Europa League - Arsenal vs Slavia Praha: a reflection on our season

Europa League Quarter Finals – Arsenal vs Slavia Praha. Our home leg.

Everything that I see wrong with the Arteta administration was highlighted in this game.

Substitutions:

Possibly the one thing that infuriates me the most about Mikel Arteta and the way he coaches is the way in which he makes substitutions. It was apparent from well before half time that the one way Arsenal would really hurt Slavia was through pace. Saka was causing problems in behind constantly. It was also so bleedingly obvious that our attack was not working with Lacazette, Smith-Rowe and Willian as none of them wanted to make a run in behind. Every single attack was Gabriel to Partey to Smith-Rowe to Saka and then we would have nowhere to go.

As a fan it was completely obvious to myself in the first half an hour. However, Arteta thought it was best to leave the subs until the 72nd minute. The seventy second minute. Pepe, Aubameyang and Martinelli all came on in attack, and would you believe it; we slaughtered them. It was all Arsenal for 15 minutes of play. The fact that Arteta continuously waits until the 70th or 80th or even the 85th minute at times without explanation to make a substitution is extremely frustrating to me and is completely unnecessary in my opinion.

Play Style:

Growing up, Arsenal were always a fun team to watch. In fact the first match I watched was Arsenal vs Liverpool (3-3), where the Gunners scored 3 goals in 8 minutes and were “walking in a winter wonderland” to go 3-2 up. I watched Ramsay finish off that beautiful team goal against Fulham with a flick finish. I watched live Aubameyang complete a mesmerising team move against Leicester – a goal that practically everyone has seen at some stage.

Arteta’s style of play simply does not work for our team. Yes, the way our full backs contribute to attacks is a massive danger to opposition teams, however, the way we look to complete moves is ineffective and quite frankly pathetic. Watching today’s game, around 80% of attacks were completed with an aerial cross. Now this begs the question which I have been asking for quite some time now:

WHO ON EARTH ARE WE CROSSING TO?

Alexandre Lacazette is 5’9. Saka is 5’10. Willain is 5’9. Martinelli is 5’11. Smith-Rowe is 5’11. Odegaard is 5’9.

I have no clue whatsoever as to why we continue with these aerial crosses. We are most dangerous when drilling in low balls to a player’s feet. It is so obvious that we do not have a physically-inclined attack yet Arteta persists with the aerials. It is simply unacceptable given that it has been exposed so many times throughout the season, ESPECIALLY during our woeful start to the Premier League.

Closing Out Games

One thing I will never understand is the way this current Arsenal team closes out games: and it cost us big time today. Whether it is an instruction from Arteta or not does not matter – it should have been corrected a long time ago.

Nicolas Pepe scored in the 86th minute to put us 1-0 up. We then commenced the typical Arsenal routine:

Park the bus and hope for the best.

It happens when we are winning. It happens when we are drawing. It happens way too much.

Arsenal have this frustrating habit of just sitting back and playing ultra defensive in the last 10 minutes of the game. Why? Why why why why why? Today we played 86 minutes of football in which Slavia did not produce a single high quality chance to score. So what did we do? We sat back for the remainder of the game and said to the opposition, as we have so many time before,

“Go on then. Let’s see what you can do.”

I’m not saying that Pepe’s attempt to clear the ball was pathetic to lead to the goal we conceded, but it we concede so many late goals because of this habit it is unbelievable.

Just as it seemed as if we had scraped by with a result at home, we concede a devastating away goal in the 94th minute.

Infuriating.

Unacceptable.

Pathetic.

All in all, the result could have been much better. Bukayo Saka spraying his 1v1 chance wide was very poor. It nags me that he hasn’t scored in a while. Alexandre Lacazette won the ball and was clear threw on goal from halfway, only to over-complicate it and hit the bar in an attempt to hit the top corner… it generally made me want to cry. Pepe’s attempt to clear the ball from the last corner: do not even get me started.

It’s not the worst of results, but Arsenal should have without a doubt walked out of the Emirates with a 3-0 win MINIMUM. Instead, we finish 1-1 having conceded an away goal. Going to Slavia in the next leg, we need a win, or a draw in which we score 2 goals or more.

There is one more thing we need, and as Lee Dixon says:

“That one thing. The big P. Pace.”

And oh my days, we are going to need a lot of it.