Brighton, Manchester City, Liverpool and now Chelsea: four games in which we’ve surrendered leads and dropped points this season.
Opportunities to win games against the top sides don’t come along often so, when they do, you have to make sure you take them, you have to have full focus for 90 minutes or more because a moment’s lapse can kill you.
We saw it against City, where we switched off with literally seconds to go and Stones equalised; we saw it against Liverpool, where one long ball was all it took to set Salah free; and we saw it again on Sunday against Chelsea, where we handed Pedro Neto a few yards of space and he fired home from 25 yards.
It’s proven an inexplicable, fatal flaw of ours in this campaign and it has cost us dearly time and again.
There is an element of rank bad luck about so much which has taken place this season too but it would be too simplistic to just say we’re hard done by, we have played a sizeable role in our downfall too.
Neto’s equaliser is the perfect case in point. Having been dominated for long periods of the second half, Chelsea showed little sign of being able to force their way back into the match having gone a goal down – in fact they looked more likely to concede a second – until at least two of our players wandered inexplicably out of position and Neto produced a super finish from range. It was a goal utterly from nothing and, having scored it, Chelsea promptly disappeared back into the ether again, failing to produce another chance of note. But for more shambolic, lamentable finishing, they might even have lost it.
But that pretty much sums Arsenal up in this campaign. They simply aren’t converting the chances when it matters while simultaneously giving away uncharacteristically sloppy goals at the other end, both of which they simply weren’t doing last time out.
If I sound frustrated, it’s because I am. Extremely frustrated. We played some good football at Stamford Bridge and really should have come away with all three points. That we haven’t is a bitter pill after a fortnight of bitter pills. I think we’re all craving something sweeter now.
If we’re talking positives, you have to say Martin Odegaard was a revelation. We all speculated about how much his absence had impacted the team and he provided the answer in spectacular fashion. He was just brilliant. It’s not just his passing or the chances he creates, it’s in the way he leads the side on the pitch, dictates the pace and leads the press. He’s a special player who is enormously undervalued.
That he came away with an assist and four key passes after two months on the sidelines is a testament to his impact and his value to this squad. It’s also a damning indictment of our failures to find someone who can deputise in his absence, something we need to work hard to address in the upcoming window.
For now, it’s brilliant to see him back and I hope sincerely that nothing stupid takes place with him during the upcoming international break because we’ve suffered too much already at the hands of these farcical friendlies.
It’s also worth pointing out that, especially in the second half, Arsenal were actually very good. there was an intent, a zip and a drive about them that reminded of our last few campaigns. It will take time to hit full speed again after the international break but it feels like there is a little light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve gone through a difficult phase and it’s time now to build back to where we know we can be.
The Chelsea game showed how good we can be, we saw glimpses of our best, and we need to show it again as soon as we can because dropping points from winning positions is not the habit of a title winning side and lord knows we can’t afford to drop any more points.
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