By Patrick Grove
Not much good to say on this Monday following the 3-2 defeat at the Liberty Stadium to the Swans of Swansea City. This will be pretty short, sweet, and to the point.
Despite this, I’ll play the optimist and talk about some of the only bright spots on the pitch though before I get a little more in depth about the low points. Although not much went his way on Sunday, Aaron Ramsey was the only player on the pitch for Arsenal that looked up for this match from the start. He worked hard and ran around trying to make things happen and I agree that much of it didn’t work for him. However, at least he tried unlike some of his coworkers in midfield. Another bright spot was the short performance from The Ox. Most people are crying out for this kid to get more first team action and by some of his performances you can see why. However, before we place too much pressure on him, let’s not forget that he has had some anonymous performances as well this season and consistency has not been his strong point…yet.
The best Arsenal performer of the weekend may arguably have been Emmanuel Frimpong and he was playing for Wolves. He did manage to crush Raphael Van Der Vaart in the face with a ball at close range and took two points off Tottenham for us. Thanks for that Manny!
Now onto the stuff it seems most people really want to hear about. The bad stuff. Does anyone even remember who was playing with Song and Ramsey in midfield? Benayoun’s performance was so miserable, there were times in the game that I completely forgot he was on the pitch. That is, until he committed a foul just outside our own penalty box to give the home side a great free-kick opportunity. He really was nowhere to be found and at times I swear he found a hole somewhere out there and just hid for a while.
Arshavin did have the opening assist which was a beauty, but beyond that there was very little from him. He was completely outworked both going forward and coming back to help cover by Dyer and reminded me of why so many Arsenal fans are starting to give up on him. He could have shut up all the doubters early in the second half when Aaron Ramsey played a cute square ball for Arshavin to drive at the goal just outside the penalty area, but alas, not even on target.
Almost the exact same thing can be said of Theo Walcott. His work rate was nowhere near that of his opposite number, Scott Sinclair. Almost none of his crosses were usable and aside from his goal he produced next to nothing. I’m honestly starting to wonder whether he has a long-term future at the club because in many respects he just doesn’t look up to the standard of most wingers in the league.
I really hate to do this, but even Robin van Persie looked and played pretty poorly. He took his goal magnificently in the 5th minute but after that, where did he go? His next shot, while one on one with the keeper, was right at Vorm and he got very little service from then on. It also seemed like he did not want to drop back into midfield to receive the ball as he usually does when we are struggling. At times he can be the talisman we desperately need, but on Sunday, he didn’t quite look himself and found himself with the ball far too infrequently. Where I think this game was really won and lost though was defensively. Did anyone notice a similarity between how Swansea and another team we struggle with pressured us every time we had the ball? I’m thinking of a team from the Catalan region of Spain who wears blue and red. Honestly, if we pressed the Swans half as hard as they pressed us this game would have been quite different. However, we let them play out of the back quite easily for most of the game. They, on the other hand, really pushed their forwards and midfielders up and really pressed us from end to end. We wanted far more time on the ball than the Swans were giving us and in the end we paid a dear price for that. They put far more energy into this match then we did and you could see the result of that on the pitch. They had more possession, pressed us hard to win the ball back, and really worked as a team to get back and deny us chances.
This performance was just not good enough by almost every player on the pitch for Arsenal. There really were no standout players or moments in the game from a Gunners perspective. We certainly had our chances but all credit to Swansea, they were the better side on the day. Yes, we got no help from the referee, but this loss was purely of our own making. Whether it was lack of focus or fatigue that caused that performance I’m not quite sure, but let’s be very clear. If we perform like that this weekend when the red half of Manchester come to the Emirates, we are in for another whooping and even perhaps a repeat of that 8-2 misery at Old Trafford.
Hopefully, Vermaelen, Arteta, and maybe even Gibbs will be back so that we will be much closer to full strength, but as I said before, without concentration and real application, both of which were lacking at Swansea City, it will be another long Sunday afternoon for our boys from North London.
HANG ON ARSENAL!
You can follow Patrick on Twitter @pgrove1.