The main response I have seen from Arsenal fans seems to be that we would have lost both of those games under Arsene Wenger too. We actually hadn’t lost our opening two league games since 1992 so Wenger certainly wasn’t around then and he did manage a point away to Chelsea early on last season if I remember correctly. Comparisons miss the point though because it was time for him to go and we have to build for the future under the new manager.
He made a couple of changes from the defeat against City with Nacho Monreal returning from injury to replace the injured Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Alex Iwobi coming in for Aaron Ramsey. The formation was the same as last week though and the game started in a similar fashion with Chelsea getting the upper hand and taking the game to us.
The first fairly good chance fell to us when a cut back from the left was flashed wide by Mesut Ozil and we paid the price very quickly. Within a minute Chelsea were ahead when a simple ball in behind us put Marcus Alonso in and his ball across the goal was finished with ease by Pedro. It was too easy to get behind us because we played a high line without putting pressure on the ball and that is a recipe for disaster.
After that goal Chelsea dominated and we were lucky to be only one goal behind. Despite their domination we still managed to get into good positions to cut the ball back and it was from one of these that Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang missed an absolute sitter. It was the sort of chance you would expect a player of his pedigree to put away, but he missed it and almost immediately we paid the price again.
Another simple ball over the top from a player who wasn’t closed down put Alvaro Morata in a one on one with Shkodran Mustafi and he turned him inside out before finishing with ease. Where Sokratis Papastathopoulos was during this is anyone’s guess, but he certainly wasn’t there to help his central defensive partner. At 2-0 down I feared the worst and Chelsea had already missed a couple of chances of their own at that stage too.
However Arsenal continued to get in behind Chelsea and cut that ball back and it was Henrikh Mkhitaryan’s turn to miss a great chance next from almost the exact same position as Aubameyang’s miss. The first Arsenal goal came from an attempted cut back from Iwobi which was blocked and fell to Mkhitaryan who drilled it home from the edge of the area. The Chelsea keeper probably should have done better, but Arsenal were back in the game and sensed the fear in Chelsea.
Not long after that we were level and it was Iwobi who scored this time from yet another cut back and in almost the exact same spot that Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan had missed from. There was another chance for Iwobi before the break from that exact same move again, but it wasn’t as clear cut as the ball bobbled badly. There was a near post miss from Aubameyang in there somewhere too and we could easily have gone in at the break two or three goals up despite not playing well for so much of the first half.
The manager changed things at the break with Lucas Torreira coming on for Granit Xhaka as Xhaka had struggled badly when Chelsea were on top. When we were on top Xhaka had performed better though and that’s something that has to be considered in games we are expected to dominate. The full backs also dropped a little deeper after the break and we struggled badly to make an attacking impact.
It looked like we might be content with the point we had and maybe hoped to hit Chelsea on the break. We didn’t have the possession in the right places to do that though and Mesut Ozil couldn’t make any real impact on the game. Ramsey came on for Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette replaced Iwobi, but we continued to look toothless in the second half.
Just as it looked like we might get a point we handed Chelsea another goal with Lacazette firstly giving the ball away and then putting in a half hearted attempt to tackle Eden Hazard. His cross was met by Alonso who had given Torreira the slip and he put it through Petr Cech’s legs from close range. We never really recovered from that goal and our only real attempt to pull it back was a long range effort from Ramsey which went just over the bar.
There were plenty of positives in the game, but our defending was just as bad if not worse than it has been for too long to remember now. At least we had much more threat in attack than we did last week and we created so many chances despite our playmaker not having a good game. A point would have been a fair return I think, but if you defend like we did against a top six side you rarely get anything from the game.
The new manager has pretty much got a free pass for the first two games because of the opposition, but that will end now. We’re one place above the bottom three with no points to our name and six points behind the early pacesetters after only two games. We quite simply have to start winning games and nothing short of three points in our next game will be acceptable.
Thankfully that game is at home to West Ham next Saturday and they lost at home to Bournemouth on Saturday after losing their first game 4-0 at Liverpool. We’ll get to welcome Jack Wilshere back to the Emirates in that game, but there can be no room for sentiment. We need to start clocking up the points in that game and in the seven games that follow before we play any of the top six clubs again.
There will be distractions in the meantime with the Europa League coming up soon and pesky international breaks too, but we have to concentrate on the most important job which is taking league points and trying to keep pace with the top four. It’s going to take a lot of hard work in training to get the team to a point where they can perform the way the manager wants them to perform and there will be a lot less chances to do so in training with all of the other distractions.I think we have to try to target 20 points from the next eight games and if we can get them we will be close to the top four.
That’s it for today.
See you tomorrow.
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