Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
Well, I’m not sure that could have gone much worse. Arsenal crashed out of the FA Cup to a 10 man Man Utd, lost Gabriel Jesus to what looked like a serious injury and potentially picked up another couple of minor problems along the way, missed a load of chances, missed a penalty, played 30 minutes of extra-time ahead of a North London derby on Wednesday, and suffered the demoralisation of losing a penalty shoot-out at our own ground.
We had a first half goal rightly disallowed for offside, but that aside there wasn’t much to write home about from our first half performance. The main talking point was the injury to Jesus. He got a whack in the face from Lisandro Martinez and hurt his knee in the process, but after some treatment stayed on. He looked to be moving all right, however a few minutes later he sprinted back to chase down Bruno Fernandes on the edge of their box, landed semi-awkwardly and stayed down.
The sight of him being stretchered off, head in hands, told you plenty about how serious this probably is. Players know when they’ve done something bad. You can’t help but fear an ACL, and we’ll find out soon enough after he has scans today. Afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:
“Big worry. That’s my feeling. He had to come off on a stretcher with a lot of pain. The worrying factor is the feeling that he had. He had to come off and the pain that he was in.”
Fingers crossed for him, but we have done something to upset the injury gods this season, and I don’t really expect good news from this one. Maybe we’ll be pleasantly surprised, but it’s a blow to lose another player from a forward line that is already lacking in numbers as well as firepower. He was replaced by Raheem Sterling.
The second half began poorly, a misjudgement on the halfway line from Gabriel saw Garnacho drive towards our box, he played a ball across and Bruno Fernandes was there with a fine finish to make it 1-0. We almost responded straight away, Mikel Merino made a chance for Kai Havertz but the German miskicked and put the ball wide when he should have hit the target.
On the hour mark though, the pendulum swung our way when Diogo Dalot was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Merino. It felt like an age since the opposition had a player sent off against us, and surely this would give us sufficient advantage to go on and win it. Gabriel’s equaliser just 2 minutes later should have really knocked the stuffing out of United. A Martinelli cross wasn’t dealt with well by the keeper, and the centre-half’s shot deflected beyond him and into the net for 1-1.
Now, turn the screw. Despite some cold-light-of-day concerns about our goalscoring right now, I think it’s fair to say we had enough chances to win this game twice over. The penalty we were given was soft, I have to admit, but Altay Bayindir produced a good save from a not 100% convincing Martin Odegaard effort. The captain then produced a great cross for substitute Declan Rice, but his header was well saved; Havertz produced his third terrible miss of the week poking over from close range when it was easier to score; and Bayindir denied Rice again when he went through and shot with his left foot.
Rice had a shot blocked as the game went into extra-time, and when Havertz got behind and squared it, it looked for all the world like Trossard would score but de Ligt produced an amazing clearance to get the ball away. There was danger up our end when Thomas Partey was careless and then poorly positioned but Raya made a good save. After that, we huffed and puffed but found United in obstinate defensive form.
I have to say I found it odd that with a man advantage we tended to attack solely down one flank, rather than use the extra man to stretch the play. I know the horseshoe of doom is nobody’s favourite, but there are times when it’s useful and 11 v 10 is one of them. The substitutes – bar Rice – were ineffectual for me. Trossard offered basically nothing, and while Sterling did run with the ball a few times, he did very little with it. His game summed up for me right at the death when we needed to get the ball into the box and he ended just trading passes with Partey until the ref blew his whistle.
Then to penalties, and you couldn’t help feel we were going to pay the price for the missed chances. And so it proved. United were 100% from the spot, aided by a very weird display from Raya who seemed to commit too early for every kick making it easier for their players to pick their spot. And it had to be Havertz who missed. I’d wager he hasn’t had a worse week as a professional in terms of missed chances and their impact, so to compound it with a penalty failure (which was a touch more a good save than a bad miss for me, but still), left him looking absolutely bereft afterwards.
So, out of the FA Cup at an early stage again, and we’re hanging on by a thread in the Carabao Cup after the defeat to Newcastle earlier in the week. The Jesus injury, a possible hamstring problem for Jurrien Timber, an injury that forced Jorginho off, 120 minutes of energy sapping football, our main striker going through a nightmare seven days in front of goal, and all the questions people have about this team right now are even more valid after what was a crazy cup tie. It was a disaster of a day, and with a North London derby in two days time, the manager has to pick them up and get them going on.
It explains his post-game comments where he spoke about how much he loves his players. I think most people will understand why he’s said that publicly, he can’t really say anything else because morale is obviously going to be low, and he can’t have them feeling sorry for themselves. They have a job to do on Wednesday night (and beyond), so that really is the only message he can send.
Privately though, he must be concerned. I don’t want to talk about xG, and how much we’ve under-performed it in the last couple of games, but putting the ball in the back of the net is a problem right now. And one potentially exacerbated by another injury which could rob us of a player for a long period of time. Asked afterwards if this meant we’d have to sign a striker, I thought Arteta’s answer was interesting:
I understand that, but I cannot love our players more. And I focus very much on the ones that we have to perform at the highest level. That’s it. The rest is not in our hands, not in my hands.
To me at least, it suggests that if there’s some impediment to spending, it comes from higher up. Whatever you might think of how the manager has spent over the years, I really can’t believe he wouldn’t want an addition to his forward line this month. Bukayo Saka is gone for months, Ethan Nwaneri is sidelined too, he’s lost Jesus for what could be a long time, Sterling has no goal threat at all, Trossard’s form has gone off a cliff this season, and Martinelli has 6 goals in 28 appearances. Not to mention our leading scorer going through a spell where he’s contriving to miss the kinds of chances I think he is more than capable of putting away.
He is right to focus on the players we have, of course. There’s no point in doing much else when we have a game every three days, but it was never more evident than yesterday than this is a team that needs at least one player who is more clinical in the final third, and probably more than that in the longer-term.
Underlying that is the sense that the team is playing within itself … restricted, roadblocked by coaching of the minutiae to give us control, without enough expression or improvisation to really threaten. Yesterday was certainly about finishing more than anything else, but we play like we have a stick up our arse (for want of a better phrase) and ultimately that comes back to Arteta himself. We need to get that stick out of there, and get someone in during this window to give the team the help it so badly needs now.
In the meantime, all we can do is wait for news of Jesus, and pick ourselves to go again on Wednesday. It always is a must-win game, but this one takes on added significance after such a bad week in the cups.
For me on yesterday, we’ll Arsecast Extra for you in a little while too. We’ve put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
Pod should be out around noon. For now, have a good one.
