Match report – By the numbers – Player ratings
I think the first thing to say is that yesterday was, by some considerable distance, our worst performance of the season. That it came against a Liverpool side who played excellently – and for whom almost everything they tried came off, especially in the first 20 minutes – exacerbated things in a big way.
But without wanting to take anything away from them, because their forward play was scintillating, we were dreadful in the first half and only marginally better in the second. You can ask questions of their first goal in terms of the award of the free kick, where it was taken from, and the offside, but not the way we defended it. Perhaps if you don’t concede in the first minute the game takes an entirely different course but you can’t help feel we’d have self-destructed no matter what.
The second goal was ridiculous. Skrtel was given the freedom of the penalty area which is why he had the time to direct a beautiful header right into the top corner. I’m not one to blame systems – there was the usual bleating about zonal marking which has worked well throughout the season – but they all require individuals to do their job and for this one Koscielny was found wanting.
At this point, 2-0 down inside 10 minutes, I would have expected a response from Arsenal. We have enough experience in that team to settle everyone down, not walk around like we’ve been slapped in the face, but it just didn’t happen and I found that particularly worrying. Suarez hit the post with an amazing volley, Kolo Toure put the rebound wide the goal at his mercy (once a Gooner etc blah blah).
What we needed to do was consolidate, ensure we didn’t concede again and try and work our way back into the game. What we did was push up in cavalier fashion and Liverpool picked us off with tremendous efficiency. For the third Ozil just fell over and sat there looking for a free kick. It wasn’t, Liverpool tore down our left, crossed to the back post and there was Sterling to make it 3-0 with a tap-in.
The German was culpable for their fourth too, giving the ball away in midfield, Coutinho split the centre-halves with a fantastic pass and Sturridge finished with ease. Just 20 minutes on the clock and it was Liverpool 4-0 Arsenal. From that there was no way back. Too many heads went down, Liverpool’s urgency was tempered by the scoreline and we at least righted ourselves and didn’t concede any more goals before the break.
The second half began with an early Liverpool goal, Sterling again, and they might have had two or three more. Szczesny made a great save from a Suarez free kick, Sterling bundled one wide after more abject defending, and although a late Mikel Arteta gave us something to (ironically) cheer, it was a day on which nothing went right from start to finish.
It raises some worrying questions about our ability to cope with these big away games. We got sucker punched at United, but City away was a bad, bad day. At the time it was easy to look at it as an aberration, a team that had been defensively sound lost the plot and it was more than likely a once off. But yesterday, conceding five, and having so little in response, does make you wonder if there’s not something more fundamental in our approach to these games.
Even if this was a day when everything went well for the home side, and badly for us, this was a team that we’d beaten comfortably already this season. We’d spoken beforehand about how to play them, what we had to do, yet we did just the opposite. We did exactly what we shouldn’t, and did on a big stage for everyone to see. When the credentials of this team are questioned, days like yesterday are why.
We had a chance to send a message yesterday in a season in which we’re fighting for the title (remember?). Unfortunately that message appears to be ‘In big games away from home we’re brittle, the Arsenal of old’. That is not a good message.
Although certain individuals bear a bit more analysis than others, it was a collective failure, one from the team and the manager, and he himself said afterwards:
Maybe it’s better if I don’t talk too much, go home and respond well on Wednesday night because I include myself in that performance. It raises the questions that we have to answer on Wednesday night.
Overall our performance was just not good enough. It’s how we respond that matters. I can completely understand that people will raise questions. We only have one way to respond answer that – which is on Wednesday night.
One might hope that yesterday was something of a rock bottom for Mesut Ozil whose performance belied his price tag in a big way. More than that, it was not a measure of his quality, because he is a very, very good player struggling for form right now. But this is top level sport, he can’t feel sorry for himself, and he’s going to have to dig deep because if we do want to keep this season on track we need him to perform consistently at a much higher level than this.
I’m sure his German teammates, and everyone else, will be doing what they can to get him focused, but he looked yesterday as if his head was gone completely, and it’s not nice to see any player have such a shocker. But he wasn’t the only player to play badly, he was just the most expensive. Our defence was found wanting in every area, our midfield was insipid and lethargic, and our attack clumsy and toothless.
But for me those were the qualities of those areas yesterday. They are not truly representative of us over the course of this season. Otherwise we wouldn’t have spent most of the campaign on top of the table. It wasn’t some quirk of fate that had us there: it was because until yesterday we had more good results than any other team in the league, and that’s something we shouldn’t lose sight of.
I get anger over yesterday, I get people are pissed off about the players, the coaching, the manager and everything else: what I don’t get is lack of context. If you’re annoyed at Arsene Wenger for yesterday, then fair enough, but your annoyance should be somewhat tempered by what we’ve done for most of this season.
It seems as if in some quarters there’s no willingness to give him any credit when things are going well, but the minute anything goes wrong it’s open season. I’m all for analysis and criticism but it has to be measured. If your first resort is vitriolic abuse, then spare me.
The other glimmer of light I have about what happened yesterday is how we’ve responded to set-backs this season. There’s been a number of them and each time we’ve dug in and showed the kind of spirit that’s had us challenging for this title.
After Villa away we won ten on the spin (in all competitions); after United away we won our next three league games without conceding a goal; and after shipping 6 goals against Man City we won six and drew two of our next eight games, keeping clean sheets in five of them. That brings us to yesterday.
So, even if you have doubts about this team – and I think we all do to some extent – then you can’t ignore the fact we’ve shown character and resilience when things have gone wrong in the very recent past. It’s not to say people shouldn’t be annoyed by yesterday, because it was one of the most spineless, feeble displays of the season, but it shouldn’t be the yardstick by which we’re measured.
Like any bad result, it certainly has the capability to derail us (and I’d urge all Arsenal fans to question why certain stories conveniently appeared in the papers today), but also to reinforce us. We face a big team on Wednesday night and nothing less than victory will do. As I said in the Arsecast this week, we could have taken respectable draws in both these games and the atmosphere would be a lot more forgiving, but losing one and winning one is a better points haul.
We have the chance to put things right on Wednesday. The players and the manager know that they let themselves and the fans down yesterday, I expect to see a real response in midweek.
Nothing else will do.
Till tomorrow.
