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Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
Mikel Arteta described yesterday’s game as Arsenal’s worst performance of the season, and even if I wasn’t too hungover to argue with him, I wouldn’t argue with him. It would be a fool’s errand.
Despite the bright start and the early goal from Bukayo Saka after Gabriel Martinelli’s shot was saved, it was dismal stuff from Arsenal. Individually, collectively, just not good enough. If I want to see men using their sport ball very, very slowly, I will go and become a fan of lawn bowls.
Touch. Touch. Touch. Slow pass. Touch. Touch. Touch. Slow pass. See an opportunity for a quick pass, ignore it. Touch. Touch. Touch. Slow pass. Slow pass. See an opportunity for a quick pass, ignore it. Touch. Touch. Touch. Slow pass.
Argh. It’s like some kind of malaise.
“Doctor, please help – I’ve got slow balls.”
I have bemoaned Oleksandr Zinchenko’s propensity to do this in the last couple of games, but it’s not just him. Players like Declan Rice and William Saliba were at it yesterday, and the way it impacts the game is that it lets a team like Fulham get organised too easily, and so much so that the Shirley Bassey lad was doing pirouettes at will. You can’t let that happen.
To be fair, I think Fulham played pretty well while we were well below par. Bernd Leno was basically a spectator. Their equaliser came from a nice move which we were about 3% off in terms of defending but that’s all it takes. The goal that turned out to be the winner was a touch fortunate in terms of how it broke to them in the box after a corner, but did we defend it as well as we could have? I don’t think so.
The manager made changes, but this was the equivalent of coming home to see your house on fire and then pouring a load of petrol on it. The shift to the back three made us even more ineffective. Everything was too narrow. Without full-backs we couldn’t get the ball out wide and it was easy for Fulham to…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/01/fulham-2-1-arsenal-crappy-new-year/
Author : arseblog
Publish date : 2024-01-01 09:28:02
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