Kevin Whitcher
The dice certainly seem to be rolling for Arsenal lately. A fortuitous late winner at Burnley, a questionable display against Swansea in which they construed to almost give away maximum points, and Manchester City’s inability to score from the penalty spot, not once but twice.
Obviously Swansea have history when it comes to visiting Arsenal since their return to the top flight, only having suffered defeat once, back in 2010/11 when a certain Andrey Arshavin scored the solitary goal. They have taken all three points on three of their four visits since. They are the classic example of a team that the Gunners take too lightly and are not focused enough to dispatch back to Wales with no points and their tails between their legs.
And at times yesterday, it felt a bit like déjà vu. Where was the Arsenal team that despatched Chelsea with such authority and intent? Swansea were playing their first match under new manager Bob Bradley, and were organized enough to limit Arsenal’s clear cut view of their goal in the earlier stages of the match, in spite of the home side’s dominating possession and territory.
Then Theo Walcott popped up for the first of his two goals before the interval, doing well to convert a ball bobbling around the Swansea six yard box, after Hector Bellerin has headed it into the danger area. A second followed before long, again from Theo, as he converted from close range after a corner wasn’t cleared properly.
But from suddenly looking in cruise control, just as quickly, the Gunners shot themselves in the foot, with Granit Xhaka being robbed of the ball not that far out of his own penalty area. It was a shocker and indicative of a lack of focus.
After the interval, order was restored with a magnificent Ozil volley into the net from a Sanchez diagonal cross. At this point, game management should have come into play. “We will not let them back in again, having made that mistake once already” should have been the mindset. Instead, Arsenal pressed for a fourth goal while Swansea left two forwards up front. A second goal for the visitors duly followed. The term “game management” was used in the post-game discussions. Arsenal don’t do it often enough when they are ahead. Remember West Ham away at the tail end of last season?
The Arsenal defence was far from commanding yesterday. I lost count of the number of clean headers Petr Cech had to deal with over the course of the game, with the majority of crosses coming from Nacho Monreal’s side and the centre backs struggling to get near whoever was waiting for them in the penalty area. Fortunately, Swansea’s attempts were either straight at the keeper or reasonably savable.
And to make matters worse, the dismissal of Granit Xhaka. Jonathan Moss has a well established history of dodgy decisions. The press in this country will, for presumably legal reasons, suggest incompetence, but online you will find suggestions that there may be people that benefit financially from some of the many controversial calls of Mr Moss. Read here and here for more information. These are cached links, as the articles have been taken down (not because of legal threats, but to encourage you to buy a forthcoming book, Football Is Fixed, which will use a lot of the evidence garnered by the author addressing the wealth of questionable decisions in the a sport that attracts so much gambling).
Anyway, whether or not some betting syndicate in the far east benefitted from Xhaka’s dismissal, it certainly didn’t do Swansea’s chances any harm. Gibbs should have entered the fray earlier, but Arsenal, with a policy of using Swansea’s attacking intent to catch them on the break, were undone by the offside trap too many times. It was like having Adebayor back in the front line, the number of times the flag went up.
Coquelin at least added some steel to the midfield when he came on, although to take both Sanchez and Ozil off, and leave Theo on, when ball retention was paramount, was a bit of a head scratcher. Both of the subbed stars are certainly capable of killing time by hanging on to the ball and gaining clock eating fouls. Theo (and sub The Ox) are more likely to give the ball back to the opposition, with all due respect.
Still, Arsenal managed to cling on. It was not a convincing performance due to the fact that they twice gave away a two goal margin to make what should have been a comfortable afternoon a nerve-wracking one.
In spite of it all, they are second to Manchester City on goal difference. Football, eh? They have looked inconsistent this season, in terms of performances – classic Arsenal, and yet, they keep winning the matches. The sign of champions in the making? Their good fortune in the results elsewhere yesterday was partly countered by the red card for Xhaka, although one wonders if an appeal is possible. It was a foul, so I am uncertain it is. At least now, with Coquelin and Elneny, there are options to cover the Swiss miss, so to speak. It will be interesting to see whether or not Xhaka starts on Wednesday against Ludogerets, assuming his three match ban sticks. Squad rotation suggests it might be a good idea if he did.
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