Arsenal went out of the EFL Cup last night after a bad night at the London Stadium. If we’re being a bit more specific, it was a very bad second half that really did for us, because while the first 45 wasn’t exactly stellar, we had the better of the game – scoreline aside.
Mikel Arteta made changes, as we both expected and hoped with Newcastle on Saturday. Jorginho came into midfield, there were starts for Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson and Leandro Trossard, and the most startling piece of team news came beforehand with Arteta revealing Emile Smith Rowe had picked up a knee injury which is ‘big worry’.
Still, we dominated the ball in the first half, with almost 70% possession, 8 shots to West Ham’s 0, and 6 successful dribbles. But of course we went in 1-0 down thanks to a Ben White own goal. There’s a lot of focus on the shirt pull on Aaron Ramsdale which would surely have seen the goal disallowed in the Premier League where VAR checks for any possible infraction, but there’s no VAR in this competition for some reason. That said, I think the trajectory on the corner from Bowen was such that it lends itself to danger, and when Ben White mistimed his header, it flicked off him and into the net, giving the impeded Ramsdale no chance. So, a foul, but also not great defending.
At the other end, we struggled to make good chances. I thought Oleksandr Zinchenko was a bit too keen to get on the ball at times. We know he can dictate play, but too often he was picking it up off players in positions that weren’t ideal. He wasn’t so much the additional man in midfield, as an extra guy in the way of others. It felt a bit arrogant, or something. However, he did make our best chance of the first half, which Eddie Nketiah – fresh off a confidence boosting hat-trick a few days ago – should have done more with than clatter it over the bar from 7 yards out.
I wasn’t especially worried though. The way the game was going I thought if we kept that up we’d find a way through. Except we didn’t keep it up, and West Ham stepped it up immediately after the break. Straight away, the way Paqueta ran through our midfield with ease was a worry, Ramsdale made a good save from Bowen and White cleared. That set the tone though.
Shortly afterwards, Zinchenko was caught out too easily by a long diagonal, and while I think the touch from Mohammed Kudus is excellent, I don’t know what Gabriel thought he was doing. It wasn’t defending. It was like a crap version of Vogue, Madonna should issue a lawsuit at once. The finish went between the Brazilian’s legs, giving the keeper no chance. Just bad defending.
The manager responded by taking off Jorginho and Zinchenko, putting on Declan Rice (cartoon boos etc) and Takehiro Tomiyasu. It didn’t make any difference and inside a couple of minutes it was 3-0. White headed out a cross, it fell for Bowen again and I think Ramsdale would probably have saved it but for a deflection off Jakub Kiwior’s thigh which altered the trajectory at the last second. When it’s not your night etc.
At that point, it was game over. We had to be seen to give it a go though. Bukayo Saka and Martinelli came on, followed by Martin Odegaard. We had almost 80% possession after their third goal, but the only time we did anything remotely dangerous with it was when the captain scored an injury time consolation that was more annoying than anything else.
Arsenal were dismal in that second period, toothless and ineffective. Not a single player offered anything that you would associate with a team that really wanted to win the game (although I thought Kiwior was the best of the bunch). In the forward areas, Trossard was anonymous; I thought Kai Havertz had a bright opening 15 mins but then faded into yet another indifferent performance in which he looked like more awkward foal than goal threat; Eddie, Vieira, Nelson, nothing. Zilch. Zero. Nada. Even the high quality subs made no real difference.
Afterwards, Mikel Arteta took the blame, saying:
I’m very disappointed. Obviously I’m responsible for that, we are out of the cup and we wanted to play a very different game, and especially we wanted to compete in a game like this, which we discussed for 48 hours, in a very different way to what we’ve done.
We have tried to put out the team that we believed was the best to try to compete today in the right way to start the game, and the game took a different direction obviously because of the first goal and we can discuss that, but after that we still have to see much more from the team to earn the right to win in a place like this.
The way he stressed the word ‘compete’ in the press conference video tells you plenty about what he thought of that. His face at the end was that of a man extremely unhappy with what he saw from his team, and you can completely understand that. Of course, it’s his job to elicit the performance from his side, but I think what he asked for from his players and what he got on the night were completely at odds with each other – hence his post-game frustration. I suspect there will have been some choice words in the dressing room last night.
And look, these things can happen. Every team can have an off-night, and if there’s a silver-lining at all, it’s that it came in this particular cup competition rather than the Premier League. I don’t ever like to lose, but if you asked me to choose between last night and Saturday to drop a stinker, there’s only one answer. That said, you have to make sure it’s a one-off and that you get the right response when we go to Newcastle.
Arteta again:
What it shows you is that in football what matters is the day, what you did three days ago it’s irrelevant, what is going to happen tomorrow is going to be the most important thing, and again we have to use this defeat to prepare the best way to go to Newcastle and win.
The bigger worry for me is the way injuries are beginning to pile up. Thomas Partey, out for weeks. Reports Gabriel Jesus could miss the entire month of November. Now Smith Rowe sidelined for who knows how long. The first two in particular are extremely important, and for the latter, it’s a sad one as he had just started to work his way back into contention. It puts on onus on some players who haven’t really delivered to start making contributions, and you lose that bit of depth and security when it comes to team selections.
So, plenty for the manager to ponder over the next couple of days on the training ground. He’s got to pick a side to deal with a Newcastle side whose second string demolished Man Utd last night, and while that might have as much to do with United being very bad right now, it’s still something we have to contend with.
Right, let’s leave it there for now. We’ll have an Arsecast for you a bit later today, we can chat a bit more about last night and all the rest. It’ll be out in the afternoon at some point.
Until then.
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