Arsenal’s plan, I’m sure, was to defeat Newcastle, but unfortunately they lost 1-0, raising the question: is anything going as planned these days?
Arsenal faced Newcastle at St. James Park hoping to bounce back to winning ways in the league after suffering a 2-0 loss to Bournemouth and a 1-1 draw to Liverpool in their last two matches.
Alexander Isak’s 12-minute header goal from an Anthony Gordon cross gave the Magpies an early lead, which they held on to, and it marked their first win in five games. As much as the Gunners had 80 minutes to turn things around and try to pull off a comeback win, they didn’t do much to trouble the Magpies, who defended really well with a low block whenever they weren’t in possession.
Much has been said about that game, but what really stood out is that, without Martin Odegaard, this Mikel Arteta team lacks creativity in the final third; we lack the key to unlock low blocks and certainly lack our first line of press.
For over two months, Mikel Arteta has been stubborn not to trust Ethan Nwaneri to offer his team what Odegaard does.
When he entered the game, Nwaneri showed promise; however, his impact was not as significant as his outstanding performance during the 2-0 Carabao Cup round of 16 victory against Preston.
If anyone ever doubted Ødegaard, I hope they watched that game. There was no creativity whatsoever, and we didn’t even look like scoring. We had just one shot on target.
Leandro Trossard, who purportedly has replaced Odegaard in the starting 11, had his worst perfomance versus Newcastle. He was nonexistent, especially in the first half.
Given that Odegaard is expected to return this week, I certainly expect him to return to the starting 11, and Trossard shouldn’t complain.
Remember when Arteta said, “The impact Martin has in everything that we do, it was too big to try to replicate it with one player.
“We’ve tried to do it in a different way, adapting a few things, using players’ qualities, players that can play in different positions and with the right chemistry around them.
“Maybe it took a game or two, but then things started to flow a bit better. We found a way, but we still miss him.”
12 points dropped. Arsenal can’t drop more, and with Super Martin Odegaard back, hopefully that will be the case.
Darren N
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Why on earth hasn’t arteta brought a striker il never know most of the arsenal players are brilliant in their positions but their not strikers won’t win anything without one
There was time in the last summer window, ten weeks, but all Arsenal’s efforts appeared to be on getting in Merino and Calafiore. Too much time getting the Merino deal done in my opinion which left little room for any other purchases.
There may be someone available in January although there’s rarely many quality players on the market then. In the meantime, Arsenal will have to rely upon what they have. The problem is, of course, that they don’t really have a prolific goal scorer and the steady flow of “goals from the rest of the team” can’t necessarily be relied upon.
What doe’s it say about Arsenal that they are so reliant on one particular player. Although Odegaard is a big miss, you need to look at Arteta and Edu, as to why they didn’t see fit to cover for such eventuality’s. (Terrible Management).
Nwaneri is the other creative player, but Arteta seems to be treating him the same way he treated Smith Row, and we all saw how that ended, didn’t we.
Today, in my opinion, it was not so much about the players, but about the coach. I’m obviously not in personal contact with the players in training, but if Nwaneri and Sterling were praised after the cup game, then they should have been in the starting XI.