Disappointing result and performance. Sometimes you just gotta hold your hands up and say "we lost to the better team."
On the day itself Arsenal were undoubtedly the better team. And in general they are, too. But not, in my opinion, to the extent we saw for much of the match on Saturday. There's little in between the goalkeepers and defences. We have the superior strikeforce. Their midfield is on a whole other level though, and that's what won them the game. Unfortunately big matches often are won and lost in middle of the park, and worrying as it is to say our central midfield is probably a notch or two below most of the other members of the top 7/8 teams:
Arsenal - a whole wealth of options in the centre; Ramsey, Wilshere, Flamini, Arteta etc. The best in the league in that area.
Chelsea - not overly strong here. Mikel is about Lucas' level, Lampard similar to Gerrard. Ramires is a better version of Henderson.
Everton - not much between their one and ours. I think McCarthy is a potentially very good player. Barry still offers a fair bit.
Man City - Yaya Toure is the best in the league. Their other options are good (Fernandinho, Milner and a couple others).
Man Utd - to be honest, not that great in the middle. Carrick's very good, but Fellaini is overrated and Cleverley doesn't offer much more than Hendo.
Southampton - superb midfield. Schneiderlin is right up there with the best CMs in the league. Their other ones are good players too.
Tottenham - got a very good quartet to choose from; Paulinho, Dembele, Sandro, Capoue. Second or third strongest in the league in midfield.
So yeah, our problems well documented there. If you want to be positive you can say that Man Utd managed to comfortably win the title last year despite largely being very average in centre mid. But that was down to a number of things: world class strikeforce, mentality, depth. We have a strikeforce to rival theirs, but are far off their winning mentality of last season and we all know that our depth is lacking.
We're not aiming for the title of the course, and 4th place is still very much achievable for us if SaS stay fit. Those two and Coutinho are a match for any attack in the league, so we will win many games. Defence is good, and we haven't had a settled one all season due to injuries and new signings. Once BR- hopefully- chooses one and sticks with it, we should become stronger there. Gerrard, we all love the guy. Legend of the club. But he relied so much on his phenomenal physical prowess at his peak, and age/injuries have taken their toll on him. We absolutely must have three in the middle for him to perform even slightly well thesedays, the problem is his seemingly guaranteed partner is Lucas. Now, in the past this would have been fine. But, as well as Gerrard's physical decline, Lucas has had his own due to two horrific injuries. Hence why Arsenal found it easy to play the ball around us. We were crying out for a Wanyama or someone with equally good energy to chase them down. Henderson tried first-half, but struggled against their quality. Second half he was out wide, so it was even easier for Arsenal to maintain possession in the central areas.
Like I said, I'm not too worried about us. We will win the vast majority of our games against teams outside the top eight due to our phenomenal firepower. In those games the midfield tends to be less important. Their midfields are of a similar level or inferior, and our attack does the talking. Coming up against the top eight teams will be worrying, though. We've already seen what Southampton did to us due to their midfield's relentless pressing, and Arsenal were able to run rings around us with their technically talented players. The games against Man Utd and Everton are more of a lottery, not just because they are derbies but also the fact their midfields are around the same level as our own. Against the other five teams though we will be lucky to win a couple of games in my opinion, because they are either stronger in midfield or have excellent attacking midfields who will love playing against Lucas and Gerrard going forward.
With regards the match against Arsenal, not a lot can be said except well played to them, deserved winners. Kolo had his worst game for us yet, but I'd stick with him. Skrtel and Sakho dealt well with Giroud. Cissokho confirmed my fears I had when we signed him- the guy isn't very good at football. He had a brilliant six month spell at Porto, before they cashed in when realising it was a purple patch. He's been average since, and that doesn't look like changing with us. Shame, we needed someone to really push Enrique, but I expect Jose to, rightly, get his place back once he's fit. Flanagan put in plenty of effort. Obviously lacking in ability, but we couldn't ask for more. I've already mentioned how poor I thought the midfield trio were. If I was to give them one defence, it is that Arsenal played with five players who specialize in midfield/attacking midfield centrally, so they were all drifting in there hence, at times, it being 5 on 3 in there. Still, it doesn't excuse their sloppiness on and off the ball. Coutinho improved us going forward, providing a link to the front two but was obviously rusty, else I expected one or two of his through balls would have come off. Suarez my man of the match for us, he got in good positions and never stopped working hard. Should probably have squared the one at the end for Sturridge, however, who looked good on the ball but didn't have a single chance all game. In fairness to those two, they were devoid of service for much of the game. Mignolet made a couple of really good saves, but he definitely gets nervous when it comes to distribution and that harms us at times when looking to keep the ball/build up attacks.
Only one way to bounce back- destroy Fulham next week. They are in abysmal form, we should be smashing them for four or five. Looking forward to it.
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