Me and my big mouth.
I wrote before the game about how the trip down to the south coast would be trickier than many expected and that, despite their results this season, Bournemouth were a better side than they had so far shown.
I hate that I was right.
Arsenal were all over the place pretty much from start to finish and were quite comfortably beaten by the hosts, who were better than them in almost every department. Even with 11 men on the pitch, the Gunners were sloppy in possession and porous in defence – uncharacteristically so – and came away from the Vitality with exactly what they deserved.
Before we go any further, I think it important to say that William Saliba was incredibly hard done by for the red card. So far from goal, and with so much ground still to cover, for the VAR to decide an intervention was necessary after the referee had made an initial call was astonishing. Can this really be deemed a clear goal-scoring opportunity? Can VAR honestly call it a clear and obvious error? For me, it’s ‘no’ on both counts but, here we are again, for the third time in eight games this season, reduced to 10 men and forced to swim against the tide.
That said, there is still no excuse for how we performed on the night. We were 11v11 for a full 30 minutes and had precious little to show for it. But, even when reduced to 10, we should have made a much better fist of keeping possession, of moving the ball around, of making the hosts work to retrieve it. Instead, we panicked and hit the ball long at every opportunity…and it came straight back at us every time.
If you’re defending a lead in the Champions League final with five minutes to go, it’s fine to play like that but this was a game that we could have competed in. We failed on the front and failed badly. We made too many mistakes, played too many aimless passes and never really gave Bournemouth something to worry about. They dealt with our threat, such as it was, easily.
Kai Havertz cut an isolated figure up top and was pretty ineffectual with what ball he was given. To be fair to the German, the service was poor and lacking any sort of craft and the support from midfield was non-existant. It’s clear the absences of Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka are hurting us badly.
Behind Kai, our midfield felt hollow. Yes, they won some duels here and there but it was no way near enough. Mikel Merino, Declan Rice and Thomas Partey was probably too blunt an instrument for a game like this, we needed much more craft. On the right, Leandro Trossard had a bad game and it was his inexplicable attempt at a back pass that put Saliba in dire straits on the half-hour mark.
On the opposite side, Raheem Sterling actually started the game well and put his full back in a difficult spot on a few occasions. His end product, however, was as rusty as you might expect of a man who hasn’t played enough football and, before he could address that issue, he was substituted to cover for the dismissal of Saliba.
Honestly, there’s not too much else that can be said about the performance. It was just bad. As bad as I have seen from this squad in 2024. A performance devoid of any of the sort of charisma and guile we have come to expect. The manager has leaned quite heavily on defensive solidity in the absence of Martin Odegaard and, while it has worked to an extent, it’s clearly starting to run out of steam. We need some fresh impetus in our midfield that gets us forward and carries some threat. I think it’s high time Ethan Nwaneri was given his chance.
That’s a conversation for another day, however. Right now, we need to pick over the bones of a poor performance and work out quickly what went wrong.
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