Last season a late equaliser saved our bacon at the Stadium of Light. Yesterday there was no bacon saving as Darren Bent’s goal consigned us to our third defeat of the season.
It was, it should be pointed out, the first time we’ve failed to score since a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford at the end of last season but our ability to concede was our undoing yesterday. I think many of us worried what would happen if we did have a day when we couldn’t score. Were we solid enough defensively to cope? And yesterday showed how costly our tendency to concede cheapy is. It was, probably, Sunderland’s only chance in the second half and they took it.
Yes, they got a bit lucky with the deflection back across goal but Bent reacted quicker than any of our players and stuck it home from inside the 6 yard box. I thought we might have done better with the initial header and between the goalkeeper and the defenders there was a moment where we froze and Bent took advantage. And at that stage of the game Arsenal had the look of a team who would more or less accept a 0-0 because we didn’t really look like scoring at all in the second half.
The first was a bit different. While nowhere near on top of our game there were signs that if we picked it up a bit we could win the game. Rosicky had a great chance but the keeper made very good save, Ramsey had a chance, Cesc fired one just over the bar and after some brilliant play from Alex Song, a neat interchange between him and Eduardo saw the Crozilian unable to get the ball out from under his feet and his scooped effort went just wide. Like I say, we weren’t brilliant, but we showed enough to suggest we could break them down.
Instead of a better second half though we went backwards a bit. Whether that was down to tiredness due to the Interlull I don’t know. You have to give credit to Sunderland who worked very hard and despite not creating much played pretty well. We know they’re a good side, their results this season have borne that out, and while I don’t think there was a lack of effort on our part we certainly couldn’t get into gear.
Andrei Arshavin started on the bench after his international efforts but came on to replace Aaron Ramsey who had the kind of game an 18 year old can have. It’s too much to expect him to play like he did for Wales against Scotland every time. By their very nature young players are inconsistent and the game passed him by. That’s not to say Arshavin did much more and it was only when we introduced Vela and Walcott for Eduardo and Rosicky after their goal that we created a couple of half-chances.
Both of them fired balls across the goal which we should probably have done better with. For Walcott’s the box was bereft of Arsenal players, not great when you’re 1-0 down, and Cesc was a couple of feet away from getting on the end of Vela’s. Alex Song was Arsenal’s best player on the day by a mile, he almost created a chance for Arshavin at the back post with a nice chipped pass but nothing came of it.
And as Arsenal pressed right in the final minutes of injury time it looked as if Carlos Vela was upended in the box. I thought it was a penalty, Arsene Wenger seemed to think it was a penalty judging by his caustic post game comments about the incident, but the only one who mattered, Alan Wiley, waved play on and that was that. So we might feel a little hard done by with that decision but afterwards Arsene said:
We lost a game where we can only fault ourselves because we didn’t score, some players were not at their best and we gave a goal away on the only situation where Sunderland could score one today. It was on a set piece. I believe it’s more down to the fact that we made a big mistake on the corner because the game was there for the taking in the last 20 minutes. But of course, when you’re down, it makes it more difficult.
And while there’s some merit to the manager’s suggestions that we’d have won if we were playing at home – the fact is we weren’t and you have to go and do it away from home too. The worry about our ability to concede from set-pieces remains and with three defeats away from home this season you might start to get a little concerned that we like the comforts of home a little too much. Also worrying was Arsene’s suggestion that there was a lack of focus from certain players after the international break, that they forget how difficult it is to win in the Premier League. Coming from him that’s telling and that is something that he and his staff need to address as soon as possible.
His comments about some players being not at their best is true as well. From an offensive point of view you would expect more from a team with Rosicky, Eduardo, Nasri, Cesc and Ramsey, (then with Arshavin, Vela and Walcott) and defensively I thought we were exposed too often in the left back position.
It’s easy to see that we missed a bit of physicality yesterday. No Bendtner, no van Persie, no Diaby (for all his faults) and we’re a very small team. Wenger has spoken before about how Bendtner gives us a different option – yesterday we didn’t have that and it’d fair to say we could have done with it. There’s no point sticking balls into the box for Arshavin or Vela to try and get on the end of. Yet when you only have one player of that type in the squad perhaps it’s time to look at providing some back-up so one injury doesn’t scupper us so badly.
It makes next Sunday’s game against Chelsea all the more important now. They have an 8 point lead, although we do have a game in hand, and while it’s not 100% a must win it now becomes a game we cannot lose if we want to stay in this title race. 11 points, even with a game in hand, is too much. Still, it’s too early to worry about Chelsea, we’ve got a Champions League game in midweek with which to find our feet again, and then we can concentrate on them.
Overall, a disappointing day but it just goes to prove there are no easy games in this league. If you’re not at your best you can drop points to anyone – ask Liverpool and United about Sunderland – but we need to learn our lessons and quickly.
Till tomorrow.
