The last time i remember being so frustrated watching an Arsenal game was last year in the Champions League against Farcelona, when we got robbed with a second yellow card given to Robin and we lost the game. Unfortunately, today my frustration was not caused by the referee but by our own shitty, shitty performance! I don't want to hear anything about penalties not given for us and so on because Norwich should have had a penalty of their own in the first half. The bottom line is that we were way to lethargic and casual for long periods of the game. It would have been very unjust if we put up a shitty effort and got a result today. I don't mind winning ugly matches but you can't expect to win matches with a lack of effort.
We couldn't have asked for a better start. Yossi scored a great goal and you would think that is the perfect start for a comfortable home win. But for the next 45 minutes we got completely outplayed. We got pressed high in our own half by Norwich, the possession in the 20th minute was 53% to 47% for Norwich. We missed so many passes; players were not on the same page and we couldn't really get a flow offensively. Szczesny had a poor game for a second week in a row. He has to save the first goal. I don't care if you expect that shot or not, the ball was not hit hard enough to be a goal. And it was right at him as well. Defensively, today we were as poor as i have seen us play. Every time Norwich had a chance to counter we would end up with 3 (players) vs 3 (players) situations in front of our goal. Sometimes even 3 vs 2 for them. To me that's just lack of effort on part of the midfielders and the pretty much the whole team. At times it looked that players would switch off and be like "you guys take care of this situation at the back, we will take care of the attacking". Good teams play like a team and players don't take breaks because your team gets punished. As i mentioned earlier, Norwich should have had a penalty as well, when Koscielny pulled the shit out of Martin's shirt.
The second half started similar to the first: we were a bit more dangerous going forward but we kept getting caught on the break and we were lucky not to concede a third. A few key moments got stuck in my head:
1) in the 51st minute we get caught by a counter, Jackson from Norwich gets the ball in the middle of the pitch, Ramsey is right behind him, he chases him for a few yards and then slows down/quits. Jackson pushes up in our own half and we have him and Holt vs Vermaelen and Song (2 vs 2 again!). Quick change of direction = Vermaelen is on the ground and Jackson has a great scoring chance which luckily for us he shot right at Szczesny. This whole situation is preventable or at least reduced to being less of a scoring chance if Ramsey continues to chase Jackson and pressures him until he gets help. Instead i guess he feels that being down 2-1 vs Norwich at home is ok and decides to let Vermaelen and Song "handle this one". This one moments sums up our whole effort today: not good enough; not playing/defending as a team but rather as individuals.
2) 58th minute. Bad back pass by Vermaelen, Szczesny almost fucks up the clearance but somehow gets the ball to Gibbs who is on the left side, deep in our territory. Gibbs is immediately surrounded by 2 Norwich players and eventually loses possession. That's in the 58th minute, we are playing at home and we are losing 1-2!Again, something is wrong with this picture: we are fighting for 3rd place but Norwich are outplaying and out-hustling us at home!! Which begs the question, which team wants it more?
After the 60th minute we took control of the game and started creating chances. Norwich decided that they did their job and allowed us more time on the ball which proved to be a bad decision. We missed a few good chances but eventually RVP scored a great goal after a good pass from Song. That goal woke us up and we continued to press and create opportunities. The 2nd goal Robin scored was a bit lucky in the way the ball got to him but it was a well deserved goal to put us up 3-2.
And this is when i still can't believe how naive we are. We decided that we did our job and Norwich will just lay down and accept defeat. They on the other hand, realized that not pressing us like they did for the first 60 minutes is a bad idea and started putting pressure on us. Coquelin had a bad back pass and Norwich almost took advantage of it. That should have been a warning sign. Then immediately after that Szczesny was shaky and spilled the ball from a regular cross. I guess even after this two warning signs, we still didn't realize that we will get scored on if we continue to defend like this. Howson gave a great pass to Morison and the only person back was Koscielny. I don't know why Vermaelen decided to play so high up the pitch in that situation considering that both Coquelin and Gibbs were further up the pitch and Holt and Morison were basically 2 vs 2 on him and Koscielny. Another bad defensive sequence led to a deserved punishment and i can't say i didn't see it coming. Regardless of the fact that we created at least 3 or 4 more goal scoring chances in the next 10 minutes or so. We didn't deserve to win today just because you can't be rewarded for playing hard 30 minutes out of 90. You can't be rewarded when you don't show desire and effort for 90 minutes.
It's still mind boggling to me, how can we not be motivated enough to put a strong 90 minute performance when we know our faith is in our own hands? I am not saying players didn't try hard. They didn't try hard as a TEAM. If you want to be a top 4 team in England, you have to be able to hold a lead for 10 minutes. Or at least make it hard on the other team to score. We didn't do either.
I do think we miss Arteta a lot. I don't think people realize how much defensive work he did and how well he controlled our pace when we had the ball. Ramsey was absolutely awful today and i can't believe how badly his form has dipped. He could have gotten a second yellow today; he can't organize anything offensively at the moment; and i think that influences him in the wrong way because he stops putting enough effort defensively. He should have been off at half time. Rosicky was our best midfielder today together with Song. Yossi scored a great goal and had another great chance to score with a header but for long periods of the game he was gone. Gervinho finally had a strong game. He made some great runs and gave some great passes for people to score. He was unlucky not to get an assist today. Oxlade was decent but needs more playing time. The defense was bad all around, i don't want to single out anyone. They were all bad. Robin seemed not into the game in the first half but exploded in the second.
I know this blog post is getting kind of long, but last thing i want to mention. Grant Holt today gave us a lot of problems just like Bobby Zamora did when we played QPR. His physical presence bothers both Koscielny and Vermaelen. For next season we will hopefully add another strong defender who can deal with players like that because even though tall, i don't think Mertesacker is physical enough to deal with guys like Holt and Zamora.
So unless we get really lucky, Europa League it is next year. Let's hope today's game does not turn out to be the game that Robin Van Persie decided that he will leave Arsenal. Everything was in our hands and now it's not anymore. We got no one but ourselves to blame.
No comments:
Post a Comment