Wednesday night’s match against Manchester United is absolutely vital if Arsenal is to keep on track and challenge for the Premiership title.
After going over the match against Liverpool it is easy to see where the Gunners went wrong, and while there are certain players that deserve to be chastised for their performance there were a couple that do not need to be put on the list of who to blame that I will get to later.
Firstly let’s look at how it all went wrong from the beginning and the lessons we can learn from it.
1. Arsenal showed up for a game that for over a week everyone was talking about as being very important as the Gunners kick off a tough run of matches in February and instead of being fired up the players started the match as though it was a stroll in the Park.
2. Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers had not only done his homework on how to set up his team to play Arsenal, but he also had them motivated to go out and prove they could win a facet missing from the Arsenal team. He moved Luis Suarez over to the right in order to trouble Nacho Monreal who he saw as Arsenals weak link, while putting Raheem Sterling on the opposite side to trouble Per Mertesacker.
3. Zonal marking from set pieces did not work, and while martin Skrtel’s opening goal was a bit lucky if you watch a video of the Arsenal team they looked as though they were still asleep. The second goal was well thought out by Liverpool though crossing the ball further out to give the Slovak defender a free header.
4. Arsenal only wanted to play football when they were in possession of the ball and I hate to say it but it is true in that certain players feel as if their job is not to defend and are very slow in tracking back.
5. Liverpool hounded Arsenal every time the Gunners had the ball never giving them time to get into their normal passing rhythm that we saw a little of in the second half, but by then it was too late.
Of the players who should escape criticism Bacary Sagna did the best he could and while Jack Wilshere showed some heart he made too many silly tackles and Oxlade-Chamberlin had a couple of decent runs one of which resulted in the penalty. You could even forgive goalkeeper Wojciech Szczęsny as it wasn’t really his fault and he did after all save a free kick from Luis Suarez.
As for the rest of the team the root of the problem lies with Arteta, Cazorla and Özil who just did not seem to want to take part in a match that required people to defend.
Perhaps a run of games where a win came easy has softened up the Arsenal team but after the Liverpool game Wenger has some tough choices to make.
Arsene Wenger needs to sit Mesut Özil out of the game against Manchester United, and I do not care about the money he cost, because unless he starts to learn that in order to play in England you have to defend as well as attack the performance we saw against Liverpool will appear again in a player that to me seems as if it is all about him rather than the club.
Manchester United will come to the Emirates disappointed with the draw against bottom of the league Fulham yesterday so will be up for a game of football as they see their Champions League place next season start to drift away and if Arsenal do not win with Liverpool to play again next Saturday I don’t know what will happen to the rest of the season.
