That’s the million dollar question isn’t it? On the face of it, a draw away at a team who are looking like a potential title rival doesn’t look too bad. On the flip side, with Arsenal playing against 10 men for over half of the game, many would believe, and rightly so in my opinion, that Arsenal would have enough quality and drive to make that extra man count and take all three points.
To be fair, we probably won’t know definitively if it’s one point gained or two points lost until the end of the season, but what we know right now is how we feel about it. Personally feel like it’s probably one point gained, based on the fixtures leading up to it, and the general performance that we put in, yet it’s hard not to think about what could have been.
What if…
When we draw a game, it’s not always the end of the world and I can sometime come away feeling happy enough with our afternoon’s work. One thing that changes my mindset on the result is stoppage time or specifically what happens in stoppage time or late in the game. If we draw a game, I really don’t want a glimpse of what we could have had and that’s exactly what happened at Chelsea.
I’ve already cried about it in my Player Ratings blog, but I’m still devasted about it so I’m going to bring it up again!! With what was pretty much the last attack of the game, Piero Hincapie swings in a beautiful ball into the box and in one of the most frustrating Arsenal moments of the season (injuries aside but fully up their with Brian Brobbey’s late equaliser at Sunderland) Jurrien Timber stretches for a ball that he never had a hope of making and only succeeding in flicking it out of harm’s way and right off the head of the lurking Viktor Gyokeres behind him! It’s just one of those things in football. Maybe Gyokeres didn’t let his teammate know, maybe Timber had already committed to the ball when he did and couldn’t get out of the way in time. Whatever happened between the moment the ball left Hincapie’s left boot and the moment when the ball went sailing out of the penalty area was pretty much instantaneous and something that can’t really be blamed on anyone one. It’s just so frustrating to see the three points right there for the taking, in another potential Gabriel moment at Newcastle (spirit of Champions and all that) only to see it pass just as quickly due to a mix-up between two teammates. It’s even more frustrating that this exact same thing happened in the same game last year, in the same game state and in almost exactly the same minute!! The only thing that was different was the players!!
Unfortunately that’s football for you. Hopefully we have a big slice of luck coming our way in a future game, as these things generally even themselves out across the season.
Concerning signs
Aside from the result, there was definitely worrying elements in relation to the performance. Arsenal were not good in this game and if the teams had remained 11 v 11, you have to wonder whether Arsenal would have escaped with any points at all, such was the quality of the performance. Maybe that’s a bit harsh. Playing against ten men has stumped many teams before, so maybe we just didn’t quite have the edge to break them down? What bothered me was the speed of our passing in the last 20 minutes or so. If you are playing against 10 men, the very least you should be doing is moving the ball around quickly to try and make the opposition run around a bit with the hope of tiring them out. That was certainly not the case for Arsenal in the final stages as they seemed void of ideas and in some ways they seemed to be settling for a point, as they strolled around the pitch. If Chelsea hadn’t been down to 10 men, I would have been absolutely fine with that, as on the face of it, a draw is not a disaster. So I guess that’s the crux of it. Moises Caceido’s dismissal gave Arsenal an opportunity to put 9 points between themselves and a rival and they failed to make it count.
Not so super subs
I’ve been looking forward to this period for the best part of two months as I knew this was when we were going to get the majority of our injured attacking stars back and the strength of our bench was going to go up a notch. As we ground out results away at Fulham and at home to Crystal Palace, I kept thinking, if we can do this with the squad we have right now, imagine what we’ll be able to do with players like Odegaard, Gyokeres and Madueke to bring on and torment tired defences. We’re going to be unstoppable!! The reality was, those three all stepped off in the bench in this game and I don’t think any of them contributed to the game in any meaningful way. I’ll give them a pass as they are all still returning from injury, this was actually Gyokeres’ first game back, so they are bound to be rusty. I do hope for better things from them going forward though. We’re going to need our bench if we are going to achieve our aims for the season.
Refereeing inconsistencies
I’m not going to dwell on this point as I don’t think it really had a bearing on the result, but it seems to have gone unnoticed that Chelsea’s goal probably shouldn’t have stood. I remember watching the replay back, without even thinking for a second about offside and thought to be myself, if Fernandez wasn’t there, I think Hincapie clears that. It now appears as though Fernandez was actually in an offside position when Chalobah heads on and therefore this goal probably shouldn’t have stood. Arsenal levelled about 10 minutes later, so as I said, I don’t think it really affected the result as Arsenal failed to push on with the scores level. However, the inconsistency of this ‘interfering rule’ has reared it’s ugly head again (after similar instances between Liverpool/City and Arsenal/Tottenham) and I think there’s a really simple solution to the whole thing. Whatever happens, the decision is always going to be subjective as you are trying to predict the level of how much defending player is being distracted by the attacking player and in all honesty, only the defending player knows the answer to that.
I therefore think football just needs to take a legal approach and say that on the balances of probability, would the ball have ended up in the back of the net if the player wasn’t stood there. I don’t think that will be cut and dry each time, but I think it would sort out a lot more than the current interpretation does. Vicario was never saving that Eze shot last Sunday, regardless of who was in front of him. He just wasn’t. It was too close in and in any case, part of the blocking was being done by his own defender. The Van Dijk header against City is less clear cut, as Robertson is so close, yet Donnarumma doesn’t make the save, despite being at full stretch so I think that should stood and likewise, I think Chelsea’s should have been disallowed as I think if Hincapie has a clear run on that, he clears the danger.
I doubt there will be any change though and these instances will continue to confuse and frustrate football fans in equal measure between now and the end of the season.
Where have the clean sheets gone?
Arsenal have now gone four games in all competitions without keeping a clean sheet and the early season talk of catching Chelsea’s fabled defensive record has completely vanished. The question is, what has happened to this Arsenal defence? When will our next clean sheet come from? Against Chelsea they were without both of their key lynchpins in Gabriel and William Saliba so that is obviously going to be a contributing factor, yet they were both in attendance against Sunderland where we shipped two really soft goals, so there is concern here. As the old saying goes, forwards win matches, defences win titles. We really need that impenetrable fortress of a defence back and fast!
Lack of maturity
What was really disappointing, (aside from the result, performance, missed opportunity and all that!) was our inability to rise above Chelsea’s ‘dark arts’ and not get involved with all of their antics. Even before Caceido’s red card, the Chelsea players were rolling around on the floor trying to get our players booked or sent off. Caceido even had the cheek to do it after he nearly broke Mikel Merino’s leg. It always surprises me when a team systematically behaves like this as it must come from the Manager mustn’t it? It has to be tactical. Like he would sit them down at the training ground and say, ‘I won’t you to scream like you’ve been shot if someone touches your sock’ or ‘if you could get in many 1-2 thousand revolutions per second when you are rolling around pretending to be hurt, that would be fantastic’. I know there is a lot of this sort of behaviour in football these days and it really makes me feel quite sad for the next generation growing up with these seemingly part of the game now, but I always thought it was just dishonest players, being dishonest. Diego Simeone aside, I never actually thought that a Manager would set his team specific instructions to cheat and deceive, yet that’s clearly what someone in the Chelsea backroom staff must have done.
That aside, Arsenal are a mature enough, with enough leaders and level heads, not to get involved and just take the emotion out of it. I know that’s easier said than done, but I’ve seen them do it before and with a few more leaders on the pitch (Gabriel and Saliba in particular) maybe we could have done so again. Piero Hincapie’s reaction to tackling Pedro Neto was an action that has been clipped up quite a few times online and displayed as a source of pride amongst some Gooners, as Hincapie displayed passion, some comparing it to Gabriel’s reactions in similar situations. The difference is, Gabriel generally behaves like this when we’re either winning or enduring a period of real pressure, and he’s trying to rally the crowd as much as anything. He doesn’t do it when we’re labouring to a draw against 10 men in a game when we really should be winning. Piero…take notes!
What comes next?
Like with most football matches, what really matters for Arsenal right now is what they do next. If Arsenal win their next two games comfortably and professionally they will retain their five point lead at the top of the table having played away at four of the top five teams (excluding Arsenal) from last season. I think that’s what it comes down to. Now that we have dropped points against Chelsea, the pressure is now on for us to not only take maximum points at home to Brentford but to do the same at Villa Park three days later. It was a seriously bad day at the office at Chelsea, but this team showed what it is capable of just a few days earlier against Bayern Munich, so now it’s time to put the disappointment of the Chelsea result behind us and get back to work.