Charlie Ashmore - The View From Block 99
Five Key Takeaways after Arsenal lost to Manchester United
1 - “That was embarrassing, Arsenal”
That was the shout from behind me at the final whistle.
No, mate. It wasn’t. But I will tell you what was embarrassing. Half the “supporters” leaving before the final whistle”. A significant proportion of those remaining at the end booing the team at the final whistle. That is embarrassing. Yes, it was disappointing. But this team is top of the League (still by four points), top of the Champions League with a guaranteed top two place and only a point required against the bottom team at home to cement top place, one foot in the Carabao Cup Final, and a relatively easy tie to take them into the 5th Round of the FA Cup.
I doubt there is a team in Europe better placed. So, mate, the team is not embarrassing. You are. You and all the entitled idiots who do not understand that being a supporter is about accepting that things do not always go your way, accepting that you can’t and won’t win every game and making damned sure the team know you are behind them, not just in the big winning moments but at times like yesterday when, yes, of course you can be disappointed but recognise that sport, as life, is not predictable and challenges will straddle the path to success – and understand that the team is more likely to meet them positively if they know they have the backing of everyone who claims to support them.
Instead the matchday home crowd is increasingly resembling the online rabble who stamp their feet and cry after every setback like spoilt little children.
I have to be honest, when the crowd behaves like it did yesterday, I can’t help feeling firstly that the stadium does not deserve a trophy and secondly that it’s no bloody wonder our fanbase is ridiculed and hated by fans of other clubs.
2 - It’s a wobble for sure but it’s still comfortably in our hands
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t like that we have dropped seven points out of nine. I would love us to be 11 points ahead. But we are not. And we are in a wobble – not won in three games. We have grown used to teams putting stupidly consistent runs together in the second half of the season. And we can’t help worrying that we are not doing so. But, here’s the thing. We are still four points clear. Which means that as much as we are wobbling so are our main rivals. Otherwise they would have overtaken us. So maybe just maybe this season is a bit more old fashioned.
There was a time after all when you could lose six or seven games and still win the league. Maybe this is one of those seasons where there is a greater unpredictability to results and we are going to have to live with that on our path to glory. Who knows? But every other team in the Premier League would love to be where we are – top by four points with the strongest squad by some distance – than where they are. Match City’s and Villa’s results form hereon in and we are Champions. It’s that simple.
3 - Shooting yourself in the foot really doesn’t help
For half an hour there was really only one team in the game.
We pressed, we controlled, we recycled, we dominated. We took a deserved lead and could (should) have been further ahead. And then….after two warnings, both of which saw William Saliba excel in his recovery….a moment of utter folly when Martin Zubimendi did what (for all his general excellence) he sometimes does and took his eye off the ball, gifting it to Bryan Mbuemo who did very well to wait for David Raya to commit before slotting home (no criticism of Raya who came really close to getting a hand to it).
Utter madness. And it wasn’t all Zubimendi’s fault. Saliba got casual. Instead of looking for the forward pass into midfield which was absolutely on, he took the default safe option but it wasn’t a good pass to Zubimendi who was instantly under pressure, and the mistake followed.
Suddently Manchester United had a foothold in the game and our sense of security was gone. Two worldie finishes later, we were staring at defeat. You can’t make those sort of basic errors at this level when challenging for the title.
I have said several times that there’s only one team that can stop us winning the League and that’s us.
I meant it from the point of view of psychological frailty. On Sunday the team took me a little more literally. Stop it, please.
4 - Mass substitutions needed a change of mentality
By the time we had made all our subs (was there a hint of panic about making four in one go, and so early?), we had a very different set of attacking players which required a very different approach.
It required us to up the tempo by several notches to make the best of the players we had on the pitch. We didn’t do that.
There was one moment that encapsulated a number of our issues – specifically the default passiveness of the team strategy and the failure to play to our players’ strengths.
There we are chasing the game. Momentum feels like it’s building in our favour. The ball is caught by Raya. Viktor Gyokeres, sensing that with every United player momentarily in our half he has a real opportunity starts his run arm in the air to catch Ray’s attention. Raya isn’t looking. Instead he is looking for the safe option – the roll out to a centre half. The moment is gone.
When you have Gyokeres, Madueke, Eze all on the pitch at the same time, the controlled possession and slow build up is just not going to work.
If there is anything that worries me at this point it’s this inflexibility of approach, this lack of recognition of what the game, and the players on the pitch, need. We must get better at this.
5 - Can someone please explain the current handball rule to me?
So in two weeks that’s three handball decisions that have gone against us. Ten years ago I would not have claimed any of them. But times have changed and we have seen handball increasingly treated as a strict liability offence as the law and its application have changed seemingly to make life easier for VAR.
Take Aston Villa away a couple of years ago – we score a late winner which is chalked off because apparently (tough God knows how anyone could be sure) in the melee on the goal line the ball hit Kai Havertz’s arm before he scored.
“If the scorer of years ago handles the ball even accidentally in the build up to him scoring it cannot be a goal” we were told. Mbuemo handled it yesterday, almost certainly accidentally) before unleashing his unstoppable shot. No handball. A couple of years ago at Anfield, Martin Odegaard in falling and putting his arm down to break his fall handles the ball. Penalty not given but there is ununanimity that Arsenal got away with one as it should have been given.
On Sunday an identical incident and not a murmur. I talked about last week’s incident last week. I will wait in vain for someone from PGMOL to explain the inconsistencies in how the law is applied but right now it is clear that to coin a phrase the law is a joke.
The truth is I would not have expected the referee to give any of the three handballs. But the way the law stands and is applied I would have expected VAR to intervene to our advantage at least once and arguably all three times.
And so, like a broken record, I ask again…..VAR? What is it good for? Again, after its treble non-intervention, I answer – “absolutely nothing”!
Just put it out of its misery and let us get on with the game.
