Not bad for the worst ever Pl champions to be
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Well looky here then.
Quadruple my arse. We’ll only end up winning the league because they shit themselves in cups.
Need to take a good long hard look in the mirror
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“Arsenal plays boring football is just a media spin”
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Hang your heads in shame.
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This team has literally zero creativity. Mad to think we sit 9 points clear at the top of the league.
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I’m not all that concerned about this throwing us off totally. Very little about this match felt like “normal” Arsenal and I think the players will know it was sort of a one off. We’re not going to play another important match with Kepa in goal, almost completely ceding midfield, and just launching long balls to a Havertz/Gyokeres strike partnership all match.
I thought Arteta got the tactics wrong and was way too slow to change in the second half. It was evident around 50-55 minutes that we could not advance the ball against their press and get a foot on it.
Arsenal could not progress the ball forward. Who would have thought that City not pressing the keeper would turn out to be our kryptonite.
And then when Arsenal did get the ball forward, they kept on gifting City the ball back. The pass completion for the front players tells the story.
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Just glad there’s no league games for the next 20 days.
But somehow the inner circles of the club have the audacity to complain about the feeling of nervousness and anxiety amongst the fanbase.
I wonder why that is.
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Think this is the start of our annual collapse. It just came in March instead.
They put as much responsibility as possible on Kepa to break the press and he shat himself. The out ball was either on the ground to Trossard or Havertz rolling into spaces in the middle or a chip over a defender to the wide fullbacks and he just never played these passes.
With Kepa unwilling to play on the ground, all we could do was play these 50/50 balls forward and hope that the front four could win the second ball. It seemed to work OK in the first half but in the second half we lost a bunch of them in a row and had no other way to relieve the pressure.
This is where we missed Odegaard. He would have taken the initiative and dropped into the first line to help progress play.
A 22/23 Zinchenko would have seen plenty of the ball. MLS and Calafiori were right there on the bench. But the former is confined to the gulag.
Arsenal play City on the 19th of April. Arteta should be using the international break to solve this build up issue. The season depends on it.
Sausage cunts
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Is this some sort of revelation? Our build up play has been extremely dependent on Timber and Hincapie this season. That’s has been the issue and probably will remain the issue for the rest of the season. It’s a cliche but City just wanted this game more. It happens.
Others need to take some responsibility too but a huge amount is on Kepa.
Two really clear sequences just from this video:
Around :15, Trossard cuts infield and starts moving across the entire field from left wing to get into position for a line splitting pass. Kepa just needs to play this ball between Haaland and Doku and Trossard can receive in space and we are in a dangerous breaking situation. Kepa simply won’t make the pass.
Similarly, 1:09. Rice has drifted back into space to give Kepa a target for a chipped ball. He also has White in acres of space if he just chips to the sideline. City’s defenders are playing well off both of them and wouldn’t have time to close. Kepa just won’t make those passes, launches instead, we lose the aerial duel and second ball and City is coming at us again.
Lots of other players were poor as well but you need the keeper to make these kinds of passes against this kind of press. You involve the keeper in the buildup so that you can get the extra man and spread the defense out more, but then he needs to do his part.
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Won’t be losing my shit about the Carabao. DO NOT perform like that in a big game again this season because you may see headloss.
In response to the thread title, the State of the Arsenal is FUCKING EXCELLENT.
This season will not be measured in any way by the League Cup. That was never the target.
The league is in our hands. We have a great opportunity in the CL and also FA Cup.
No need to panic over yesterday. Very disappointing of course but need to use it as a lightning rod to finish the season with fire and energy. It will hurt the players and manager. International break allows us to reset and come back mentally clear.
Good that we have 2 cup games in a row to get right. We could be 12 points clear by the time City play Chelsea.
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Ffs gary