Pre-match optimism was boosted by the news that Gabriel was fit enough to start and that MLS had been rewarded for his superb performance against Monaco with another start. Thus, arguably barring Calafiori who remains crocked, Mikel Arteta was able to select his strongest starting XI with the midfield that he implied yesterday he has wanted to start all season:
Raya
Timber Saliba Gabriel Lewis-Skelly
Ødegaard Rice Merino
Saka Havertz Martinelli
In the first minutes of the game Everton had their first and practically their last attempt on goal which was aborted by a superb block by Gabriel as Doucoure was about to shoot. The rest of the half followed a familiar pattern. Ten Arsenal players were persistently camped in the Everton half with Saliba playing ‘sweeper’ in the centre circle and he elegantly hoovered up all Everton’s occasional punts towards Calvert-Lewin. Meanwhile MLS played across the midfield, confidently receiving and redistributing the ball under pressure, playing a couple of lovely balls in behind for Martinelli, even popping up in the ‘inside right’ position occasionally and memorably producing the worst foul throw I’ve seen in a very long time.
Our attacking efforts largely consisted of balls wide to Saka and Ødegaard on the right or to Martinelli and Merino on the left. Most efforts came to nought through failing to beat the double team facing them, misdirecting the cross into the hands of Pickford or onto the heads or feet of Everton’s massed ranks or being forced to recycle the ball. The familiar arc d’ennui was the predominant feature of the half.
However there were some brief moments of hope with Ødegaard to the fore. First, he fired a cross from Merino over the bar, later skipping across the front of the defence, he found a gap and fired a shot past Pickford’s left post, then, after Saka had danced past two defenders on the right and cut the ball back beautifully to the penalty spot, he shot at goal only for Pickford to pull off a fine save. As the half drew to a close a nice ball from Havertz found Martinelli darting behind the defensive line but his shot from a tight angle was blocked by Pickford.
Half Time: Arsenal 0 Everton 0
Arsenal started the second half as if they really meant business. A cross from Ødegaard was nodded down by Merino (probably via his or a defender’s shoulder) to Saka at the edge of the six-yard box whose firm low shot was unfortunately deflected wide by Pickford. From the resulting corner, Saliba, unmarked, met the cross with a powerful header that sadly went straight to Pickford.
We continued to camp in Everton’s half, their attempts to get out remained derisory and I don’t think Raya had a save to make all game. His most strenuous effort was to prevent a deflected long distance shot going out for a corner so that he could launch another attack as the clock ran down while Everton made a late attempt to get something more from the game with a surge forward in its dying embers. No doubt, this late surge was Dyche’s fiendish strategy against a team that had played a challenging game three days earlier whilst his muppets were relaxing on their couches for a week. Everton came for a point, showed no greater ambition until the end, spent much of the game time wasting from the very beginning and demonstrated that execrable combination of muscular over strenuous challenges and acute vestibular instability whenever they were themselves challenged.
Our contribution to the second half was more of what we had seen in the first. There was some nice interplay at the edge of the box that almost set Havertz free in front of goal but the ball seemed to stick under his feet and was cleared. There were multiple mishit crosses that flew over heads and a few blocked shots but the Everton defence stood firm.
On 60 minutes, Jorginho replaced Rice and Nwaneri surprisingly replaced Ødegaard. In his post match presser Arteta said that Rice had felt something and the latter was to change the rhythm of the game. Apart from an exciting crossfield run by Nwaneri, neither substitute improved our end product. Shortly thereafter Jesùs replaced Merino with Havertz drifting into his position, Partey replaced Lewis-Skelly, moving to right back with Timber switching to the left and Trossard replaced Martinelli. None of these changes added significantly to proceedings.
There were a few more ‘stramashes’ (copyright of the legendary Arthur Montford, sometime Rector of Glasgow University, no less) in the Everton box but it increasingly looked as if we could have played another three hours and still not got the ball into the Everton net. We tried very hard but Everton stood firm and we must, between gritted teeth, give credit to their defensive coach for their organisation and their 11 men behind the ball for delivering their point.
The massive positive from this game was that we did not, as often in the past, get suckered by a break away goal. Saliba in particular, as Gabriel was often in the ‘inside left’ position contributing to the attack, was masterful at hoovering up Everton’s long balls, regularly beating a runner with a feint and turning to initiate another attack. The other positives were another good performance by MLS (bar that throw!) and our determination to keep attacking right to the end.
The negatives were clearly our failure to score, a generally ponderous build-up with pedestrian rather than swift movement of the ball and the tendency of both wingers, but especially Martinelli, to slow down on receipt of the ball so as to engage in a set piece dribble with a facing defender (or two) allowing the whole Everton defence to get organised. Whether the latter was the cause of the former, I am not qualified to judge.
Do we need to buy in January? I would say so. While our bench looked strong, there was no-one there capable of changing the pattern of the game and I would agree with Mike McDonald’s midweek piece, that if we want to win this league this season, we need to act in January and bring in either an established striker and/or a fleet-footed winger who can also play through the middle. Easier said, of course, than done.
In summary, a gold star for effort but no cigar.
Onwards, gentlemen!
A very fair summation, Bath. I would add that I thought the officials were appalling. As you say, Everton were time wasting right from the start with the loathsome Pickford the worst offender. In the second half there were multiple substitutions and yet more time wasting from Everton, yet he played 1 minute extra in the first half and four in the second. The referee facilitated Everton’s flopping over and at one point gave a free kick or one of their circus freak centre halves who feigned being booted in the face, after ducking his head into a challenge with an Arsenal player. There was quite obviously no contact, shown by the Willem Defoe-style “Platoon” reaction from said failed basketball player’ gregioys and near comical overacting to convey to the referee the nature of the decision he needed to make, aside from the fact that it can’t be a foul if you duck your he’d into a foot which is legitimately raised. The linesman in their half repeatedly allowed them to take free kicks from wherever they wanted. Pitiful.
A very disappointing result . This is a fixture we virtually always win and with a bit to spare . It may be significant that not only did they not play in midweek but they didn’t play last weekend either and the demands on our squad are immense . Rice is managing an injury already without ‘ feeling something ‘ and Martinelli appears to find it difficult to recapture the brilliance that he displayed two years ago. We are more effective away from home where we have space but the low block is a concern and we are in need of a transfusion of attacking energy and guile. I hope we play a shadow squad on Wednesday and focus on what really matters . You cannot chase four trophies with equal commitment
Arthur Montford’s oft repeated cry of “Up Go the heads”, which was a given in every single game in which he was on the microphone for Scotsport, and one that the watching millions began to look forward to, also merits mention here to add additional interest to a game in which, based on the audio commentary on A.com, there was very little on offer.
Nevertheless, while not making it sound like a nail biter, you’ve done a grand job there of making the most of a game in which for the second time in a week, Arsenal were unable to put a knock-out glove on a team in the category of “we need to win that one if we’re going to challenge for the title”.
We’re far from out of it yet, but the incline toward the summit has the appearance of being a shade steeper than it was eight days ago.
Thanks for the report. A very disappointing performance also. Injuries and the impact of those injuries are affecting our play which can’t seem to cope with the amount of games we are playing. Some of the team are playing well below their potential and as others have said, we don’t have a game changer to rely on. The squad is short of this as it was in the Summer, but we didn’t move then and I doubt much will be available in January.
Thanks Bath, a fair summary of what happened and didn’t happen.
Thanks, bath. I was able to see only the second half. However, if the first was prologue, you have captured the game to a T. As I said in the previous drinks, I think that hooking Ødegaard was an error. I understand Arteta’s logic about the need to change the rhythm of the game, but in this case, I think he chose the wrong solution. If anyone was going to be able to unpick Everton’s locked defence, it was him. Sometimes, you just have to trust your best player to produce a game-winning moment of magic.
Thanks for your report Bath on a game excluded by my current cable package which allowed me only to watch Newcastle dismantle Leicester a game in which Isak and Gordon looked highly useful to any atrack. Quite disappointing that we managed 0 goals against the mole’s predictable if effective and well plotted low block.
Thanks, Bath – fair and comprehensive. – frustrating afternoon brought about by their defensive tactics and our safety first, second and third attacking tactics. We have to get the ball moving much faster and more progressively into space rather than constantly to feet which gives the opposition time to reorganise and requires dribbling miracles of us against their double marking.
Excellent summation and analysis Bath! Thank you.
Getting the balance right between caution and adventure is always a tricky problem, and if one area where Arteta has significant scope for improvement as a manager is that he errs too much and too often towards caution. That doesn’t mean he is tactically deficient or psychologically defensive, it’s just that the skill to set-up, inspire and if necessary change the formation and approach mid-game towards guaranteeing a result especially against opposition of this type (physical, ultra-defensive with good off-the-ball discipline and work rate, and set up with deep blocks) is something he is still developing. And like many very intelligent people, he has a tendency to overthink the solution.
We are well capable of playing fast counter-attacking football when needed, slicing through opposition midfield and getting our front three quickly behind the defensive line before they can regroup from one of their few forays into our half. The trick is though that when we try this we will not always succeed and there will be some turnovers and loss of possession to which we will need to react. The entire team has learnt to now avoid any such mistakes— to their great credit, it’s not easy to not turn over possession even once in a match —but at the expense of not taking advantage of space opening up. Verticality always brings an element of risk with it. There were at least five opportunities yesterday when there was enough space through the middle to quickly pass the ball forward when they were out of shape. If we tried it these five times, even with a 60% success rate we would have had Saka or Havertz through to goal. For the remaining two times we would have needed to clean up the “mistake” but that’s unavoidable. The whole relentless “keep possession no matter what and the goal will come” can’t work on each match (the Barcelona example doesn’t apply for many reason, not the least because no team in La Liga ever plays like a Sean Dyche team, and there was only one Messi), and despite being a team of fast wingers and super through-ball passers in Partey and Ødegaard we fail to sense when it’s time in the context of a match to get adventurous.
To complement our playing philosophy and yet manage to always score goals, we will absolutely need a new striker who can be a threat even with half-chances against a packed defense. Kai’s off-the-ball movements are great, but those are of a false nine who brings others into play.
To cite examples from our recent past, a striker like Aubameyang or even a goal-hungry winger like Alexis will help this team enormously. Neither of them were most disciplined off-the-ball (though Alexis on his mood can be relentless in tracking down) but I think with players like that, whose primary instinct is to score, some amount of chaos is inherent. Will Mikel take chances with some players like that?
A “Bukayo Saka” appears once every decade or so. He wont find another one anywhere now. 🙂
Our erstwhile bitter rivals have given us a get out of jail card after yesterday’s disappointing failure to find the net. That point against Everton keeps pace with the other Scousers and ever so slightly extends our lead over C130y. Eventually, however, we have to start winning regularly if we are to achieve our ambitions.
I sat through 88 minutes of dross in the Manchester Derby. But what an entertaining finish. Pep looks on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The gobbiest fans on the circuit look heartbroken. Cry me a river.
@10, 11 yeah, it was a crap game but I loved the ending too. Cheered me up no end.
I rarely reproduce other blogs but Peter Wood captures the right mood in his conclusion on Le Grove today .
If you are giving up now, why should the players fight on? If you are a coward and can’t handle seeing this out until the very end, what gives you the right to criticize the players? The truth of the matter is this: The Premier League is hard. Every team will face downturns. Now is not the time to give up. A draw is not a disaster. We all need to shake ourselves down and move onto the next game.
It’s a very strange old season . The Spuds are cock a hoop tonight but will be in despair again very soon. C130y have exploded before their perfidy has been punished .Around this time last year our world fell in when we lost to West Ham and Fulham and went out of the Cup . We were well nigh unbeatable thereafter and full of goals . We will finish very strongly again . We do need a striker and / or winger and we need to buy robust defenders . But so much of the season is left to play out
Couldn’t agree more TTG. That’s a top class piece on Le Grove.
TTG@13: To paraphrase the Tom Hanks character in A League of Their Own, ‘It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard—is what makes it great.’
It was a good weekend for the Chavs I suppose and a terrible one for 130ty. Not a particularly good one for Rashford and Garnacho either as they couldn’t make the squad.
Be curious to see the team this week, it’s the quarter finals now and I wonder if that will influence MA to play a slightly stronger XI. I still expect Neto, KT3, Sterling to start plus a couple of younger players. Saka, Rice and Ode can bring a note from from their Mums and skip games I think.
Matt
Neto was cup-tied before we signed him .
I think our team might be
Setford
Nichols Saliba Kiwior Tierney
Jorginho Merino
Sterling Nwaneri Martinelli
Havertz
Subs
Porter MLS Heaven Partey Saka Odegaard Jesus Butler- Odeyeji Trossard
With Gary O’Neil and Russel Martin’s sackings, we have three bronze medalists for the GHF Predictathon’s TinTack Award: Dr F. Jnr, Lonestar and your correspondent. All three picked Martin.
They join Bath, BtM and Steveyhyperdee (gold) and 21st Century Gooner, C100, Dr F., GSD, Osaka Matt and Uply (silver) on a crowded podium.
Crowded or not, I’ll take a podium finish
Ned. When you’ve been in the bottom three
most of the season even a Watneys Freight Rover
Milk Cup runners up medal is welcome 😃
@17 thanks TTG, I’d forgotten that.
Your team looks good, but Jesus up
front and rest Havertz – he is looking a
bit overplayed recently to me
An excellent analysis of our last two frustrating matches (£):
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/12/15/inside-arsenal-creativity-black-hole-saka/
The latest leaderboard for the GHF Predictathon has been posted. Brutal reading, again, and there is one shock move. You know where to find it…
Great work, Ned. Thanks again for all your efforts on the Predictathon.
Looks like we dodged a bullet with Mudryk
https://www.cbssports.com/soccer/news/chelsea-winger-mykhailo-mudryk-fails-drug-test-maintains-he-never-knowingly-used-any-banned-substance/
How bad would he have been with performance enhancers?
Without…… sorry.
>>>>>>>