For the first time in a long time, it doesn’t feel good to be an Arsenal fan.
I won’t lie, after a pretty miserable, luckless set of results against Everton and Brentford, I expected us to turn things around with a thumping victory over Manchester City last night.
Home advantage, the burning injustice of the Brentford VAR call, and the enormous carrot of moving clear of City in the title race, I was confident it would make for a night to remember in what was arguably the biggest game at the Emirates for a decade.
Instead of turning around our blip in form, however, we conspired to turn it into a full-blown malaise that, if left unchecked, could derail our season.
It wasn’t as if the performance was especially bad – we’ve certainly played worse this season and won – but simple carelessness in key moments cost us dearly. When they’re in the mood, only perfection will do against City and our performance was covered in rough edges.
This one hurt.
What made it worse was the promise offered by the performance in the first half. The intensity, commitment and tactics were all spot-on. Buoyed by a fervent home crowd, we enjoyed much the better of the exchanges and, frankly, dominated City. Crucially, however, and where we ultimately fell down, was in making the absolute most of our moments.
When City offer you a chance – even a half-chance – you have to take it and we let too many go to waste. For all our forward momentum, our possession and technical excellence, we let the big chances go by. For all that they were on the back foot in the first half, City went ahead with their only effort on target…and it was an opportunity we gifted them via a poor back pass.
And the way Kevin De Bruyne dispatched that goal exemplified the difference between the sides. The way he finished was near perfection and turned the merest sniff of an opportunity into a goal. At the other end, when 10 yards out, with the goal at his mercy and scarcely a City player to trouble him, Eddie Nketiah headed an inch-perfect cross wide.
That we went in at the break level was the least we deserved from a truly excellent half of football and I saw no reason why we couldn’t or shouldn’t keep that up for the second period.
As it transpired, City found another gear in the dressing room and we struggled to respond. Whether our level dropped or Pep Guardiola’s team simply ascended to a plane far beyond ours is difficult to say but what’s clear is our fluency and our threat was much diminished while City looked a different side.
With that said, it was still the same fundamental difference between the sides that settled it. While we failed to make the most of some promising situations, City displayed the sort of ruthless streak that only the best possess. All it takes is a misplaced pass and they pounce, and when you have hundreds-of-millions of pounds worth of talent available to you in attack, you don’t need luck.
Gabriel’s under-hit, somewhat panicked pass under pressure went from a minor mistake to a killer blow inside 30 seconds. At the other end, meanwhile, it took us 30 seconds to pick the first pass. Against other opponents, that might not make a world of difference but, against City, it’s terminal. We were never going to come back.
With expectations so high going into this game, it was a bitter blow to have lost it and it means the comfort blanket of our lead at the top of the table has withered to nothing. We were always going to go through a bad run this season, it was inescapable, but it hasn’t made it any easier to bear.
So far, we haven’t been able to dust ourselves down and get some points back on the board, but the need to do that now is absolutely vital. Aston Villa and Unai Emery away is not the ideal venue for trying to get back on the horse but, in truth, there are no easy games in this league. The only mercy is that we only have a few days to nurse our wounds before we go again.
Mikel Arteta must pour all his energy into getting his charges refocussed and re-energised now. This last week or so has been bruising for his charges and the first time this season they have really been put through the mill. They will need to dig deeper than they have ever had to in order to shake this disappointment off and get back in the title race. Here’s hoping they can do just that because our season is riding on it.
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