In the recent history of Arsenal, there is a particular pattern of play that, once it starts to unfold on the matchday, suspends the entire team into a state of somnambulance from which they wake up only after the final whistle has been blown. On those days we move the ball with the alacrity of a sloth hanging upside down, the players fail to find each other in their passes, and fail to cover for each other with such alarming regularity that you wonder whether they have ever even met on a training pitch before. And as the match slowly and excruciatingly burns to its inevitable end, the possibility of a sucker punch transforms itself from the domain of psychic anxiety to scoreboard inevitability. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our inglorious exit in the third round of the FA Cup to a lower league opposition \u2013 albeit a feisty in-from one, playing with purpose and self-belief, and no little ruggedness \u2013 followed that pattern of play perfectly. This has been a feature of the current Arsenal, and every time the team goes on a splendid run of performances, soon after comes this reminder that how much of growth and maturation is still needed before the team can learn to detect the warning signals early in the match and reorient themselves to change the collective gear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Depleted by AFCON absentees, Covid & injuries, the traveling squad to Nottingham Forest included exciting U-23 names like Mika Biereth, Omari Hutchinson, Salah Oulad M\u2019Hand, and the supremely talented Charlie Patino (who already had scored on his debut in the League Cup home match against Sunderland last month). With Xhaka, Partey, Elneny all absent, and Ainsley Maintland-Niles having already joined Roma on loan the day before, Charlie got a start along with Sambi Lokonga in the middle of the field. The bench had only Tierney, Lacazette and Ramsdale as the established first eleven alternatives, with Chambers and Kolasinac complementing the youth brigade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leno<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cedric \u2013 White \u2013 Holding \u2013 Tavares<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lokonga \u2013 Patino<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Saka \u2013 \u00d8degaard\u2013 Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nketiah<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There really is not much to write about this match and I will spare you the horror of reliving the experience by giving a detailed account. Tavares & Lokonga \u2013 both of whom had surpassed expectations until now despite the occasional signs of their immaturity \u2013 had their worst games. Nuno was so erratic that Mikel was forced to make an uncharacteristic early substitution to bring Kieran in for him in the first half. Patino was too lightweight and expectedly too overwhelmed by the occasion to help create semblance of any control in a physical midfield battle, and halfway through the first half it was evident that this was going to be a very difficult battle to overcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will give credit to Forest as well, they were not overawed by the reputations of Saka, Martinelli and \u00d8degaard \u2013 who all have been sublime in their recent appearances \u2013 and did their best to frustrate our two super wingers. Saka had one of his least influential matches in recent memory, and given Eddie\u2019s erratic hold-up play and lack of sharp movements Gabi found it very hard to create the kind of space and interchanges that allow him to fully leverage his speed and abilities on the ball. He doesn\u2019t yet have the subtlety necessary to alter his approach to make it more decisive in situations like this. The loss of control in midfield meant Martin dropping deeper and deeper, Eddie failing to understand the need of the game and not providing any link-up chain between \u00d8degaard and the two wingers, and we had no real goal-bound attempts. There were a couple of deflected shots \u2013 from Eddie and Lokonga \u2013 and a few mildly threatening situations from the corners (which too, as is typical in a day when nothing goes well, were less than sub-par especially in comparison to our sharp corner routines this season).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leno made a couple of decent saves, but Holding and Cedric had two of the worst defensive performances I have seen for us in recent years. Holding was not particularly calamitous but he was unbelievably sloppy and slow on the ball, blunting any chance of quick attacks, White was only marginally better on the ball even though he tried to go on few times on his typical runs through the middle. Cedric on the other hand was simply inadequate at every facet of the game, and the drop in level compared to Tomiyasu was alarming. Between Chambers and Cedric, my observation is that the former at least gives some defensive solidity and a decent quality on the ball while being played out from the back. Cedric perfectly encapsulated the day\u2019s performance when his free kick from a promising position harmlessly drifted away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even on a bad day Saka produced a couple of moments that should have been good enough. Eddie made a complete mess of a simple header with only the goalkeeper to beat, and later Lacazette \u2013 coming into replace Patino with \u00d8degaard moving into a deeper role \u2013 failed to connect to a well-place cross from Saka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As the game reached 80th<\/sup> minute with the score is still tied at 0-0, we were yet to register a shot on goal, and another atrocious thirty minutes of Arsenal performance loomed on the horizon. There was still hope that somehow one of our front five would find an inspiring moment to win the match at the end (the likes of last grasp win on a bad day are inevitable parts of a cup-winning run). And then we were behind to a very well taken goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sambi tried to pass a ball past one of Forest midfielders, it bounced off his arm, while Sambi was protesting for a handball decision the rest of our team were very slow to react to the danger and a neatly-placed cross from their right was met efficiently by the veteran striker Lewin Grabban.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nottingham Forest 1 (Grabban 83\u2019) \u2013 Arsenal 0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n As we (not so) desperately looked for a late equalizer it was somewhat startling to see Sead Kolasinac come on. This was probably not a day Mikel would want to remember, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The matchday started with enthusiasm and pride in Arsenal\u2019s laudable \u201cNo More Red\u201d campaign. It was unfortunate that the symbolic white shirts materialized to be an actual act of meek surrender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are sitting fourth on the PL with 18 more matches to go, if we win the League Cup semifinal two-leg tie against Liverpool we would also have a final to play. So we have 20 or 21 remaining games to play this season and given that we will now be playing just once a week for the most part, the squad \u2013 which, as this performance demonstrated if anyone needed reminding, does need a bit more strengthening in the January window because the gap in quality drops significantly after the first 14-15 players \u2013 and the coaching team have the great opportunity to push for a top four position with undistracted focus. Getting back to Champions League should now be not only an aspirational, but a realistic goal. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the recent history of Arsenal, there is a particular pattern of play that, once it starts to unfold on the matchday, suspends the entire team into a state of somnambulance from which they wake up only after the final whistle has been blown. On those days we move the ball with the alacrity of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4586"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4595,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4586\/revisions\/4595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}