"I cannot express how tired I am of seeing Arsenal struggle. Tired of analysing bad results and bad performances. Tired of us making the same mistakes over and over and over again. Tired of fighting for fourth/third every year... I badly want this to change, for Arsenal to become a major force again, but for now I see no light at the end of this long and gloomy tunnel."
This is what I said after we drew with Liverpool two months ago. And yet here I am, once again facing the task of analysing a debacle of a performance.
As you might have noticed, I'm an optimist at heart. I always hope for the best and try to find positives in every performance, however small and insignificant these may be. I do this because the opposite is simply unbearable for me. Being pessimistic (or, as some will put it, realistic) will get you nowhere and won't make your (already hard) life any easier. Such people lose the ability to see the good side of things even if it far outweighs the bad. They are constantly dissatisfied, they have nothing to look forward to and their life becomes the never-ending circle of misery and anticipation of something bad. I'm not even sure being proved right brings such people any kind of happiness. As they never predict good things they don't get the chance to enjoy these. And it takes a special kind of crazy to enjoy the bad ones.
And so I'll start with the teeny tiny positives from yesterday's game. God knows there were very few.
The good
We had moments. That's something, we've at least been able to conjure these up. They were mostly half-chances, but still there were several occasions when we should have scored. Welbeck in the 2nd minute, Cazorla when he opted to pass instead of having a go himself, Sanchez after being set up by Ozil. The crime of the first half was not hitting the target. The story continued in the second half. Our first effort on target happened in the 55th minute when Sanchez's fierce low shot stung the goalkeeper's palms. The second happened after Walcott came on for Giroud, past the 60 minutes mark, that is.
And there were some players who, while far from their best on the night, got much more stick than they deserved. I mostly have Cazorla, Ozil and Oxlade in mind. Cazorla "led all players with 72/77 passes, completed 23/27 passes in the final third, created 1 shot for a teammate, made 6/6 dribbles, 3/3 tackles, and drew 2 fouls. He also almost never turned the ball over, just 1 time, and was only dispossessed twice." The stats courtesy of @7amkickoff.
Ozil, who was once again accused of laziness, ran the most of all Arsenal players and was third in this regard overall, just behind some Monaco blokes. Oxlade, meanwhile, scored the only goal, which he did all by himself, so blaming him for losing the ball some 70 yards from goal is ingratitude at its finest. He at least tried to make something happen and, lest you forgot, it was his first game since some 6-week layoff.
The bad
Everything else was bad. Mertesacker and Giroud were just the tip of the iceberg. Not that I don't think they shouldn't be dropped after THIS, but they aren't the only people responsible.
The biggest problem for me yesterday was how we approached the game. Our mentality. We were abject the entire game, absolutely listless and disinterested. We took Monaco for granted, we thought showing up would do the trick. We did something that no team should do in the Champions League: we underestimated the opposition. And we paid the price for it. Few would argue we didn't get what we deserved yesterday. We got exactly that.
The most terrifying thing about yesterday's defeat is that we had an almost full squad. Debuchy, Arteta, Flamini, Ramsey and Wilshere were the only absentees, but we've played without them the whole January. We've played almost the entire season without the former two, so when we have Ramsey and Wilshere back we can say we have a fit squad.
The problem yesterday wasn't the quality of the players on the pitch (or, to be more exact, it wasn't the biggest problem), it was that nobody took responsibility. No one stepped up and grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. We have a quality squad, but, paradoxically, few would argue we couldn't do better in every position. We were spineless yesterday and it wasn't the first time this season either. I can name at least two more games where we just didn't care: Borussia away and Swansea.
At times like these I really wish we had Wilshere. He wouldn't have let such a game pass the team by. He has his shortcomings, but lack of guts isn't among these. His best performance this season was against City and that's saying something. He doesn't go missing, he doesn't shy away from doing any work and, in my opinion, he should be captain. He's far better suited to the role than Arteta and Mertesacker combined.
The verdict
So what do we do now? Well, start from scratch, obviously. We play Everton in three days and we better win that game. And then the next after. And the one after that. And then we go to Monaco hoping for a goddamn miracle. Which right now seems just that.
Oh, and one last thing. While pinning all the blame on Wenger is wrong, simply because he cannot kick the ball about for his players, I have to admit that Arsene remains the common denominator in our Champions League failures. One final, one semi-final and a couple of quarter-finals in 18 years is hardly head-turning.
That's it, back on Saturday with a preview.
Until then
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)
This is what I said after we drew with Liverpool two months ago. And yet here I am, once again facing the task of analysing a debacle of a performance.
As you might have noticed, I'm an optimist at heart. I always hope for the best and try to find positives in every performance, however small and insignificant these may be. I do this because the opposite is simply unbearable for me. Being pessimistic (or, as some will put it, realistic) will get you nowhere and won't make your (already hard) life any easier. Such people lose the ability to see the good side of things even if it far outweighs the bad. They are constantly dissatisfied, they have nothing to look forward to and their life becomes the never-ending circle of misery and anticipation of something bad. I'm not even sure being proved right brings such people any kind of happiness. As they never predict good things they don't get the chance to enjoy these. And it takes a special kind of crazy to enjoy the bad ones.
And so I'll start with the teeny tiny positives from yesterday's game. God knows there were very few.
The good
We had moments. That's something, we've at least been able to conjure these up. They were mostly half-chances, but still there were several occasions when we should have scored. Welbeck in the 2nd minute, Cazorla when he opted to pass instead of having a go himself, Sanchez after being set up by Ozil. The crime of the first half was not hitting the target. The story continued in the second half. Our first effort on target happened in the 55th minute when Sanchez's fierce low shot stung the goalkeeper's palms. The second happened after Walcott came on for Giroud, past the 60 minutes mark, that is.
And there were some players who, while far from their best on the night, got much more stick than they deserved. I mostly have Cazorla, Ozil and Oxlade in mind. Cazorla "led all players with 72/77 passes, completed 23/27 passes in the final third, created 1 shot for a teammate, made 6/6 dribbles, 3/3 tackles, and drew 2 fouls. He also almost never turned the ball over, just 1 time, and was only dispossessed twice." The stats courtesy of @7amkickoff.
Ozil, who was once again accused of laziness, ran the most of all Arsenal players and was third in this regard overall, just behind some Monaco blokes. Oxlade, meanwhile, scored the only goal, which he did all by himself, so blaming him for losing the ball some 70 yards from goal is ingratitude at its finest. He at least tried to make something happen and, lest you forgot, it was his first game since some 6-week layoff.
The bad
Everything else was bad. Mertesacker and Giroud were just the tip of the iceberg. Not that I don't think they shouldn't be dropped after THIS, but they aren't the only people responsible.
The biggest problem for me yesterday was how we approached the game. Our mentality. We were abject the entire game, absolutely listless and disinterested. We took Monaco for granted, we thought showing up would do the trick. We did something that no team should do in the Champions League: we underestimated the opposition. And we paid the price for it. Few would argue we didn't get what we deserved yesterday. We got exactly that.
The most terrifying thing about yesterday's defeat is that we had an almost full squad. Debuchy, Arteta, Flamini, Ramsey and Wilshere were the only absentees, but we've played without them the whole January. We've played almost the entire season without the former two, so when we have Ramsey and Wilshere back we can say we have a fit squad.
The problem yesterday wasn't the quality of the players on the pitch (or, to be more exact, it wasn't the biggest problem), it was that nobody took responsibility. No one stepped up and grabbed the game by the scruff of the neck. We have a quality squad, but, paradoxically, few would argue we couldn't do better in every position. We were spineless yesterday and it wasn't the first time this season either. I can name at least two more games where we just didn't care: Borussia away and Swansea.
At times like these I really wish we had Wilshere. He wouldn't have let such a game pass the team by. He has his shortcomings, but lack of guts isn't among these. His best performance this season was against City and that's saying something. He doesn't go missing, he doesn't shy away from doing any work and, in my opinion, he should be captain. He's far better suited to the role than Arteta and Mertesacker combined.
The verdict
So what do we do now? Well, start from scratch, obviously. We play Everton in three days and we better win that game. And then the next after. And the one after that. And then we go to Monaco hoping for a goddamn miracle. Which right now seems just that.
Oh, and one last thing. While pinning all the blame on Wenger is wrong, simply because he cannot kick the ball about for his players, I have to admit that Arsene remains the common denominator in our Champions League failures. One final, one semi-final and a couple of quarter-finals in 18 years is hardly head-turning.
That's it, back on Saturday with a preview.
Until then
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)