Kevin Whitcher
At the end of my write-up on Wednesday’s Montpellier match, I wrote, “It was a performance - the goals aside - to forget, but the necessary job was done. Let’s see what visits to Villa Park and Goodison tell us about the ability of this group of players to turn things around and begin to demonstrate some much needed consistency of performance.”
Well, the news isn’t looking good. Granted, the conditions were far from pleasant, a real dog of a day, but there was nothing wrong with the Villa Park pitch, and looking at the home team’s line up, frankly, they were there for the taking. Even when Villa had better teams, Arsene Wenger has frequently won this fixture. I was astonished to learn the last time Arsenal were defeated away to them was the 1998 half-time parachuting Santa Claus game. In a sense the law of averages suggested Arsenal should eventually lose, but Paul Lambert’s current line-up, without Darren Bent, seemed unlikely to do that.
Arsenal, even though the passing was well below par, did manage to fashion enough chances to take all three points, but the finishing was poor, Koscielny’s probably the worst miss. And in fairness to Villa, on opportunities, three points could just as easily have gone to them. They probably deserved a draw for their efforts. However, they are a relegation zone side and Wenger’s team seem to drop a lot of points to such teams, part of the reason they have slipped out of contention for the Premier League title in recent seasons.
Is it the quality of player? Is it the tactics? Is it a lack of motivation? Whatever it is, the solution to this problem does not seem to have been found, and the travelling fans would have been justified in wondering if this was good use of their Saturday.
The yellow and maroon kit came out once again. This was the away strip for the 2010/11 season, and the third kit last season. Someone can enlighten us as to whether this two year old strip has been worn more often than the purple one this season. It certainly feels that way.
Still, the strip is the least of our concerns. What matters now is arresting the decline in Arsenal’s performances of late, as improvement will be needed if the season is to be turned around. Winning at Villa should not be dependent on the appearance of Jack Wilshere and Abou Diaby. There are enough players that are capable of being match winners that started the game. But it’s all gone a bit flat. Wins against Spurs and Montpellier should have sent the team into this match with an attitude to dictate matters and wrap the points up early. Instead, they were largely cancelled out simply by Villa’s energetic harrying, the quality of passing and crossing well below what it should be.
Another poor display at Goodison will add significant numbers to the Black Scarf March before the Swansea match next Saturday. They will protest about the direction the club is taking. A more immediate concern is the direction the team seems to be taking. Every side has the odd poor display, but Arsenal seem to make a habit of them, and don’t seem to win on such days too often either. Change is badly needed if they are to compete credibly again, but how that is going to happen with the current coaching set up is something this observer is struggling to see. I could live with failure if, at least, there was an attempt to do something different, rather than allowing the malaise to simply rumble on, because watching this kind of hapless display on a regular basis is purgatory.
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