Arsenal suffered a 2-0 defeat to Bournemouth this evening in a match where the team appeared off-colour.
Bournemouth was always going to be a tricky opponent, and they matched Arsenal across the pitch in the opening minutes. The game remained even until William Saliba was sent off for stopping Evanilson’s goal-scoring opportunity after a poor pass from Leandro Trossard put the defender in a difficult situation.
The red card disrupted Arsenal’s game plan, yet they still pushed to score the opening goal, with Mikel Merino missing a key chance.
Bournemouth took advantage of their numerical superiority, dominating possession as Arsenal struggled to adjust without their best defender. David Raya had to make an important save to keep the score level at halftime.
The second half saw Bournemouth start brightly, with Antoine Semenyo threatening early. Arsenal found it difficult to gain control with ten men, and the Cherries continued to dominate.
Shortly after Kepa Arrizabalaga nearly gifted Arsenal an opener, Bournemouth then went forward and capitalised by scoring from a well-executed corner.
Things went from bad to worse for Arsenal when Raya fouled Evanilson after a poor pass from Jakub Kiwior, resulting in a penalty that Justin Kluivert converted.
This was one of Arsenal’s worst away performances in a long time, and the early red card certainly didn’t help their cause.
Honestly we didn’t play well before the red card also. Merino seems nothing special.
It looks like another usual season for us again, we never learn
Bad day at the office by all (with the exception of Partey who was immense) from the manager to the goalkeeper to the defence and attack. The keeper for once had a nightmare, Saliba made a poor judgement of error. Martinelli proved what Martinelli is about and nothing at all worked today as it should have. Yes we have players back after an international break but so did Bournemouth. Not for the first time, we let an average team give us a lesson. Will it be our undoing again this season? Brighton and Bournemouth took vital.points off us, when they should not. And we gifted them the points.
Stop blaming Merino, he is a good box-to-box midfielder not a good attacking midfielder. Why on Earth does always 3 defensive midfielder and leave Nwaneri on the bench all the times??? I swear Nwaneri is far better than all our midfielders in terms of creativity excep Odegaard.
Also, does having a red card mean we must add another defender??? Maghraes, Ben white and Calafiori cannot form a back three against Burnemouth????
I don’t know why Arteta panicks every time the team gets a red card. Bournemouth was winnable with 10 vs 11 with a better coach.
Alert me when Arteta wins the EPL.
Back to earth with a bump? It was never likely to be the walkover for Arsenal that some fans seemed to think in the pre-match forecasts but, in the circumstances, a fair result in the end.
Apart from Martinelli’s miss Arsenal didn’t really do much (even prior to the Saliba red). There’s no out and out striker on the bench to come on in emergencies. While we all hope (against hope) that Jesus will do something most of us know he probably won’t, unfortunately.
However, it’s only eight games in despite today’s result and Arsenal has injured players to return. Perhaps one of the results will also go at least some of our way tomorrow – you never know in football (as Arsenal found out today).
That said, it’s going to be a long, hard season. I don’t think all of us quite realised that though judging by some of the regular posts on JA, but hopefully we all do now.
We can’t afford to be so reliant on odegaard and saka. I think we had enough ability within those players and options provided by the squad to have won the game, but we didn’t look right tactically. Trossard had a bad game, so it’s easy to say afterwards, but martinelli probably would have done better from the start today with trossard in the middle, as he’s played recently.
Partey-Rice-merino didn’t really work today (though Partey did play well from what I saw) as the problem was beating Bournemouth’s pressing, not winning a physical battle – we needed someone who could find killer passes when under pressure.
This game have left me totally flabbergasted, It’s like every season there is this one game we just don’t want to win, like some kind of curse.
I was wondering if the Bournemouth player wasn’t half side, can anyone share some light here?
The referee seems not want to take that responsibility, else leaving it to VAR
Nope, not offside, but I thought there was a slim chance that White may have been judged to have been able to offer some cover to prevent a goal, but no chance.
Trossard played the ball, so no offside.
Came off Trossard so nope
The coach should take responsibility for Arsenal losing a game today’s match. Pathey+Rice+Merino wasn’t working without a creative spark. Obviously there was the need for a ball holder, why wait till 80th minutes to bring on Jesus and Nwaneri? This delay at times explain why PEPG is still miles ahead of many Epl coaches.
Obviously int break affected the cohesion of the players but it’s up to the gaffer to adapt an approach to not at least lose the game after Saliba red card.. He removed Sterling leaving thel team with no pace upfront and hesitated to bring on Matinelli.
I hope at the end of the season Nwaneri would not want to leave like other tarlented young players.
Luckily, there is Sharktar Ucl game on Tuesday for the boys to get back their form and be ready for Liverpool on Sunday.
So Shakhtar can’t beat us from what you’re insinuating
Today’s 11 can’t beat any average team
Midfield is creating nothing
No point-man on any wings
Havertz was the brightest spark upfront
Shakhtar will beat that 11 that started today
Jesus is an improvement to starting than Sterling atm – just cos he has chemistry with the teammates & takes-on responsibilities
@Babalola , don’t allow today’s pain of defeat cloud your analysis. ManCity didn’t win Epl last season without losing a game. What I said is “Sharktar Match is an opportunity for the Boy to build their form” it’s not just about winning but the team to recover well and play better. UCL is a different kettle of fish. We can’t give up so soon on our Boys. Till Tuesday
The injuries to Timber and Tomi meant that Arteta felt obliged to use Kwior as a right sided centre back when Saliba was sent off.At the time, I felt he ought to have used Rice to take over from Saliba with Partey and Merino as the midfield hub .In that way we would have retained a balanced back four .As it is Kwior, like Saliba messed up big time and the rest is history.In terms of individual performances, ironically, I thought that Partey had his best game of the season and had we kept 11 men on the park, I have no doubt we would have won.Fans have to recognise how much we miss class acts like Odegaard, Saka and Timber and recognise that we are bound to be weaker without them.On a brighter note, from his brief appearance it is patently obvious that Nwaneri is a special talent who needs to be trusted to start mstches, particularly in the absence of our highly creative Captain.
Rice at CB is not a balanced back 4
Rice started his career as a centre back and is comfortable in that position.By playing the left footed Kwior at right centre back the balance of our back four was lost .
I think he should have gone 3 at back White, Gabriel and Calaforini. Kiwior is an accident waiting to happen and it did.
White struggled big style with their winger.
Three observations:
1. The single most important player in our squad is Odegaard
2. We now have 3 players with magic dancey feet who don’t deliver enough goals
3. There’s no way that was clear and obvious mistake that justified the VAR intervention.
Guys I really think we should let byegones be byegones and focus on what next.We shouldn’t dwell more in the past,besides the season is just starting let focus on the future pls.
Again, arteta should really give ethan nwaneri a chance coz the young lad has a lot to offer to the team
Didn’t see game, but Partey, Rice Merino midfield is not going to ignite much creativity in any direction. Hopefully lessons learnt, but we have become over reliant on Odegaard and Saka and it is what it is.
That wasn’t the reason we lost. In the analysis that would be way down the list. Start with the big one, the red card and next the gifted penalty which just rubbed our noses in it, after Martinelli showed no composure to level it up, one minute before the second gift.Lets not start looking for things that are opinions and lets stick to facts. We fu££ed up. And us only.
It was Bournemouth, not a star studded, heavily expensive team. It was Bournemouth. A bang average Bournemouth with a smart manager. But Bournemouth!!!!!
So just to clarify…..now it is impossible for us to go unbeaten ?
Don’t you know tge abswer to that Dan?
As you said, Reggie somehow or other we contrived to lose to an ordinary team. But football is about control, putting pressure on the opposition and not on yourselves. Without Odegaard or a similar type of player our attacking moves will break down more frequently and lead to this type of panicking. I also agree with you that Martinelli still has a lot to prove but even the best strikers have roughly one in three succes rate. Perhaps if we were creating more we wouldn’t be lamenting the rare opportunities such as Martinelli’s miss. As you also say, I am being hypothetical.