Arsenal vs Wolves: Instant Reaction

Thoughts at full time

Job done, not the prettiest performance but Arsenal start on the front foot. Let’s get straight into it.

Headline: Arsenal aren’t fully cooked.. yet

There isn’t any other way to say it right now but it does look like several Arsenal players are not fully up to fitness. This has been clear in the pre-season and it is not unexpected given that this was a summer with two International tournaments that took the players away and messed with the preparations.

The game started out fine, not fast but Arsenal had enough control and slowly built their way into the game.

It took 15 minutes to get the first shot and from their it seemed to loosen things up for Arsenal as they started peppering the goal and getting some more looks at the goal.

Arsenal couldn’t quite fully cut open the Wolves backline but they were starting to create some half chances, mostly from crosses and cutbacks. That is how they generated the first goal and it is something that I hope that we see more of. I love a quick switch, a nice little cutback to the corner of the box, and a back post overload.

That should be a pattern that we see from both sides this season and I think it will lead to lots of success.

Arsenal continued to look in control after the goal and had a few more chances that just didn’t come off, having to settle for a 1-0 half time lead.

The second half, especially from about 55-70 minutes however is a red flag. Arsenal dropped deeper into their mid-block content to let Wolves have some of the ball and see if they could generate counters.

It didn’t really work out and produced some heart-in-throat moments with little in the way of threat on the counter.

Arsenal seemed to succumb to the pressure and lost their cool. There were several really bad giveaways with the team turning the dial on the risk way too high and that feeding into a sense of almost chaos. We saw Zinchenko give it away, Partey lose the ball and get loose with his passing several times, and the most dangerous moment was Saliba nearly assisting a Wolves giveaway with a disastrous pass.

Arsenal rode their luck and came away fairly lucky to not have the game tied.

I think Arteta was way too slow to react to this. I know he has massive trust in these players to figure it out but it did seem like something needed to be done to at a minimum just pause the play and reset things. It would have helped to have some fresher legs on the field too.

Ultimately, Saka again scored from a spectacular individual effort and sealed the game and the three points. He is a special player and I still don’t think he is appreciated enough.

That’s the big thing but the team absolutley comes away with things to work on here before heading to Aston Villa next weekend.

Player Ratings

I am going to do a bit of a tweak to the format here and instead of stocks risking falling do overall ratings and highlight a few thoughts on the players and maybe if needed call out a stock risking or falling.

My ratings are 0-10, 5 is they played an average (for expectations at Arsenal) match and I am not nearly as soft as the normal ratings that are in reality a 4-10 scale and you have to be pretty bad to get less than 6.

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