Match Report | Match highlights | Wenger’s thoughts | Credits: The Sun
It is often said that the night is always darkest before the dawn, but I don’t think the guy who strung the proverb realized that the day is brightest before the dusk. For this has become the never-ending inescapable loop of Arsenal’s seasons – from dawn to predictable dusk, and back again.
After being second best for reasonable chunks of the game, Arsenal were invited into it by a soft penalty and an own goal. But Arsenal being, well, Arsenal, we threw it back into the fire after pulling it out of the fire and drew 2-2 with Paris Saint-Germain, putting our chances of winning the group in jeopardy.
It began from the teamsheet, as it almost always does. To be honest, I found it perfectly unsurprising that Arsene Wenger chose not to start Granit Xhaka or rest Alexis Sanchez, and said as much yesterday. It’s not a pointer I feel worth elaborating anymore, yet since most of the Internet are talking about it, I guess I’ll have to talk about it.
It is very odd for Arsene to spend £30m on a player whom we very much needed for his tenacity, aggression and defensive nous and then not play him enough. His run of games in October was more down to the absences of Francis Coquelin than a willingness to give the club’s third most expensive signing an extended run of games.
Granted, even after coming on as a substitute Granit did not have the best of games yesterday, which gives weight to the counterargument that Wenger may not have thought him to be compatible to the gameplan of the day. Then again, Wenger is rarely known for making massive changes in personnel based on a gameplan.
It points to Wenger’s custom of continuously starting whomever he perceives to be his best options, until they’re run into the ground. I don’t get it. If Wenger thinks Coquelin is a better footballer than Xhaka that’s fair enough and is his right as the manager. However, regardless of how much better Coquelin actually may be, Francis is as human as the rest of us and needs a rest every now and then. Overplaying him does no favours to anyone.
Having said that, I felt we actually started with more electricity and purpose than the previous two games. The initial parts of the game were more an exchange of blows, and both had their moments until PSG took the lead. Shkodran Mustafi, for all his positive impact in his honeymoon period at Arsenal, has looked lesser than solid in the last 2-3 games. He got done by Blasé Matuidi too easily, and the Frenchman squared it for Edinson Cavani to make it 1-0.
The goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of us. It’s a trend that has occurred way too many times in Wengerball history – when confidence is low, there’s no plan to find a way out of the stasis. PSG dominated the ball, and aside from a few exemplary Aaron Ramse-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]y tackles, we looked like a team without a midfield.
The penalty we were given was a gift from the Gods. Let’s face it, Alexis made the very most of the contact from the PSG player – whoever the fuck he was – and won the spot-kick. Say all you want about modern football and ‘making the most of a situation’, but that was simulation in its essence. The concept of awarding penalties is hugely subjective, which makes it all right to have your own opinions on the level of contact needed to be called a foul. If you believe that minimal illicit contact is good enough for the player to get his reward like Sanchez then that’s grand, but please don’t be hypocritical enough to label someone like Jamie Vardy a cheat for his antics.
Anyway, Giroud scored a convincing penalty on the stroke of half time, which gave us the impetus to turn the screw on them in the second half. We dominated possession, created openings if not chances (especially on the right, where Carl Jenkinson was a very busy man). The goal eventually came, and even though it was through Marco Verratti betraying his own net, it felt coming.
In hindsight, that really was the moment when we should have shut shop up in terms of substitutions and focused on defending. Despite our relatively healthier performance in the second half, it was happy accidents that had gotten us to an unlikely 2-1 lead over them. The game was far from done and dusted. Cavani in particular was threatening, although his finishing was abysmal. I wouldn’t believe he was a world class striker if half the footballing world didn’t call him so.
We never looked defensively switched on, and the Xhaka substitution came on too late, laughably after the Alex Iwobi own goal. After that it was more PSG than Arsenal when it really should have been the other way around, and the ringing of the final whistle made PSG’s advantage in the group stages official. They just need to better or equal our result to finish as toppers, while we have to overplay tired legs at Basel in the faint hopes that they slip up.
And look, when you stop to think about it, finishing second may not be all that different from first. Notably big clubs like Real Madrid and Bayern Munich look set to finish runners-up in their own groups, which means that the odds of facing hugely inferior opposition by winning Group A are not as high compared to previous campaigns.
Although I don’t think the frustration stems from there. In reality, we’ve gone through a transfer window of well-planned investment, played some breathtaking football and at the end of all of that, find ourselves fourth in the Premier League and second in the Champions League, again. Familiar problems have appeared to rise in a familiar month, and it’s hard to shake off the feeling that nothing has changed.
People perch about our unbeaten run like we’re on par with the Invincibles of yesteryear. We’re not. Yesterday, we were one Cavani header away from that mirage of an undefeated streak to grind to a not-so abrupt halt. In many ways, it feels like the 18-match-run is the only thing keeping the fanbase from a full-blown meltdown.
We’ve been riding our luck and flying too close to the sun for too long. The fixtures get kinder after this, but considering our complete loss of momentum and the need to recover from this game, we’d be foolish not to pay the most utmost of attention to the smallest of intricacies. Of course, it remains to be seen if there will be any positive impact to that.
-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]
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