Premier League: Arsenal vs Everton - what is going on with this club?

Enough with this man. Honestly. I had accepted that we weren’t making Top 6 a few weeks ago, but to sit and watch that game was just painful.

What is going on with this club?

Player Selection:

It has seemed very clear to me from my point of view that player selection has been disappointing for a while. What I don’t understand is where Arteta’s vendetta against Martinelli has come from.

In Christmas he was introduced to some solid minutes. He was a pivotal point in the Arsenal attack and brought with him a manner of danger and flair. He was exactly what we needed.

From that point onwards, since the start of this blog, there is one thing I believe I have written in every single post:

WE NEED TO PLAY MARTINELLI MORE.

You’d think with Lacazette injured and Aubameyang out to injury he would finally get a run in his preferred position of ST, but no; Arteta wanted to reward a 97th minute 2 yard tap in against Fulham and play Nketiah.

I simply do not understand.

Consistency:

Now a lot of Arsenal fans will say that the team is unbelievably inconsistent. My standpoint is the complete polar opposite. I have never seen a team be so bad over such a long period of time.

Those who are close to me (God bless their souls for putting up with me ranting every day) have heard me say this for years now.

Your typical Arsenal game:

- Play a half of good football. Never more, just the 45 minutes.

- Never be clinical enough. Even if we score, it’s not as much as we deserve.

- Make it clear from the start of the second half that we have scrapped all tactics that previously worked well in the game.

- Make a defensive error.

- Concede.

- Miss out on a result.

You cannot tell me that is false. If you do, you simply do not watch enough Arsenal football.

Performance of the Players:

This one is scary. It seems as if each line-up we use cannot get the job done. If we find a working line-up, it never seems to work the week afterwards. Or we just seem to forget it happened all together and scrap it (ahem ahem 3-5-2 formation). This is the scariest thing:

I cannot think of what to change.

Yes, a lot of the time I disagree with Arteta’s decisions, but that is only for 1 or 2 players. We have tried Laca ST and Auba LW. We have tried Smith-Rowe LM Odegaard CAM. We have tried Gabriel and Holding as CBs. We have tried Xhaka and Partey in CDM. There always seems to be a problem.

Tonight, it was Leno. I fully supported the decision to keep Leno as a first-choice keeper and sell Emi Martinez. I liked Martinez more than Leno, and still do. However, Leno was better for longer at the time. This is the bad part:

I can’t remember the last time Leno had a good game.

With a defence like Arsenal’s, and in a club like Arsenal, he concedes a lot of goals that aren’t his fault. But recently he just hasn’t seemed to have that edge, that ability to make the big match-winning saving, the ability to string together a sequence of saves over 90 minutes.

Tonight, that goal was God-awful. I can’t defend it at all.

To see a pass going to no one from the baseline be turned in off our own goalkeeper was painful. Truly painful. What hurt more was watching Richarlison – who somehow pulled a MOTM from nowhere, considering he was bailed out of a penalty, did nothing for 89 minutes but appeal for a few fouls and who played a cutback pass (stellar performance mind you, I hope the Brazilian national team manager was watching) – do the salsa or whatever the hell that celebration was: and knowing damn well that as a fan and as a club we couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Yes it is very easy to say VAR has an agenda against Arsenal. It will be brought up that in the last two games there have been two decisions which appeared to be in line with the defenders perfectly yet were somehow called offside.

But let’s be real.

There was no attacking edge tonight. No flair. No real intent or threat. No real instance in which we looked to score. We cannot blame the last two results on that. Don’t get me wrong, we were robbed of a goal and a penalty in those respective matches. But if we play like we have for so long now, not scoring when we should and making pathetic errors, we do not deserve to win or even draw at all.

What I want to see against Villareal:

- The 3-5-2 formation

- Martinelli and Pepe

- Mat Ryan

- No constant ineffective aerial crosses

- A win

Easier said than done.