Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Video
The highs and lows of football, eh? One day you’re celebrating a rampant win over the Champions, the next you’re contemplating a hugely disappointing cup exit having played poorly in both semi-final legs over Newcastle.
Mikel Arteta kept the same starting XI that beat Man City 5-1, which was understandable on one level, but I did wonder if just a touch of freshness with a couple of changes might have been useful. In the early stages Newcastle’s energy, and the way they closed us down, caused us problems.
We looked a bit ragged defensively right from the start, which is unusual for us. Alexander Isak had the ball in the back of the net but after a lengthy VAR check the goal was ruled out for offside. It must have been the tightest of margins because he hung off the shoulder of Gabriel before making his run. Split seconds. Millimetres. Offside.
To be fair, that did wake us upand we began to play a bit. In the 19th minute, we should have gone ahead when the ball fell for Martin Odegaard in the box, but with his right foot he slashed his shot just wide, shaving the outside of the post. It was a sliding doors moment, less than 60 seconds later Newcastle were ahead.
Isak made William Saliba look mortal all night and he won the first ball here, before taking on the pass from Gordon to get in behind. The speed with which he took his shot was so impressive, backing himself from distance, and with David Raya beaten it came off the post. If I’m being super-critical I’d like to have seen Gabriel get back onto the line quicker, but as the ball rebounded back into play he was just a bit slow to do that, allowing Jacob Murphy to finish.
His shot clipped the bottom of the post and went in, Odegaard’s the width of the post the other way to make it a very different game. There were shades of the first leg to this – Gabriel Martinelli hit the post in that game, minutes later they were ahead through Isak. We fluffed our lines in front of goal, they made no mistake. The Brazilian was in focus again last night, this time for worrying reasons as he came off with a hamstring strain and was replaced by Ethan Nwaneri. He was lively enough but we didn’t create much.
After the break, with a three goal deficit to overcome, the last thing we needed to do was anything silly. I’m sure the players knew that, but football is such an odd game. Saliba made another poor decision, and Gordon almost beat Raya from distance. Then the Arsenal keeper gifted them the goal which completely sealed the game by playing a stupid pass to Declan Rice who was tackled in our box, leaving Gordon the simple task of rolling it home to make it 4-0 on aggregate.
That was always going to be that. We went through the motions of the last half an hour. Newcastle knew it was won, we knew it was lost, and at that point I just wanted us to get through the final stages without any injury. A consolation goal would have meant nothing, so it was purely about damage limitation – in every sense of the word.
Afterwards, Mikel Arteta confirmed Martinelli would have a scan on his hamstring today, and gave his assessment of the game:
We had so many expectations to believe that we could turn it around. We didn’t generate momentum, especially in the first half, the game started in the first action almost with them scoring and then the goal being denied. Then we had the moment, two big moments, with Martin. We didn’t capitalise and in the next action, they scored the goal and obviously the game shifted and then you need to stay cool to score a goal as early as possible. We didn’t manage to do that in the first half, had another big chance, and then in the second half, we started to struggle as the game went by. We didn’t generate enough situations in the final third and the game started to get away from us.
I do think the Odegaard miss is a big moment in this game, not just because they scored straight after, but in the cold light of day it stands out because it was the only big chance we had in this second-leg. I think you can certainly point to missed chances in the first leg (Timber, Martinelli, Havertz’s header), but this time around the issue was that we didn’t make anything clear cut after the captain skewed that one wide.
For me this was a game which really hammered home how scattergun our squad building has been and how January passed us by. We had nothing on the bench to really change things. After using Nwaneri in the first half, we only had Raheem Sterling at our disposal – a man with four times as many yellow cards this season as goals. After that, our plethora of left-backs remained mostly unused. In a properly built squad – and I fully accept that injuries to Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus have left us short – two of Calafiori, Zinchenko, Kiwior and Tierney should be attacking/attack-minded options.
We struggle with Newcastle and their game plan as it is, but when you have no way of changing the game from the bench then it’s even more difficult. When you make poor errors and give the opposition goals, well there’s only one way a cup tie (or any game of football for that matter) is going to end up.
I know the EFL Cup is the ‘lowest’ on the priority list, but I’m still disappointed. I think the tie was lost in the first leg, but we didn’t even go out with a whimper, let alone a bang. We can’t afford to be snobby about Wembley finals and trophies. If that’s your coping mechanism this morning, I’m not here to judge, just to say from my perspective that we let a big opportunity pass us by in both games, and that’s pretty annoying.
As for what’s next, Arteta said:
There’s nothing we can do right now. What we could do was on the pitch a few minutes ago. Now we have to look forward, first of all I think this is going to be a painful one, and when we’re in Dubai, recharge and go again because we still have a lot to play for.
Which is true, and much of last night was uncharacteristic from us – defensively at least. If you’re being generous, you could argue Sunday took a lot out of us, but for me the reality is that Newcastle have had the measure of us over both legs, and we haven’t had anywhere near enough in the final third or on the bench to change either of the games. We didn’t do enough to deserve a final – and there are lessons that need to be learned there.
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Right, I’ll leave it there for now. We’ll have some podcast discussion of last night for you a bit later this morning, so please join us for that.
Until then, have a good one.
