What a strange game that was and it raises more questions than it answers.
We started in a 4-4-2 with van Persie and Aliadiere up front. Adebayor was rested and Julio Baptista wasn’t even on the bench. Freddie Ljungberg lasted 6 minutes (he has a hamstring injury and will miss a few weeks. It looked like it was his knee that was the problem at the time though) and was replaced by Theo Walcott. We had a couple of decent chances, David James saving from a van Persie header and again saving when the Dutchman followed up Cesc’s shot.
But we were very, very pedestrian. There was no pace to our game, we allowed Portsmouth all the time they wanted on the ball, didn’t chase them down, didn’t hassle them and it was really poor stuff. Then to top it all off they scored in the last minute of the first half. A Matthew Taylor free kick bounced across the area, hit the post and bounced out to some other bloke to nod it home. No less than we deserved really and the chorus of boos from a disenchanted crowd said a lot about how poorly Arsenal had played.
So we had half-time and bizarrely Arsene’s reaction to going a goal behind was to switch to a 4-5-1 with Aliadiere on the left wing. Then in the first minute of the second half they went 2 up. Eboue’s insistence on trying to play football in dangerous areas proved costly as he missed the chance to get it clear, there was some more comical defending by us, it broke to Taylor on the edge of the box and his looping volley beat Jens. At that point you thought there’d be a reaction but there wasn’t.
It took the introduction of Adebayor for Aliadiere (who really did nothing to suggest his future lies with Arsenal) and moving back to 4-4-2 for things to change. Immediately his energy and enthusiasm, something that was missing from almost all of his colleagues, rubbed off and we started to play. Hleb played a great ball to Walcott who crossed and Adebayor hammered it home. 2-1. Then a couple of minutes later Gilberto got his sixth goal of the season after a bit of a scramble. A great turnaround.
We had chances to win it too. Robin van Persie turned Sol Campbell inside out but scuffed his shot into the side netting, Alexander Hleb should have squared it to van Persie but took a shot on, Gilberto hit one just wide, as did Mathieu Flamini late on. The difference between the pre-Adebayor Arsenal and the post-Adebayor Arsenal couldn’t have been more marked.
In the end though we paid for the timidty and lack of effort up until our first goal. I’ve said before that fans will never jeer a team, even if they’ve lost, if they know they’re giving it 100% all of the time. What does frustrate fans is when it’s obvious not everyone is doing that and to exacerbate that you look at the way we played when we did step it up and you know it was a game we should have won. If we had gone at Portsmouth with the same drive and pace that we did from the 56th minute onwards we’d have murdered them.
You have to start asking questions about why they didn’t do that. Is it something missing in the dressing room? Are the players not motivated enough for games like Portsmouth when they so clearly are for ‘big’ games against the likes of Chelsea and Sp*rs? Is there too much attention paid to the technical side of our coaching and not enough to the mental side of things? Having players fired up and believing they can win makes a difference. Are we missing something in terms of the make up of our squad? Do we lack a motivator? Do we need more ‘English spirit’ in the team? We were the very same in the first half against Wigan and it worried me.
The team selection raises questions too. Why did Jeremie Aliaidiere, a man who last started a game for us in January 2004, start the game? I fully understand the need to give Adebayor a rest. The lad has run himself into the ground for us in the last two weeks but why didn’t Julio Baptista start especially when the only way he’s going to achieve the sharpness and form we know he’s capable of is by getting games under his belt?
Afterwards Arsene did his usual and praised the spirit of the lads, saying:
It was a great performance. This team has great character and great quality. I would like to give the team a lot of credit because even if we are disappointed not to have won the game they have shown to me exceptional quality. I cannot complain about the way we played.
And from the 56th minute to the 90th I wouldn’t argue with him at all but I have to take issue with his comments simply because the way we played up until we scored was not a great performance. There was no quality and more importantly there was no character unless you consider limp-wristed fannying around the kind of character you expect from this Arsenal team. If he can’t complain about the first half and the beginning of the second half then there’s something very wrong.
We’re almost Jekyll and Hyde these days. Capable of great stuff at times but equally capable of turgid dross which has even the most loyal Wengerites beginning to ask questions of the manager and his team.
Yesterday, despite the great comeback – and let’s not overlook that, it was a fantastic response, was two points dropped and very disappointing.
Have a good Sunday.
