FROM LONDON STADIUM – After 25 minutes on the London Stadium, every part appeared to be underneath management for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta.
For all intents and functions, they’d the sport sewn up towards West Ham United after simply ten minutes, having raced right into a 2-0 lead due to objectives from Gabriel Jesus and Martin Odegaard. Déjà vu from final Sunday when the Gunners have been a few objectives to the nice away at Liverpool, albeit not fairly as early on.
Arsenal’s motion was fluid, their passing was crisp and their confidence seemingly sky-high towards a staff who had been battered 5-1 by Newcastle on this very floor simply 11 days earlier. It was all too simple.
Securing victory would have restored Arsenal’s six-point lead over Manchester Metropolis on the prime of the Premier League desk, setting the scene for a mouthwatering heavyweight conflict on April 26 on the Etihad Stadium.
However for the second week in a row, Arteta’s facet hadn’t learn the profitable script. As a substitute, they shrunk into their shell and made particular person and collective errors, permitting West Ham, backed by a vocal dwelling crowd, to get on prime of them. In the end, they wrestled a draw away from the jaws of victory.
Maybe essentially the most devastating factor for Arteta is that Arsenal’s downfall was all their very own doing.
Kieran Tierney’s weight of cross to Thomas Partey was timid, the Ghanaian’s response to stated cross equally as lackadaisical. Declan Rice picked his pocket and inside 10 seconds Gabriel had put his foot into the shin of Lucas Paqueta to concede a stonewall penalty kick.
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“We began extraordinarily effectively once more, dominated the sport, dominated the pitch, and scored two lovely objectives. After that we made an enormous mistake. We stopped enjoying with the identical function,” Arteta rued in his post-match press convention. Certainly they’d.
Stated Benrahma dispatched stated penalty to scale back the deficit to 2-1, after which Arsenal appeared to sit down again and take their foot off the fuel.
“We want that ruthless mindset in that second to go and kill a staff, when a staff is there for his or her taking, it’s a must to kill the sport and we have not accomplished it,” the Spaniard additional admitted, bemoaning his facet’s incapacity to take again management.
Arsenal have been even introduced with essentially the most golden of alternatives to re-establish their two-goal lead, when Michail Antonio clumsily caught out an arm to concede an early second half penalty. However quite than take the possibility, Bukayo Saka – one of many Premier League’s finest gamers this season – stuffed his effort extensive of Lukasz Fabianski’s publish.
With the group buoyed by Saka’s miss, Arsenal then dedicated the cardinal sin of following that mistake with one other one. Aaron Cresswell’s nook was cleared to Thilo Kehrer on the midway line, with the German hoisting the ball diagonally again into the penalty space.
Arsenal hadn’t cleared out of the field all on the identical time, which means Jarrod Bowen was comfortably onside as he turned in direction of Aaron Ramsdale’s aim and raced into the penalty space. The end itself from the England winger was excellent technically, but it surely was fully preventable from Arsenal’s perspective.
“My fear is that after 2-0 we made that vast mistake and did not perceive what the sport required in that second,” Arteta additional conceded, earlier than including “we have been slower in every part we did” when in comparison with the opening half hour of the sport.
In assault, Arsenal solely had three additional photographs on track after Odegaard’s tenth minute strike, every of them a cushty declare for Fabianski. Gabriel Martinelli light after a quick opening, Gabriel Jesus grew to become much less of an affect and the lauded midfield trio of Odegaard, Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey have been outfought by Lucas Paqueta, Declan Rice and Tomas Soucek.
Manchester Metropolis may but go on to drop factors through the title run-in, however we have seen from them over time the form of mentality Arteta known as for at this stage of the season – a ruthless, win in any respect prices drive that kills groups off and wins titles.
It is not recreation over for Arsenal but – they nonetheless prime the desk by 4 factors and have their future in their very own arms – however this collapse may very well be the primary undesirable step on the highway to ending the season as Premier League runners-up, quite than as champions for the primary time in 19 years.
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