at Brighton’s goal at Anfield.
That’s why relying on a one goal victory is going to bring you only as far as Newcastle goes. But if you are set up to constantly create a threat you can hope that it will pay off with more goals than the opponent can produce by using individual skills. That’s how we had our brilliant run last year. We were dominating all over the pitch, so that opponents couldn’t even think about a successful counterattack. But if they see that your team is not threatening for a significant period of time, they grow in confidence they can actually grab something from this game. This is also true for defenders. If we started terrorising Hall and Livramento from minute one with wingbacks, they would not be able to have enough confidence and adrenalin to deal with that, when Arteta finally made the subs. It also didn’t help that Saka looked already a bit tired at that moment.
I can’t complain about Arteta’s subs. He rolled out every possible attacking power he had a disposal. It didn’t help. At all. But I think that if we started Timber on the right and Kiwior on the left, the game could have gone very differently. Both defenders would be able to move forward and provide threat from their stronger foot.
But in the end, Eddie Howe predicted our setup, protected against our most threatening players, even more solidified midfield with Tonali in the second half to protect the lead and fully succeeded.
How did individuals do?
To sum up in one sentence – it was a bad game for all our attacking group:
- Saka, while producing a couple of brilliant crosses, was not at the level he can play.
- Martinelli lost the ball very often,
- Havertz and Trossard basically had a total stinker. But I can’t remember a single successful threatening action from them.
- Merino was not convincing and failed to score in the greatest chance of the first half.
- Rice covered a lot of ground as always and was quite proactive. But he failed to score after a very good cross and didn’t give a ball to any of teammates when he impressively dribbled into the box.
- Ethan Nwaneri finally got a decent chunk of the game and he finally wasn’t as impressive as in the previous cameos. I didn’t think Newcastle was a great opposition for him given their physicality and it turned out to be the exact truth. However, given that everybody was bad, I can’t draw a conclusion from his performance.
It’s been a second game in two weeks, where everyone was bad and it starts to be concerning. In general, in the whole of this season we have never dominated an opponent completely. We haven’t had a fluid attacking flow, even when Odegaard was fit. And today, except for Martin, we had everyone available who shined last season. If we are going to contend for big titles, we can’t fully depend on the presence of a single player.
Tournament perspectives
City had lost to Bournemouth (the loss with 10 men doesn’t look as bad anymore), but they’ve lost a couple of attacking players and basically Gvardiol is carrying their attack on his shoulders. Liverpool turned around the Brighton game with a 5-minute explosion from the famous faces. Yes, they were playing at home and were probably energised by the crowd. But they are still making these lightning transitions where in one moment the ball is on their half and in the next, Salah is already in the opponent’s box, sending the ball in the end. I always look with jealousy at their abilities.
We are now 7 points behind Liverpool and 5 being City. But it doesn’t make sense to discuss our chances before we fix our attacking flow and have a recognisable pattern of confidently winning games.
On Wednesday we go to Milan and play Inter in the Champions League and I will attend this game IN-PERSON!! This tournament is more relaxing and both teams would be satisfied with a draw – the direction I think the game will be heading, bar some brilliant individual action. Hopefully I at least get to see some goals!
