Harvey Gration re-watched the Arsenal vs Newcastle match and analyzed it in detail. He believes that Arsenal’s defeat was not due to a catastrophic performance but rather due to slight inefficiencies and imperfections magnified by the high-pressure situation. He highlights the team’s fluid buildup play and the importance of full-back contributions. He also discusses the role of Kai Havertz and the team’s balance. Gration concludes by emphasizing that Arsenal still has a lot of potential and that the team should focus on staying within five points of Manchester City until Christmas.
One shot in 90 minutes and it wasn’t a catastrophic performance and the build up was fluid? GTFOH!
It wasn’t a good game by our standards, but we’ve had far worse games than this.
Newcastle were dangerous at times, but didn’t feel like they offered much. They had one perfect chance and nailed it.
They mostly sat back and defended which made it even harder for us to create anything.
And when we did create something, we were lacking some end product due to miss hit/under hit passes or shots that were wide. If one of those goes in the game state could completely swing.
Ødegaard is a big miss in helping us break down those types of defences. Having him back means we also have Trossard as an option off the bench to be impactful as a sub, as he’s shown us several times before. I also feel like we were missing a little something without Calafiori.
He seems to be our only player who will switch the ball which gives us another outlet.
It’s good to see some of fringe players back and/or getting minutes, but until Ødegaard is back and firing, we’re just applying bandaids as a short term fix and it was only going to work for so long. He’s a big miss
