Alan Alger
I’m not sure what Chris Martin was singing about when he crooned “Nobody said it was easy, no one ever said it would be this hard” during the chorus of Coldplay’s The Scientist, but it perfectly sums up Arsenal post-Arsene Wenger.
Boss Mikel Arteta was almost lost for any kind of rational explanation as he tried to sum up his feelings post-match in N17 as his side were comfortably beaten by Tottenham, who in turn went back to the top of the Premier League table.
You can tell a lot about a team just from the way they approach the basics of the game and it was a worrying start as we somehow hoofed the ball straight out of play under no pressure with just two seconds on the clock.
Incidentally there is a compilation of our kick-offs from the Premier League this season doing the rounds on social media, I’d urge you to seek it out.
The first nine games of the league season, when it’s been our turn to kick off a half, the ball has gone out of play or to an opposition player within three seconds every single time.
We need to get the basics right
Yesterday was no different but we slightly changed the idea by going sideways at the start, the end result a Tottenham throw.
And why we’re talking about throws and basics we need to address Hector Bellerin. Before his customary foul throw yesterday he took a few on the borderline including dropping the ball at the oppositions feet with his first one inside two minutes.
Once again our free kicks and corners were poor and lacked any kind of plan or quality of execution. The first decent free-kick opportunity of the game wasted with an overhit ball. Just before that Kieran Tierney mirrored Bellerin’s first throw with a ball dropped kindly at a Tottenham player’s feet.
Analysis at far more organised clubs than ourselves has shown that restarts (including throws) are a huge part of the game that have been overlooked.
Well drilled sides such as Leeds, Sheffield United and champions Liverpool have a set plan for every single scenario that can occur as a restart in a match. A similar concept to marginal gains theory first seen in this country in the sport of cycling.
Bellerin has five foul throws this season and at least five more since he joined the club. That’s ten times we’ve overturned possession to the opposition. Yet nobody at the club in that time has taken a few minutes out of a training session to teach him how you do it properly – like you would with an U10s player!
Look at Reiss Nelson’s corners against Leeds United, look at Pepe’s in the Europa League. Look at the kick-offs. Look at the wasted free-kicks. Every single time a good opportunity to have the ball in good areas has been wasted.
It's not a new problem
This isn’t a new problem either, Bacary Sagna was pulled up on foul throws many times as an Arsenal player and I can vividly remember one at an important stage of a match at the Emirates against Everton in season 2012/13 which eventually ended goalless. We were pressuring them towards the end of the game and were looking the most likely side to go ahead and he just gave the ball up with a shocking illegal throw. Taken no more than a few feet away from boss Wenger.
People might tell you, or you might think reading this, that none of this matters, but this has all been conditioned by the concepts of Wenger and his Wengerball. The “we’re too good to teach our players the basics” is part of a culture that he fostered but wasn’t as obvious when the team were winning trophies.
For instance in the Invincibles season we scored more goals in the 30 seconds after opposition corners than our own.
Ours were poor but our ability to counter-attack so fast and accurately meant that giving away a corner was actually more of an advantage than gaining one at the other end during that season.
Wenger trends on Twitter
I’ve noticed that the word ‘Wenger’ has trended on Twitter within minutes of our recent defeats.
Sunday was no exception.
One click shows a huge amount of revisionism by fans of other clubs, pundits and some Arsenal fans.
I’m sure you’ve seen them, it’s usually a smug comment with a ‘careful what you wish for’. It’s incredibly frustrating to see, particularly when the Frenchman can definitely have a portion of the blame, for our current predicament, attached to him.
The free-kicks, corners and throws have been bad for a couple of decades but people do not sweat the small stuff when things are going well.
When things are going badly it should be the first thing you put right, all those parts of the game where you have to deliver under little or no pressure from the opposition and where technique and a plan comes into play. All of which should be an easy job for a coach whether you’re Wenger, Unai Emery or Arteta.
Mourinho 2-0 Arteta
Back in the present, after the last few games Arteta has mentioned our ability to get crosses into the box and that seemed to be the order of the day when we had possession.
The whole side filing forward and trying to find an overlapping Bellerin or Tierney to return the ball across the area. As you would expect, Jose Mourinho had sussed this, possibly from many videos he had watched in the lead up to the game.
He might have also noticed how many times Arsenal concede after a misplaced Bellerin or Tierney ball into the opposition area.
It of course means the whole shape of the defence is out and many of our goals we’ve conceded this season actually start with a promising attack.
Both Tottenham goals on Sunday were from a incomplete Bellerin pass into the Tottenham area. Two of around 40 balls we delivered in exactly the same way, each of them dealt with easily by the Spurs defence.
The Sky commentators, including the peripheral Jamie Redknapp, tried to somehow highlight an Arsenal dominance in the second-half, but this was one situation where stats don’t tell the full story.
Jose’s team had their two goals and were just happy to see it out. Something we’ve seen many, many times before.
Not many Gooners expected much from the game, with some even suggesting before kick-off that they’d ‘take’ a narrow defeat!
Tottenham now have a manager that specialises in narrow wins but ones that have dominance at the right times and a well-executed plan. Along with the current league table it’s a very worrying sight.
Dundalk next
Next up it’s a trip to Dundalk where we can complete the 100 per cent record in the Europa League group stage with a victory to make it six from six.
As I highlighted in my piece in midweek, without those Europa League ‘W’s in our form it looks pretty bleak.
Then we take on an equally toothless Burnley at home next Sunday, on paper something that looks easy, but let me say now on the evidence of the derby it could be so hard!
The Arsenal
Finally, regardless of the North London Derby result, I wanted to highlight something that made me feel all is not lost in the long term, one thing that isn’t based on results or performances, just a pure and wholesome thing that has certainly been lacking from the club in recent years.
The game against Rapid Vienna saw fans return to the Emirates with the Arsenal content team filming the story of three of those fans.
Check it out on Twitter and have tissues to hand.
That’s ‘The Arsenal’.
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