Arteta’s rally cry on Friday was that the fans needed to have a good breakfast, then “bring your lunch and your dinner”, as the atmosphere needed to be an intense one, for a fixture time that was usually a bit muted.
Well, having stood in Block Five yesterday, I will tell you this: Those Arsenal fans in my area of the stadium absolutely brought their dinner. By the time I got home yesterday, I had little voice left. Part of that was because I was screeching at the woeful performance in the second half, but before that, there was support and desire from the home fans to be that extra man for a very much makeshift Arsenal team.
And it felt like a very tired, leggy, and makeshift performance. Bournemouth may have had three weeks to prepare for this one, but that is no excuse for those Arsenal players to do just the basics all very wrong, as Arteta also admitted afterwards. White getting done in behind by the wide-forward (maybe Madueke should have tracked too) is one thing, but MLS just watching as Kroupi just ran past him to tap it in after a deflection as just bad defending. I don’t think that goal happens if you have Calafiori or Hincapie on the pitch. We all love MLS, but the performances of last season are a distant memory. He looked every bit the young and fallible player in that moment.
Overall, though, he didn’t actually have the worst game in comparison to some of his teammates. Martin Zubimendi, for one, has regressed so much that in my WhatsApp groups, there are genuine calls to change something now. Honestly, people, Zubi is starting to scare the sh*t out of me when he drops to collect the ball from Raya, which happens an alarming amount of times, I’m afraid. There was one moment in which it was a simple pass to Ben White in the first half that he just massively overcooked and knocked it out for a throw-in. Where’s the vertical line-breaker from the first half of the season? It can’t be down to fatigue when you’re doing that for 15-20 minutes. He’s just woefully out of form. I am wondering if some of my mates are right; perhaps we do need to drop him completely and get Rice into that six role.
Mind you, if he’s there, who is playing in the left eight spot? Maybe Eze, who wasn’t fit enough to do 90 yesterday, but certainly not Havertz. When he signed for us, Arteta tried him there, but it didn’t work, and as somebody has already pointed out on social media after the game yesterday, that’s three defeats out of four with Havertz playing in midfield. Of course, it’s not all his fault that the team has lost those three games – there’s a collective failing of multiple players that has led to this – but I think none of us believe him in that position is a viable one.
If you’re going to be kind to Arteta, you’ll say it’s because he has once again been robbed of key players. Still no Timber, Calafiori not in the squad having played on Tuesday, no Eze from the start, no Odegaard, no Saka, and a left-wing position with which whoever starts these days is utterly toilet. Honestly, Martinelli can get in the bin with performances like yesterday, then Trossard coming on did little else, unfortunately. But that’s being kind on Arteta, because he has to shoulder some of the blame after this one, too. After all, he’s the one who motivates them; he’s the one who needs to assess the opposition and set a team up to exploit our strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses, yet it felt like he just set up the team because of certain players being the ‘next one up’. For example, in Madueke, Martinelli, and Gyokeres, we have three runners. We’ve already seen that it doesn’t work. So why not go with Trossard? I know he’s been crap in 2026, but he has a better working relationship with Gyokeres than Martinelli does. Could we also have gone with Mosquera instead of Ben White? White has been playing a lot of football lately, and I just feel like Mosquera’s recovery pace is better than White’s. Could he have made a difference on that first goal? Maybe, maybe not, as I think the situation is still recoverable if the left back does his job.
But it wasn’t just players who were coming in a little colder. Gabriel and Saliba looked shaky, too. How Bournemouth were allowed to ghost in and just waltz through our defence for that second goal was ridiculous. It was pathetic. Spineless. Lacking in energy, cowardice. There are so many adjectives I could throw at such a shambolic performance.
Even after we went behind for the second time, there was still time for there to be a fightback, but this team looked inhibited. They ran out of ideas, and I saw the xG stats. We had 2.3 overall, but a big chunk of that was the Gyokeres penalty. In that second half, Big Vik was unlucky not to be onside with his run for the disallowed goal for offside (which it clearly was), but I don’t remember us forcing Petrovic into a load of saves.
This was an Arsenal performance for the ages, in a very bad way. It was not a performance of a team that is as far ahead on points in the league as we are right now. It was the performance of a team of players scared of their own shadows. And simply not acceptable.
I’m not really sure what else there is to say. Simply not good enough, City will beat Chelsea today, then next weekend looks like one of those that feels like a foregone conclusion based on that performance and effort from those players yesterday. We need some good news regarding some returning players now, because we can’t have that team, with that lack of balance and creativity, to play again in that set-up. We’ll fall apart if we see that again.
Doing a pod this morning with James. It won’t be fun. Then the football and social media are off for the day.
Catch you all tomorrow.
Yup, yesterday was grim beyond grim.
The spectre of, ‘What if we win nothing, again?’ looms large.
I agree with what I have read but this is just my opinion and another viewpoint to be added from what I observed, that 3 players had a negative knock on effect to the whole team, and had weakened our energy levels to perform tactical and movement of play.
The whole team with ‘what if’ we were more sharp and clinical etc, (with the exception of Dowman’s enthusiasm) had an off day, I agree, but it was our engine room that was the main culprit for our tactical disaster and energy lacking movement and our motivation.
Usually, a teams highest energy players are it’s fullbacks and it’s defensive holding midfielder, who usually all three would have to cover the most ground during 90 minutes of play.
All three players lacked any energy and all three players (White, Myles and zubimendi) were marked out of the game by higher energetic opposition.
This should never be allowed to happen as their energy levels should be no match for the oppositions forward defending offensive players who are marking them over 90 minutes.
Yet, strangely it was so.
While the Arsenal engine room (White, Myles and Zubimendi) was half dead and struggling, this had a knock on effect to the energy of the whole team.
Not only was these three players giving no outlet for Raya to release the ball quickly to counter attack (because they could not loose their offensive markers), their lack in energy had forced our front offensive line to drop back to have to help them out with a pass outlet to get the ball forward, they also needed help in basic defending when having to chase back.
This in turn left big gaps between our front offensive line and Bournemouth’s back line defence that was so wide that Bournemouth back line was unchallenged throughout the game. This gave them with plenty of space to operate in our half of the pitch.
We were now unable to defend from the front due to our slow moving, non sharp energy lacking engine room.
As mentioned and in my opinion, due to our dying engine room, we were always a pace off the game with slow passing and slow movement and always second to any fifty fifty tackles.
Why Arteta sees this all too late and not on the training field, I do not know. But he did see it and made some changes in those engin room departments, but too little too late as Bournemouth was already motivated and continued on the front foot.
We lacked our captain and any guidance and motivation usually given by a fit Odeguard. Was he really injured (unusual that he was not on the bench at least to watch the game)
We missed our regular A-Team fullbacks and also Odeguards energy in closing players down from the front and setting an example for our team to push up and close the front space. He would have been ideal for this type of high energy game and would have instructed Zubimendi to show of energy and Character in the midfield.
Our fullbacks and defensive midfielder (White, Myles and Zubimendi) were easily been marked through the game and showed either a lack of energy or ability to loose their close energetic markers, and to show that they are better than just squad back up (B team players). White and Myles are maybe still not match fit, but Zubimendi seemed to be running on empty, maybe lacking in Rices stamina and over played in games this year.
I think there may be some players leaving in those departments in the summer and some new players coming in that can actually compete for those A team positions when everyone is fit. They need to compete and be on par, not just a back up.
But unless things change, they will be questioned if they are even good enough to be filling the injured spaces regardless of squad size, let alone compete for starting places Just IMO.
Let’s hope for a new rejuvenated engine room with also missed motivation players in Saka, Odeguard and a full complement A Team fullbacks to fix our broken back line.
Thanks for the comment Dave. Very thorough and i’d love it to have brought me hope, but my worry now is that we WON’T have those players back for Sunday. I was convinced we’d see Timber, Calafiori, etc on Saturday – but none appeared. And that has worried me too, because the same team rocking up at the Etihad on Sunday gets a beat down. 🙁