Kevin Whitcher
Ed’s note – I booked a flight to Barcelona before Christmas that departed yesterday afternoon, thinking there was no way the Gunners would be playing on the Sunday before a Champions League game. So as I was watching the game on a small tablet in the airport before departure, I asked regular Gooner contributor David Oudôt to cover for me. Here is his piece on the game…
Before I discuss Arsenal, I want to offer nothing but congratulations to Watford and I hope that they go on to win the FA Cup. The best team won – indisputably so. Solid, seemingly impenetrable, quick with their counter-attack, and two fantastic goals… hang on, am I writing about Arsenal away at Manchester City last year? Where has that team gone?
Our performance was more of the same as it has been in most games since Christmas. Concentrating on possession, knocking the ball around tidily, and hoping we find our way around them. But with it being more of the same, the opposition know how to play against us in advance by watching tapes of Swansea/Manchester United/Southampton etc. Play a flat back four with the midfield two in front of them, and none shall pass. Our players are too tired, our manager will not give them an alternative way of playing; we are done for.
With it being an early Sunday kick-off a lot of the fans turning up would have been nursing a hangover, but even though they are professional athletes half our team seemed to have them too despite Wenger naming a very strong side. In the first half we did not offer a single shot on goal at Watford’s reserve goalkeeper who had been kicked out of both Manchester City and Sunderland this season. With Watford time-wasting early and having one eye on a potential replay they were there for the taking if we attacked them from the off as we did in the Manchester United home game in October, but that version of Arsenal is no longer around.
A comment on Andre Marriner who made some laughable decisions. He missed a clear penalty when Prodl went through Ozil before playing the ball. Gabriel’s clearly two-footed and aggressive tackle on Deeney occurred five yards away from Marriner in his clear vision, so to say we were lucky in him not being sent off is an understatement. For him to then go on and book Costel Pantilimon for time-wasting in the first-half, and then not issuing him a second booking and dismissal for doing the same thing on close to ten separate occasions in the second half defies logic.
In the second half, Watford’s opening goal seemed confusingly easy for them. How a 6ft right-back and 6’6” centre-half lost in the air to a centre-forward sandwiched between them is beyond me. Deeney flicked on, Ighalo glided by Gabriel, and comfortably finished. Simple. You would’ve thought that that would have acted as adrenalin to our players to step up and turn the game around immediately, but as we have seen too often in the last five years, Arsenal’s nonchalant “oh, never mind, we’ll score in a minute” egotism carried on and we persisted in our standard way for the next fifteen minutes until Guedioura added the second. Although it was a fine strike with the outside of the boot it was not an unstoppable pile driver. By not even diving full stretch in the hope he could get a hand to it, Ospina fell over and essentially waved a white flag at it and further proves that he is not quite good enough. Yes, he is a great shot-stopper from close-range, but whenever the tiny goalkeeper has an airborne ball come near him we all gasp in urgency, wondering whether he will actually get to the ball.
Wenger’s reaction was sheer panic in turning to the bench and throwing the three attacking subs on, but they were questionable changes. Elneny and Giroud were rightfully removed (Elneny still finding his feet, Giroud is past his prime and getting weaker), but Campbell must only have been taken off as his status is not big enough despite playing well. Alexis again failed to deliver and proved he needs this summer off rather than another Copa America, but because he’s a big-name player he stayed on. Welbeck justifiably came on (in form at the moment but Wenger claiming “It was not possible medically to have started [him]”. God only knows…) and scored our consolation goal, but Walcott and Iwobi offered nothing. Iwobi may have started every FA Cup game thus far but he is inexperienced and cannot be turned to in critical situations like this. Walcott, on the other hand, as one of three highest paid players on the staff, should be fined his wages as he delivered nothing on yet another occasion. As I mentioned in the current issue of The Gooner, it is time for us to part ways. Some may cite Welbeck’s agonising open goal miss as a key point that cost us a reply but that was in injury time, at the end of us crawling back from a 0-2 score line at home in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
The only player I think that deserves credit is Ozil who deserves so much more than this side. Creating chances-a-plenty every single game, but the likes of Walcott, Giroud, Welbeck etc. failing to finish them off has him staring at the skies with his mouth open. I don’t blame you, Mesut. If you’re creating this for Lewandowski, Muller et al at Bayern next season and they have 100 goals by January it will be well deserved.
After seeing his post-match interviews, I’m confused as to what match Wenger was watching or what team he thinks he has built. “We were the better side and deserved to win because of the number of chances created”… but we don’t need a new striker. We “had enough technical superiority to win the game”… but were beaten in the same way other sides had beaten us recently. “I don’t think we suffered a lot defensively”… but Watford literally walked around our defence to score their two goals. Whilst I appreciate that he has targets set by Kroenke, the sad fact is that by reaching the knock-out stages of the Champions League and us being in the top four, he has essentially met them. Last season, Chelsea won £24m for winning the Premier League, whilst our third place fee was £22m. With the prize money for FA Cup winners being £1.8m and the TV money for finishing fourth in the Premier League being over twenty times that as of next season, it’s clear that silverware is only a bonus and it’s only a day out for us fans and nothing to Wenger. It is time for him to go.
With regard to the ‘opt-out’ issue, the official ‘attendance’ was 58,346. Some season ticket holders didn’t attend so the Club could not put the cost of an extra Grade ‘B’ fixture on next season’s payment to make it clear to them that football is overwhelmingly expensive nowadays and not just for away fans. Read into it what you will that Watford upgraded their allocation to the full 9,000 on Thursday afternoon, and that Arsenal made many free tickets available to the British Forces through the Tickets for Troops scheme.
The current issue of The Gooner can be bought from the ever reliable Alex at the away matches v Barcelona and Everton. It can also be bought online here. A new issue will be on sale when Watford return in the Premier League in early April.
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