Match report – Player ratings – arteta reaction – Video
On another day, Arsenal’s good start to this game could have given us a couple of goals up in the first 15 minutes. Mikel Arteta made changes, starting Reiss Nelson on the left ahead of Gabriel Martinelli, with Jorginho in midfield and Kai Havertz up front as Gabriel Jesus suffered a knee injury.
He also gave the lead to Aaron Ramsdale, whose superb long pass in the third minute sent Nelson racing in behind the Liverpool defence. It was difficult, but I think he should have tried to go over the goalkeeper the first time, instead of touching him and going around him. Having done that, could he have given a pass to Bukayo Saka instead of trying to score from an impossible angle? I think so.
Arsenal were far above. Nelson had another shot, Havertz had a pop, a mistake by Liverpool allowed the German to retrieve the ball, a play that ended with Martin Odegaard crashing into the crossbar. It was one of those that had to hit high to get past a group of defenders, but our scoring margins are so fine at the moment, it’s just a fraction above where it needed to be.
The game calmed down a bit but we were still on the rise. Havertz had another chance, but he took too long to shoot and Liverpool stood in the way. Saka tried. Rice tried. Ben White hit a cookie that forced Alisson to make a significant save. From the resulting corner, Havertz rose higher, but his header went wide. At least he had to hit the target. There was another try from Havertz, before a warning signal just before half-time when Alexander-Arnold hit the bar.
By any measure, Arsenal had the better of the first 45 minutes, but had nothing to show for it. The inability to convert mastery into goals is a major problem right now. What makes it more frustrating is how well we played against a team like Liverpool without being able to finish. If we just didn’t have chances, that would be one thing (and worse in my opinion), but having chances and not scoring them is very, very frustrating. It wasn’t exactly the same, but there were shades of Brighton’s performance, where a lot of things were good until that final pass/shot.
Plus, you know in your heart that if you play so well against a team as good as Liverpool and don’t make the most of it, you risk being punished. They made a tactical adjustment at half-time that worked well for them, but they were always going to find their place in this match. There were shots from Gómez and Núñez, and while they were not one-way, they were certainly more threatening.
Still, we should have been ahead when a clever free kick from Odegaard sent Havertz free in his area, he held it well and firmly expected Gabriel to head home. Somehow he missed the ball, before Saka arrived, who hooked it over the bar. That was just before time. Arteta brought in Martinelli, who initially caused Alexander-Arnold some problems, but like at Anfield, he couldn’t get past Konate.
Núñez had the opportunity to play Díaz for a one-on-one with Ramsdale, but he botched the pass. The Arsenal goalkeeper made an excellent save to deny Díaz, from the resulting corner Jota hit the crossbar with a header (beating Saliba!), and Núñez deflected a shot wide. More warning signs from visitors.
Without wanting to delve too deeply into the weeds, Liverpool’s two goals show precisely something we were missing. The first came from a free kick deep in our half, and Alexander-Arnold headed in a dangerous ball that Jakub Kiwior unfortunately headed into his own goal. Set pieces are only dangerous if you can throw a good ball. He did. For the most part, we didn’t.
With the exception of a first-half corner and that free kick routine I mentioned, our set pieces were poor throughout. You cannot threaten the opponent’s goal if the defender at the near post has an easy header to clear it. It was good to see Trossard come in and deliver a corner into Alisson’s arms just as he was dying, maintaining his recent record for the most atrocious corners ever taken by a professional footballer. And by good I mean frustrating.
The sealing goal came so late that the game was basically won at that point, but the word to describe Diaz’s finish is emphatic. Powerful and decisive shot that left the goalkeeper with no options. Words to describe our completion lately: meek, powerless, meek, weak, imprecise, inadequate. The polar opposite of how Liverpool achieved victory and a place in the fourth round.
Can we interrogate the submarines? It felt a bit like Arteta didn’t want to change anything because the performance was okay, but clearly the second half required something more to offset Liverpool’s improvement. Throwing on Eddie for Jorginho after they were 1-0 up was the essence of the reaction, and it didn’t do much to get us back to it. Waiting until the 87th minute to introduce Emile Smith Rowe and Leandro Trossard was more of a roll of the dice than tactical.
There were things we could have done sooner. I love Bukayo Saka as much as the next person, and I understand that his record is such that you want to keep him, but there are days when that doesn’t happen for him and the manager needs to recognize that. He can be replaced and I would have done it yesterday.
Ultimately, though, if you do what we did in the first half and don’t score the goals that would have given you a half-time lead, you leave yourself open to receiving, if not a punch, then a punch on the nose. That leaves you seeing stars. Liverpool were able to do that in the closing stages of the game, and by that point we had used up all our juice with nothing to show for it and there wasn’t much left in the attacking tank.
Arteta was later questioned about the need for another striker and said:
One thing is what we need, another thing is what we can do too, and what we have to do now is stay behind those players. Give them support, love, empower them, and make sure they envision something very different than what is actually happening right now. They have done it before, we are not going to invent or reinvent the wheel because they have done it.
Which I understand to a certain extent. I think these players are capable of scoring goals, and the only consolation, if you can call it that, is that we are not sitting here this morning bemoaning the fact that we can’t create a chance to save our lives. However, games are won and lost based on your ability to put the ball in the back of the net, and we can’t do that right now. We are a team that is doing many things very well, wait for what matters most.
Let’s put Fulham’s play and performance aside, because I think it’s essentially an aberration based on everything we’ve seen so far this season, but let’s go back to Aston Villa and pay the price for waste. The same thing happened against West Ham just after Christmas, and the same thing happened yesterday. Valuable Premier League points and the chance to win a cup have vanished because we can’t take advantage of our opportunities. It is a major problem and needs to be fixed as soon as possible.
The clamor for a striker is understandable, but I think if people rally around that as the only solution, there will be a lot of frustration in January, because I don’t see that happening for the reasons we’ve outlined. before. Does that mean we don’t need something else on the cutting edge? Absolutely not. In my opinion, we could 100% do with an addition (forward or full-back), but the manager’s message about backing the players we have is probably quite instructive regarding what could happen in the transfer market this month. It is more or less telling us that the external solution that so many crave is not realistic this month, so the problem must be solved from within.
Now there’s a two-week break and some warm-weather training. Arteta says the break comes at a good time and he will probably be there. A reboot is necessary, but there is no need to analyze what went wrong, because it is really not complicated. Fixing it could be more difficult, because now it seems that the weight of not scoring is something the players are feeling, but they have time to shake some of it off before we face Crystal Palace the following weekend.
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Well, let’s leave it there. We’re recording an Arsecast Extra for you this morning, so keep an eye out for questions on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog member on Patreon, leave your question. in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server.
The podcast should go live around lunchtime. Until then.
