Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction
If the dropped points in the Premier League against Southampton on Sunday were primarily down to not taking the good chances we had to win the game, the defeat against PSV last night something entirely different.
Sometimes you can just look at a team and think there’s something ‘off’, something not quite right. On a difficult pitch, which saw Arsenal players slip over consistently in the opening period of the game, there was something else missing too. What has made this team effective during the season is a kind of precision that you don’t really take into account until it’s gone – and last night it was nowhere to be found.
Horrible first touches, misplaced passes, poor decisions. It doesn’t take much of a drop off to be ineffective, and that’s what we saw last night. It was also a different PSV to be fair. I expected more from them last week, but at home they had the crowd and energy behind them and when that was coupled with our lack of performance, it was always going to be tough.
There were some bright moments in the first half, Fabio Vieira showed some good range in his passing, but going in at 0-0 when the opposition have two goals disallowed tells you something about which team was the bigger threat. Both were offside, so it’s not as if we got lucky per se, nevertheless the half-time break felt welcome as a chance for the manager to try and sort out what was going on.
The second half was worse. Dreadful defending all round led to the PSV opener. After a dangerous Cody Gakpo moment led to an Arsenal throw in our own half, Rob Holding amateurishly got caught the wrong side of his man, Albert Sambi Lokonga’s tracking of Veerman was half-hearted at best, slowing down as the midfielder fired his side ahead.
Arteta immediately made changes, putting on Bukayo Saka and Thomas Partey for Martin Odegaard and Lokonga, but PSV were on top. Partey prevented a pass to Cody Gakpo who was all alone on the edge of our box, and from the resulting corner Aaron Ramsdale came to make a punch, missed the ball entirely and Luke de Jong headed into an empty net. His first European appearance won’t be one he remembers with too much fondness.
There was another sub straight away, Gabriel Jesus for Rob Holding, and PSV had the ball in the net again, only for a third goal to be disallowed for offside. Arsenal were ragged, and while I understand a manager’s desire to react to what was going on in a game, maybe we needed a few minutes to just regroup before we changed to a back three. It felt a bit desperate and despite a couple of half chances in the final 20 minutes, it didn’t really work either. Gabriel and Ben White came on for Tierney and Tomiyasu, we picked up a handful of yellow cards, one of which will see Granit Xhaka suspended for the FC Zurich game next week, and in the end there was no doubt that the best team on the night came away with the win they deserved.
Afterwards, Arteta said:
It’s the end of a long run. Today’s the first defeat after a long period. It’s time to reset, to analyse what happened. Congratulations to PSV – they were the better team and they deserved to win the game. There’s no question about that. We were nowhere near our level today, especially the way we competed.
And on what went wrong specifically:
I didn’t feel that we had the threat and the aggression that we’ve been playing at. That was worrying. In the second half, the moment something went wrong, we just went down and we didn’t really find moments to give us some hope to react and get something out of the game.
I think the point about a reset is an interesting one. As others have pointed out, this defeat has come after a few performances that suggested it was in the post a little bit. Some of the fizz has gone out of our game, we rode our luck a little bit against Leeds for example, and as I said earlier, it doesn’t take much of a drop off to render you vulnerable to the opposition.
I think it's fair to shrug your shoulders at that terrible Arsenal showing in isolation.
However, this performance is part of a creeping malaise that started four games ago.
I hope we can shake it off on Sunday.
— Andrew Allen (@AAllenSport) October 27, 2022
Let’s be honest, it would have been a huge task to maintain our best level for 100% of the season. There was always going to be a drop off at some point, and that’s it come in such a hectic month in which we’ve worked very, very hard to achieve some excellent results should be that much of a surprise to anyone. But when it drops you have to find a way to raise it again, and that’s the challenge of the manager for the week ahead.
We have Forest on Sunday at home which, after some difficult away trips in the last weeks, feels like just the kind of thing we need. After that the manager can think about what he does against FC Zurich next Thursday before a trip to Chelsea the following weekend. PSV’s win last night makes it possible for them to top the group if results go their way, but it’s in our hands and that’s a positive.
Still, that is the only positive from last night. This team has rightly had plenty of praise this season for performances which have been stellar, so when standards slip to the extent they did last night, there’s nothing unreasonable about some criticism. The key now is how quickly and how well we react, and I guess we’ll find out on Sunday.
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Finally for today, I have to mention Pablo Mari who was involved in a horrific incident yesterday. The Spanish defender was stabbed and hospitalised by a man who also attacked other people in a supermarket near Milan, one of whom was sadly killed. Thankfully he’s alright, but to be caught up in something as traumatic was that, with his wife and son along with him, is going to be very difficult to process.
Wishing him the very best with his recovery from the physical wound he received, and whatever mental scars something like this leaves. I can’t even imagine. Good luck, Pablo.
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Right, we’ll have a podcast for you a bit later this morning. Until then.
