NFO 1-2 ARS: Just Enough to Win

 We thoroughly dominated Forest, but it took a horrendous goalkeeping error from former Gunner (and US #1) Matt Turner to break the deadlock in the second half.  Then naive play from Forest allowed a 4 on 3 which Saka finished off.  Arsenal was cruising until an 89th minute scrappy goal from Awoniyi jangled nerves.  But Forest could not get a second, and we took three points ahead of the showdown with Liverpool on the weekend.  We will have to play much better than this to beat them.  This was our first league double over them in 25 years, and we'd lost the last three at the City Ground.

Villa was soundly beaten at home by Newcastle, a shock result since the Magpies had lost four in a row and Villa hadn't lost at home for nearly a year.  I expect the Villans will not be able to compete for the league, but they'll give the ECL slots a go.  The game of the day was at Selhurst, where Palace came back from deficits (to Sheffield United) twice and grabbed the points off two goals from Eze, both assisted by Olise, who scored the winner.  I don't know what their contract situations are, but every top club in the world could use either of them--and Palace needs them both.  Luton pounded Brighton and seems capable of climbing out of trouble, Everton may get out of the relegation zone.  There are so many bad teams that the relegation fight could get confusing.  The Blades and Clarets are still favorites to drop, but there's room for one more in the Championship next season.

ARS 5 - 0 CP: A Sad End to Roy Hodgson's Career?

 The Gunners did not have to do anything special to beat Palace soundly.  Goals from a couple of well-worked corners in the first half provided the platform to open up the visitors.  A breakaway goal by Trossard sealed the points, then in injury time the Palace substitutes naively left it too open in the back and Martinelli twice found himself with only the keeper to beat, and did so in Henryesque style (that trademark curl into the far bottom corner).  It could have been worse, too, but for some desperate defending at times.  Interestingly, there were no yellow cards issued in this game.  That's rare.

Graham Potter was spotted attending this game, a sure sign that he's being tapped up by the Palace management as a replacement for Hodgson, who today was recognized by the announcers as the oldest ever manager of an English top flight team at 76.  It's a cruel fate for a widely respected man in the game.

He has managed 22 different teams in eight countries, beginning in Sweden with Halmstad in the 1976 season. He later guided the Switzerland national team to the last 16 of the 1994 World Cup and qualification for Euro 1996; Switzerland had not qualified for a major tournament since the 1960s. From 2006 to 2007, he managed the Finland national team, guiding them to their highest-ever FIFA ranking of 33rd place and coming close to qualifying for a major tournament for the first time in their history. He managed the England national team from May 2012 to June 2016. Other clubs that Hodgson has managed include Inter Milan, Blackburn Rovers, Malmö, Grasshoppers, Copenhagen, Udinese, Fulham, Liverpool, West Bromwich Albion and Watford.

Arsenal has a lot of work to do if they expect to challenge for the Premier League title this season.  I think it's not a likely prospect now, but the players are good and maybe things will come together.  I thought Smith-Rowe looked sharp today when he was brought on, and he could lift us.

Palace needs to get points soon to stop the rot.  They're just five points above the drop zone, but four three teams would have to pass them in the standings for them to be relegated.  On the basis of today's performance, I could believe that can happen.  They need Olise back at least.  I will say that their away kit today was very classy.

 

ARS 0-2 LIV (FA Cup)

 Fortunately, I didn't watch this one.  From what I can see, the Gunners created numerous first half chances but couldn't score.  Then we chucked one into our own goal late on.  Arteta is going to have to change something up, because with current form we might not even get top six.

FUL 2-1 ARS: Gunners Not Trophy-Ready

 As the game wound down yesterday, the phrase "easy to play against" kept running through my head.  That was what they used to say about us in the late Wenger era.  Everyone knew what we were going to try to do and they'd made plans to counter it, and knew we'd give them a few chances.  Fulham just did everything they planned better than we did, and Arteta had no adjustments.  When I saw Kiwior get a start, I was glad, because we need a left fullback to do the defensive job.  But Arteta wanted Kiwior to invert into midfield like Zinchenko, which is just dumb.  The Cottagers set up to frustrate our attack, and then take advantage of our attacking commitment to counter.  Long story short, they did that and more.  We were second best again in a London derby we needed to win to maintain any pretense of challenging for the title.

I have criticisms of Arsenal players, but I'm not going to make them in this post.  This was another of Arteta's losses.  He simply won't admit that everyone in the league has figured out how to negate his setup.  Teams that try to play an open style will be sliced open by Arsenal, but if they organize their low block properly we aren't versatile enough to score.  To be honest, Arsenal had been lucky in quite a few games.  This dreadful stretch has been coming for a while.  Our roster is stacked with great players in most positions.  Saliba and Gabriel may be the best center back pairing in the world.  Rice may be the best holding midfielder.  We have two top goalkeepers.  The fullbacks are fine though not top class.  Saka and Martinelli are very good wingers; Odegaard is a world class attacking midfielder.  The glaring weakness is at center forward.  We don't really have one when Jesus plays--he operates like a third winger--and we don't have a good one when Nketieh plays.  We also downgraded at the position ("left 8") that Xhaka played last season, with Havertz.  What would ten Hag give to trade squads?  Answer:  a lot.  It's not personnel, it's how they're prepared, selected, and organized.

I don't have the heart to go into the way we've collapsed on set piece play, from Trossard's awful corner kicks to sloppy defending on their corners, or on our increasingly impotent offense.  The players are losing faith in the Arteta Way, and why shouldn't they?  We're good, but not good enough to tell everyone exactly what we're going to do and then keep doing it whether it works or not.  I know it seems crazy, but maybe Arteta did his best work in assembling this group, and is not the guy to get the best out of them.  He deserves the rest of the season to try to put things right, but frankly I don't think he has it in him to admit that he needs to do something different to have a chance at top four.  (Forget winning the league.)  I hope I'm wrong, but based on our recent form I expect we'll be out of the FA Cup and in fifth or sixth place by February.  

There's no point splashing cash in January; it won't work.  Let's take stock in June, either basking in the glory of a major trophy or ruing a drop into Europa Conference League territory.  If Arteta needs to go, there will be plenty of applicants.  This is a group of players that can do great things with great management.