Match report – By the numbers – Player ratings – Video

Aside from all the other words that are flying around my head this morning and which, frankly, are not exactly suitable for opening a blog with, the one that keeps repeating itself in my head is: ridiculous. Arsenal are ridiculous.

I don’t think there’s any other way to describe us, what we do and how we do it. Yesterday was a majestic, almost epic, rendering of our ridiculousness. Playing quite badly indeed but somehow winning 2-1 at a ground we’d been pasted at last season, with a right-back at centre-half, an unfit Oxlade-Chamberlain in central midfield because every other midfielder we have, bar the bloke who was farmed out on loan to Charlton, is injured, we withstand a massive 27 attempts at goal (the most ever or something), but somehow contrive to let in an 96th minute equaliser after they’d been reduced to 10 men and the bloke who scored the goal was the reason there was all the injury time in the first place.

Ridiculous. Let’s face it, if Liverpool had had anyone at all who could finish we’d have taken another pounding yesterday. Wojciech Szczesny made eight saves. Yet it was a game, despite how badly we played, that we should have won because when you’re 2-1 up away from home with a man advantage and just a few minutes of injury time left all you need to do is the very basics to win the game.

When you have the ball, keep it. We couldn’t do that. When you’re facing a set-piece, get organised properly. Although we’d faced a half dozen corners, at least, for the final one we let our concentration slip and it proved costly. There had been something of a warning before the 90 minutes was up when Skrtel headed over, but deep into injury time we got caught out.

One of the things we’ve done this season is move away from men on the posts at corners. I’m guessing it’s part of the zonal system, and we’ve touched on it before, but here’s a corner from the 88th minute. Look at the positions of Gibbs and Chambers. Flamini is the man who sits deepest:

Now here’s the corner from which they score. It’s more or less the same set-up but this time Flamini doesn’t have to deal with Borini. Mertesacker is on Lambert, Monreal is going to pick up Sakho. You can see Monreal pointing out Skrtel to Chambers, who has already had a look to see where he is. He knows he’s there.

However, knowing he’s there are doing something about it are two different things. All we had to do was mark him, get in his way, don’t allow him a free run at the ball, but we gave a bloke who is a real threat at set-pieces an open invitation to do just that and the consequence was a hugely frustrating goal.

If you look at the picture of Mertesacker after the goal, he could probably have done more. But if you watch the video [they took it down], he can’t see what’s happening behind him and it looks to me as if he got a shout from Chambers, hence the reason he reacted the way he did. I can’t think of any other reason an experienced player would do that. He shouldn’t have, obviously, but there you go.

The main issue was Chambers allowing Skrtel to get the ball unimpeded, but I do worry that we’re expecting too much from the 19 year old. He’s probably playing more than he should right now, and he’s not the only one. Per’s form is a worry too, but because we just don’t have any other option, we’re having to play him when maybe leaving him out to get some rest and to find some form would be best for him and the team.

Also, as we had a man more than them, why didn’t we go safety first and put a man on the post? That would have prevented the goal, or at least come very close assuming we reacted in time. Obviously, given that we have the same men in the same zones for each corner, it’s not a lack of organisation, per se, but an inflexibility to how we deal with situations. Under the circumstances we just didn’t adapt well enough. You have to be able to change things, even slightly, when the events dictate that, and what we saw yesterday was a team that couldn’t, or wouldn’t. Maybe because it never occurred to them, maybe because they’re not permitted to. Who knows, but with 11 v 10 you can afford to be a bit more cautious.

Anyone who has watched us this season will tell you the equalising goal wasn’t a surprise. Here’s a text conversation between me and the Mugsmasher from yesterday:

His lack of confidence in his own team’s finishing was matched only by my confidence in our ability to hand them a goal on a plate at some stage. Like cows moo, dogs bark, and politicians lie, it is what we do. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, other than there’s only so many times you can be exasperated by our inadequacies.

Even when it was 10 v 11 we didn’t look like a team that had an extra man. We sat too deep, we were careless with the ball as we were all day, and even though you knew they’d be knocking on the door a bit, we never looked like we had any kind of control over proceedings. Replacing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain with Joel Campbell seemed an odd move to me. What does that do for the balance of your team? I know options were limited, but why not use a bit of experience with somebody like Podolski, or even Monreal who had yet to replace Alexis?

We made a pretty average Liverpool team look really good yesterday. Our performance was dreadful, no two ways about it. Only Santi Cazorla and Wojciech Szczesny emerge with any real credit (and perhaps Giroud for his excellent goal). The team looked inhibited and off the pace from the start, but then when you’re without important players like Ramsey, Arteta, Wilshere, Ozil and even someone like Tomas Rosicky, it’s no wonder we weren’t at our best. But that’s still no reason to be as bad as we were.

The manager’s suggestion that last season was preying on our minds doesn’t really work because for me Alexis, Welbeck, Debuchy, Chambers weren’t there and the performance wasn’t about what happened last year. It’s because we have an imbalanced squad, racked with injuries and tired players who have a collective psychological brittleness to them regardless of the personnel. A huge chance to beat one of the ‘big’ teams was blown in truly Arsenal style.

We played woefully but we were winning the game with just minutes to go against 10 men. In those circumstances any team worth their salt should be able to see the game out. Instead we turned what would have been an improbable win into a draw which feels like a terrible loss. There’s no way of dressing it up.

You can, if you like, judge the game on the scoreline alone and think, ‘Ok, a point at Anfield isn’t bad’, but even if you can rationalise it in that way, I bet you still feel a bit sick at how we managed to turn three points into one. If Arsenal was Jesus he’d have turned water into wine and then the wine into hippo piss.

We are ridiculous. And I don’t see us not being ridiculous any time soon. As for what’s to come over the festive period, I’d seriously suggest stocking up on the wine which hasn’t been turned into piss, and maybe some ether, because it feels like we’re going to need to numb our senses at some point along the way.

—

Anyway, if you fancy reliving our ridiculousness, join James and I a bit later this morning for the Arsecast Extra. As always we’re taking your questions on Twitter to @gunnerblog and @arseblog with the hashtag #arsecastextra.

We’ll have that available for you before lunch. In the meantime, I don’t quite know what to say. Other than we’re ridiculous. Because we are.