Match report – Player ratings – By the numbers – Video
Our lead at the top of the table was extended to 8 points last night, despite a 0-0 draw with Newcastle – the first time this season we’ve failed to score in a Premier League game.
Mikel Arteta stuck with the same side that started against Brighton, and once again we began quickly. There were moments of danger: Martin Odegaard shot over, Bukayo Saka forced the keeper into a save with his feet, and Granit Xhaka hit the side netting. After that, the game settled down a bit into an obvious pattern – Newcastle sat with 11 men behind the ball in a compact, well organised block, and we tried to break it down.
I thought it was interesting afterwards when the manager was asked if this kind of scenario – where the opposition’s plan is to deny Arsenal any space – is something we’re going to have to deal with more. He said:
“I don’t think that Newcastle wanted to set up like this. This is not how they play. They haven’t played against any team like this, so credit to our players.”
I know what he’s saying, but I kinda disagree though. I think this is exactly how Newcastle decided to play, because they’ve watched us and seen our threat. If you leave room for us to attack, we’ve got the players to punish you. On that basis, they executed their plan pretty well, even if the stats show Arsenal had 17 attempts on goal. They parked their bus to good effect, and every time they got a free kick, they threw men forward to try and nick one from a set-piece. Last night, they were essentially a very rich version of Tony Pulis-era Stoke – and it worked for them.
This is the reality of being top of the table though. Teams don’t set up like this against you if you’re not good, and it’s another problem we’re going to have to solve. I think the level of frustration after a 0-0 draw against the team that’s third in the table and who haven’t conceded a goal in six games is much more a measure of how successful our own season has been, rather than with our own display. Of course there are things we can do better, but I don’t think we played badly or anything.
You can see why Newcastle have conceded fewer goals than any other side in the Premier League this season. I also think Arteta can see why too, hence his very public frustration with the penalty decisions he called ‘scandalous‘. He went crazy on the sideline over the injury time handball, but I think that one would have been harsh. Applying my own rule as to how I’d feel if that was given against us, I’d go mad. People have arms, they have to be somewhere, and he was so close to Xhaka when he played that ball in I don’t know what he was supposed to do. However, I think we’ve seen those given across the Premier League this season, so perhaps he’s more frustrated with the change in threshold for these kinds of decisions.
Where I think he’s got a much better case is the Dan Burn foul on Gabriel. Earlier in the game, both Eddie Nketiah and Martin Odegaard were booked for pulling back an opponent. Eddie’s was very light, Odegaard literally pulled the guy’s shirt in front of the ref who had booked the Arsenal striker for less, so he had little choice but to issue a yellow card. So on that basis, if those incidents were bookings, how on earth can Burn pull Gabriel’s shirt around his neck, obviously fouling and impeding him in the box, and it not be a penalty? This seemed pretty black and white to me – especially in the context of how the game was officiated.
It’s also little wonder managers and supporters get so frustrated with VAR when changes are seemingly applied mid-season. It simply adds to the sense that there’s a lack of consistency with decision making, and they spoke on TV about a ‘light touch’ when VAR review things now due to the arrival of Howard Webb as Chief Refereeing Officer at PGMOL. So if you’ve seen penalties being given all season, rightly or wrongly, for a particular kind of incident and then you don’t get one, I understand how a manager could be annoyed – in particular when it’s very tight game like this one.
For me though, the biggest issue on the night was the fact we didn’t have anyone on the bench the manager felt he could turn to to try and make a difference in the final stages of the game. We had some chances, Eddie – who worked hard all night – forced the keeper into a good save after some sharp movement in the box, but in games like this, what you have on the bench can often make the difference. Fresh legs, a different kind of striker to pose a different kind of threat for the opposition, those are important tools in any side that has aspirations to win the Premier League.
Clearly, Mikel Arteta didn’t want to disrupt the on-field XI too much, perhaps after seeing how changes impacted the latter stages of the Brighton game, but in reality the only senior attacking sub he had was Fabio Vieira. I was thinking about him as an option, but it wasn’t exactly clear to me how to introduce him. Asked about this afterwards, he said:
“We were on top of them, we were chasing the goal. We were in a good moment and I didn’t want to make more changes.”
And on potential new recruits:
“We’re trying to do our best because we cannot waste any windows still with the squad and the numbers that we have. We will try.”
It does look as if Emile Smith Rowe is close to a comeback, but he’s not enough on his own. Gabriel Jesus is gone for a while, Reiss Nelson is an option but still not a massively convincing one, and I think last night demonstrated very clearly that this is a squad which requires greater attacking depth. To have that made clear in a game we still garnered a point from, rather than defeat, is in some ways a positive way to take that on board, but then I don’t think this is any kind of revelation to the manager or the Technical Director. There’s a reason we’ve bid twice for Mykhaylo Mudryk, there’s a reason we have firm interest in Joao Felix.
So now, with 10 days or so until we play a Premier League game – the North London derby no less – there’s an urgency about making progress on those fronts. Let’s see what happens, but I’d be very surprised if we didn’t add to the squad before the next league game.
As I said earlier though, the fact we didn’t win is always frustrating, but we’ve set very high standards this season and I think that’s a factor in how we feel about this too. It’s not a 10 point gap, but an 8 point lead over a Man City side who face Chelsea on Thursday is still nothing to be sniffed at – and we now have a bit of time to address squad depth. Let’s see what they do.
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Right. Let’s leave it there for now. Because the schedule is a bit all over the place at the moment, we’ll have a bit of an Arsecast for you later on this morning, so stand by for that.
Until then.
