Kevin Whitcher
Wow. Arsenal’s season is starting to collapse like a house of cards in slow motion. Yesterday evening they were even unable to achieve the type of flat track bully result that took them to first place in the league until things started to unravel in February. The run of results since beating Palace at the start of that month reads L-D-W-L-W-L-D. Title form it ain’t and with Manchester City and Everton on the horizon, there is a distinct possibility after the visit to Goodison Park that the Gunners will have sunk to fifth place.
“Accidents” was how the manager described the defeats at Eastlands, Anfield and Stamford Bridge, which struck myself and many others as an incredulous statement. However, there is every chance the season might end up resembling a car crash. For me it has echoes of the 2010-11 campaign in which the team won only two of their final eleven league matches, and lost in the League Cup Final to boot.
The manager praised the spirit and effort of the players, but I thought that, aside from the period when the two goals were scored, they looked ponderous and lackadaisical. The goals came because, after over 70 minutes of the game had been played, the team finally drove at Swansea and took players on instead of choosing a tika-taka pass.
Once they went ahead, we were back to the old problem of failing to see a game out, which I thought had been eradicated. Yes, the equalizer was an unfortunate own goal, but it was a consequence of Arsenal failing to control the game in the final minutes as they should be more than capable of doing. For me, it looked like they were gambling a little too much trying to make it 3-1 rather than concentrating on the basics. Kieran Gibbs did well to create the first goal, but at 2-1 up, did he really need to be so high up the field so often? Wenger said after the game that he thought his team were too conservative at 2-1 up and did not commit numbers forward, which is the opposite of what I saw. Swansea had more than one chance to break. Maybe I was watching a different game.
I could have lived with the go for the kill approach (at least in terms of numbers) I thought I witnessed if there was more than one goal in it, but Swansea were offered the chance to counter attack due to the numbers the home team committed to attacking moves. No need. Where was the instruction from the bench? Where was the common sense, the mentality that saw them go on a ten match unbeaten run at the end of last season, beating eight teams of Swansea’s standard home and away? If the manager’s opinion was that they were actually being conservative, god alone knows what the side would look like if they weren’t.
So Arsenal face Manchester City on Saturday in a game which looks like it has away win written all over it. And then go to Everton. Oh dear.
Mind you, if the club did finish outside the Champions League places, surely Arsene Wenger would go. It was suggested by one caller on the post-match phone-ins that this would be the biggest trophy of all. Certainly, a large number of Arsenal fans just want to see something different than a team who are incapable of remaining in the title race beyond spring.
I said it on Sunday and I will say it again. An FA Cup win and a top four finish would allow the manager to go out on a high. But before that, if the paucity of recent performances continues, things could turn ugly in the stadium, in spite of cup progress. If Manchester City establish a two or three goal lead on Saturday, who can predict how the fans might react? The fear is that it is going to get worse before it gets better, as the players are looking distinctly average now that the business end of the season has arrived. We’ve seen that a few times before in recent years, and it’s difficult to see it changing until there is someone different in the dugout.
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