In football, as in life, you don’t always get what you want or deserve.
For my money, Arsenal were much the better side at the San Siro last night – more ambitious, more threatening, and more productive – but they came away with precious little to show for it.
While that, in and of itself, is disheartening, I think we can be a little happier this morning than we have been for a few weeks now. There were some better signs last night, albeit it took a while to see them.
Inter, for all their stoicism and recalcitrance, offered almost nothing going forward. They had a blistering start to the game as they went in search of the opener but, after the opening 10 minutes or so, scarcely found themselves beyond the half-way line for the rest of the match.
And while I accept that was probably by design, it didn’t alter the fact that they were reduced to last-ditch defending, time-wasting and sheer good fortune for the vast majority of the match.
On another day, they would have conceded three goals. Sadly, it was not that day for Arsenal.
For all their possession and threat, they couldn’t make the most of the chances that came their way. And while it would be wrong to say their was an abundance of opportunity, there were certainly two or three moments you would look back at and say ‘that should have been a goal’.
Kai Havertz was unlucky to see his excellent trap and shot blocked from in front of the goal by a desperate defender, while Gabriel was denied another headed goal by a goal-line clearance. Those are not insignificant chances. Add in Saliba’s fluffed header from six yards and an excellent stop to deny a lofted Havertz effort and you have a much better reflection of the game.
None of this changes the fact that Inter held out for the full 90 minutes of course, but it does show a better direction of travel for us Arsenal fans.
The Bournemouth and Newcastle games were both dour from an attacking perspective. We created next to nothing across both fixtures and probably still wouldn’t have scored if we’d still been playing now. The set up was just wrong.
And, for the opening 30 minutes of the Inter match, it looked a little like we might be heading in the same direction. I think, at last, the manager sensed that too and a change at the break (Merino off, Jesus on) at last allowed us to get forward with some sort of menace.
It was well past time.
And while it ultimately yielded the same result as at Bournemouth and Newcastle, I think there are reasons to be a bit more sanguine about it. At least for now.
After the match last night, the manager said:
The worst thing of the night, for sure, is the result, because the performance, the attitude, the dominance that we showed against one of the best teams in Europe in this stadium, I haven’t seen it in all the other games that I’ve watched but the reality is the result and we participated in that because we had many situations that we can resolve much better in front of goal and score at least two goals and then extremely frustrated as well because there are two decisions that at the end marks the result and the course of the game.
He’s not far wrong here. We did perform well and it was frustrating to see some good football go unrewarded, particularly as we had to spend so much time suffering Inter’s diving, theatrics and gamesmanship.
But, most of all, I hope this serves as a turning point for the manager and the squad after a difficult run of results. The Chelsea match at the weekend is not ideal in terms of timing but if we apply some of the lessons learned last night to that fixture, we should have a much better day of it.
Hopefully, then, we WILL get what we deserve.
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