By Tony Attwood
And so we have to admit two things. One is that there really has been no plan B for what to do in the event of a Saka injury, and the other that Arsemal have not been prepared for a player like Maguire being allowed by the referee to run beserk for a miniute or so, disrupting everything and turning the pitch into chaos.
Martin Ødegaard, had perhaps not experienced anything like it before, and it certainly affected him. That was not a normal Ødegaard penalty.
Should Arsenal be ready for such events; for a long term injury to Saka and a player deliberately running beserk on the pitch disrupting and goading the opposition and being allowed to do so by the referee?
Well, yes I suppose they should. Injuries happen, the opposition have been targetting Saka with kicks in what looks like an organised way for the past 18 months, and there have been chances to sign someone else for this moment when Arsenal are Saka-less. But then, what would X – the player who could come in and take over from Saka – have been doing until now?
The other approach would have been to have been practicing playing without Saka all the way through, although that would have seemed wasteful of time
Saka made his Premier League debut on 1 January 2019, oming on for Alex Iwobi in the 83rd minute. In 2018/19 Saka made one start and came on as a sub three times. The following season he made 29 appearances and scored four goals. By 2020/21 he was making 41 starts and it has been like that ever since.
How does one set up a cover for the situatiion in which he is not available? I am not really sure one can.and that inevitably means when he has gone, as he has for the moment, it is difficult to find a way around the situation.
So after two consecutive defeats to Manchester U everything is now doom and gloom. The fact that before these last two games Arsenal played 12 games, won nine, drew three and lost none, is either forgotten or ignored. The fact that in that run Arsenal score 33 goals is also forgotten or ignored.
Arsenal, we are told, should have devised some way of playing without Saka to be ready for this moment, and one might say well, yes, maybe they should, but it could have taken up valuable training time and perhaps reduced those nine wins and three draws to something less spectacular.
Winning the league always means having some luck – and that usually means luck in two areas. One is with injuries and one is with referees. The latter we can probably forget, but as for the former, yes we had that luck with Saka for all the time in which he wasn;’t injured and was playing an extraordinary number of games. Now we don’t.
Next up we have Tottenham and while before now we might have been saying that this would be a saunter in the park, given their form, the fact is that we now have to note where they actually are in the league and we have to admit that we seem to be having difficulty with these lesser, lower placed teams in the league.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 19 | 14 | 4 | 1 | 47 | 19 | 28 | 46 |
| 2 | Arsenal | 20 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 39 | 18 | 21 | 40 |
| 12 | Tottenham Hotspur | 20 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 42 | 30 | 12 | 24 |
| 13 | Manchester United | 20 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 23 | 28 | -5 | 23 |
Arsenal’s home games have been looking decidedly rocky for a while now, and the fact that we have only won two of the last five home games, and both were by a single goal against clubs in the lower part of the league, shows that Arsenal are in urgent need of a good solid home win.
| Date | Match | Res | Score | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Dec 24 | Arsenal v Everton | D | 0-0 | Premier League |
| 18 Dec 24 | Arsenal v Crystal Palace | W | 3-2 | League Cup |
| 27 Dec 24 | Arsenal v Ipswich Town | W | 1-0 | Premier League |
| 07 Jan 25 | Arsenal v Newcastle Un | L | 0-2 | League Cup |
| 12 Jan 25 | Arsenal v Manchester Un | L | 1-1 | FA Cup |
A win against Tottenham is always doubly delightful but this week it is going to be even more delightful than that.
During most of Arsenal’s games I text message a Brazilian friend who supports Arsenal and a few weeks ago I mentioned to him how the of missing Saka has had an enormous affect on the team but more so on Odegaard who does look for him most of the time to make a pass , this is only now coming to light .
Yesterdays game there are many points to question the referee regrading the game , IMO the referee bottled a decision to second yellow card Martinez after he went through the back of Odegaard , Martinez at that point thought he was in trouble with the look on his face , second point Saliba getting an elbow to the face , completely missed by the referee but acceptable to Alan Shearer who commented “ you’ve got to protect the ball at all cost “ so an elbow to the face is ok . Saliba had to go off the pitch to receive treatment while we defended a corner .
Not going to mention of no VAR
I trurned the sound off so as not to continue to listen to Shearer talking his customary sh…te.
Arsenal have been poor all season. There have been very few games where they have played as well as they did in the second half of last year or most of the year before. They look slow and ponderous compared to before. It remains glaringly obvious – they need a proper striker. I dont expect Arteta to go and get the first one he finds but it is just arrogance to suppose that we can be successful at the highest level with strikers that are not going to get more than 10-12 PL goals per season.
No one can tell me that we have played really well this year. Yes we have injuries but after building a team for 5 years we should be able to cope. Maybe we have to give up this year too, but lets not fail next year for the same reason
A most disappointing result, especially coming a few days after the Newcastle loss, but in my opinion not that surprising. It seems to me that our style of play has altered from last season and not for the better. The pace at which we play seems a lot slower and more methodical with more of a defensive flavour than last season. Lots of slow sideways and backward passes trying to draw our opponents out of position which allows the other team plenty of time to position themselves defensively. It is most frustrating to get up the pitch and then run out of ideas and finish up going all the way back to David Raya to start again. In these passages of play you can predict where the next pass is going, there is very little variation or spontaneity. I think the other teams have found us out and reacted accordingly to negate our style of play. Last year we went for teams aggressively right from the kick off and we were far less predictable.
Fortunately we have remained competitive in the league due to our brilliant goal return from set piece situations without which I think we would be much further down the league table.
Of course injuries to key players have played a massive part in disrupting any chance of progress from last seasons performances and the usual referees ‘reserved for Arsenal only’ type decisions have inflicted damage on us as well.
I am sure Mikel Arteta is far more aware of our current short comings than me, and he and the entire team are doing all they can to get us back to our best for the upcoming Spurs match.
COYG
Indeed Andrew, I know no one can tell you, but the reality goes beyond your point. Let’s accept for a moment that Arsenal have been “poor all season” as you have said. Then in that case it is staggeringly amazing that Arsenal are second in the Premier League. Just imagine where they would be if they were playing moderately – not even well but just moderately. We’d be top. So the logical thing is surely to up the level of performance just a bit and we’d be ok.
Chickens came home to roost for Arteta today.
Small squad at breaking point.
He went all-in against MUFC. Didn’t get a performance. Lost Jesus long-term, maybe lost Jorginho.
Didn’t get the attacking bounce.
Went to extra time, lost on penalties.
Fatigued starters for massive PL week
Arteta is the head fitness coach. Dead players is on him. Until he learns to manage player load, we’ll always be like this. Awful day out. An absolute disaster.
Injuries have played a large part in how we have played this season , I am more than likely wrong but last season Thomas Partey was unavailable for some time and Declan Rice played sweeper in front of the back line in which he did a great job . This season he’s played more on the left with Partey playing central , has this effected Martinelli’s game the left fullback has hardly ever overlapped Martinelli which has left Martinelli always with two opposing players to contend with .
Also because of injuries so many changes each game MA has changed how we play from a team which goes forward to much safer controlled game hopefully not leaving us exposed , alas in a few game our opponents have scored with there first attack .
In our last 2 matches, we have mostly dominated the game. Poor finishing / some bad luck are major factors. Yesterday, MU goalmouth seemed to have a magnetic field preventing the ball going in. However, in both games we have been vulnerable to isolated rapid attacks, as if one result of having most of the possession may be a lapse of concentration in the defence.
Although some serious errors have been pointed out by others (failure to see delberate elbow assault on Saliba, failure to issue a red card to Martinez and fai;ure to deal with Maguire going berserk) I felt that Mr. Madley was not biased in his approach to the game. The first red card and the correct penalty decisions were evidence of this. Although he might have been stricter in the end, he did call out the numerous deliberate fouls by MU players. As part of his usual bo…ox talk, Shearer claimed the penalty was harsh. It was nothing of the kind for a stiff-armed body check. If it were an Arsenal defender, he would have given the benefit of any doubt to the opponent – “he’s entitled to go down in that situation” etc.
Noting Walter’s earlier renarks about the white strip, I remember that this was Arsenal’s standard change strip in the event of an away colour clash. (although it did have red trim). This was before the yellow strip was adopted.
MSM: Small squad? Arsenal have a 22 man squad excluding players under 21, which is much the same as most teams. It is impossible to recruit more players over 21 who are any good, becacuse ethey know their chances of playing are small, so deecent players won’t sign up to be part of a bigger sqauad unless they think they will get a game. There is no way around this: club’s build a squad guessing they will get an average number of players injuried. Get fewer and they then have to rotate and get criticised for that or risk players leaving, which can only be overcome by ever higher wages. Get more and they have restless players who don’t get a game.