Right into it.
Headline: Uninspiring
There is nothing much more you can say about that match that isn’t some synonym of uninspiring.
Boring, dull, dreary, drab, unexciting, insipid, bland, tame, lifeless, lackluster.
Take your pick. It is a headline writers dream to be able to go deep into the bag to find some creative way to describe this match. It is needed too because this match was sorely lacking of any creativity from Arsenal.
I came into this match so confident, probably way too much so with hindsight. Arsenal haven’t exactly clicked here but I thought they would be up for this match, and come in playing like the season was on the line needing to throw down a marker to remind Manchester City and Liverpool that they were still here and the climb back to chase them was still on.
It is hard to try and find a silver lining in this match. Arsenal created one sort of chance in the first half from a corner but it was a tough one with a bunch of bodies in the way.
In the second half it took nearly 20 minutes to take a shot and even then the team created just one clear opening and it was a tough header that Declan Rice got all wrong.
Arsenal “win” on xG here but they were far from the better team here. With the season’s goals of winning a title hanging by a thread the team created just 7 shots after going behind.
Arsenal managed just 25 touches in the box after going behind, just 11 in the second half.
This was a team that looked out of ideas as they kept the ball but had no plan how to do anything that would resemble something threatening.
Arsenal have built this team to be a DUEL winning monster. Sometimes it felt like at the expense of technical quality turning the dial away from that profile of player. Today it looked like it really hurt the team because they didn’t win the duels and they didn’t have the technical quality to play through Newcastle.
This is the worst of both worlds. It was a game where in the dangerous parts of the pitch Arsenal had nothing to offer. Arsenal had 72 open play pass attempts in the areas around the Newcastle box and managed just 7 passes completed into the box.
There was no movement, no combinations, no ideas.
You can list the reasons for this. Odegaard is missing and that hurts but for the attackers that is really the only player the team is missing. Mikel Merino is here, Bukayo Saka is here, Gabriel Martinelli is here, Leandro Trossard is here, Kai Havertz is here, Gabriel Jesus is here, Raheem Sterling is here.
It feels like there is a structural problem right now. Arteta is choosing to play a weird fullback combination with a midfielder at right back and a wrong footed fullback on the other side and it seems to really hurt the team in the final third.
It felt like Newcastle were fine letting the ball get to Saka or Martinelli because they knew that even with how good these players are that they could put two or three men on them and come away winners in those battles because there was no threat that one of the fullbacks could overload that side.
Saka went 0/3 dribbling and lost the ball 12 times.
Martinelli went 1/4 dribbling and lost the ball 11 times.
Trossard went 0/2 dribbling and lost the ball 12 times.
Jesus went 0/1 dribbling and lost the ball 7 times.
This was the team that Arsenal built this way on purpose. It can work and it can be a very good team but on days like this it looks like the team with their squad building left themselves playing a very risky game in terms of how fragile it can be in terms of creative passing in the most valuable areas of the field.
Stock Rising: Champions League Campaign
This team is still good. This team is not easy to beat. Those are good traits for a knockout tournament.
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