This is pretty much what I expected, actually. at 24 minutes, I said to myself, "We're not going to win this game." The goal was dreadful from our perspective. Calafiori let Kudus put in a very good cross, and no one picked up Jared Bowen of all people who had an easy header to beat Raya. We had plenty of defenders back; they just didn't do their jobs. Up top, West Ham simply packed it in and dared us to score. We couldn't. This is what every team will do to us now. Leicester for some reason wanted to play with us and we got a couple goals. Brentford got twice as many yesterday; Leicester is not a good football team now. Neither is West Ham, but they were better than Arsenal today. Lewis-Skelly's awful error in giving the ball away at the halfway line didn't help. This is the second time a defender had to haul down an attacker because Raya plays so damned high up the pitch, earning a red card. There's no good reason for that positioning either. The Hammers had the better chances too; it could have been worse. Arteta and his men will want to win every remaining game, but they won't, because we don't have a striker. We'll have to try to advance in ECL and not collapse so badly in the league that we're out of the top four or five.
St least Notts County won.
Packing it in and using the counter-attack is a time tested strategy, when the other guys have the better players. One mistake by the team with the superior players can doom them. Arsenal undoubtably has the better people, but that does not guarantee them a win. I still think you will easily make the top four or five. OTOH, MC has many issues, too.
ReplyDeleteI hope you saw Palace demolish Villa today. Wonderful talent.
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