I'm not disagreeing in regards to whether or not we made mistakes or played poorly, below our capabilities. But in my opinion, putting it down to simply
lazy attitude, is with all due respect, is way off the mark and far too simplistic.. We weren't playing a lower midtable side, against which we were expected to beat heading into the match for our players to be complacent or lack the appropriate attitude. We
were playing a side who has one of the best league records at home, second to us, and a side we've now played three times in a month or so. The previous two instances
the match was difficult throughout, and given our players attitude in general this season and what they've shown, I think it's far too simplistic and lazy to
question their attitude in the game. They aren't naive, we have plenty of experienced of players and inteligent ones at that, to take a side like Arsenal for granted.
The simple truth is, Arsenal pressed us well, and we couldn't deal with it effectively. They've done it everytime we've played them as of late, and we've struggled
in most instances. I mean we were 1-0 down against them at Anfield within 4 minutes of the game, and they had a relatively good start to that game. Surely that wasn't
an attitude issue either? They press well, they press high and we don't have the players to beat the press comfortably, what we do usually have is pace up front to bypass them, and hit them on the break. however Nunez didn't start due to his injury, and Salah wasn't available, so we lost all the pace we had up front in this match.
That made it more difficult for us to get out and stretch them, and eleveate the pressure they were putting us. Another reason we struggled is because in midfield we had
Gravenberch instead of Dom. Ryan struggled to impose himself on the game, he's young he's got a high ceiling but he has inconstiencies in his game throught out games and you can't have that in a match of this particular intensity.
When we did make the appropriate adjustment at the start of the 2nd half, we got back into the game and started to actually create them problems. However we had two of our best players make a mistake in judgmeent dealing with a ball that they usually know how to. For me thats not an attitude problem, t, they're human after all and Virgil made one of his worst mistakes in a long time, Ali didn't help the matter the way he dealt with it. That changed the game at that moment in time.
the fact that we were missing key players that could come off the bench and change the game, made it more difficult following their 2nd goal. Arsenal, are a City lite version, which isn't a surprise given Arteta's time at City, they type of pressure they put on the opposition is similar to what City have done for years. When we've dealt with City and their ability to do the same thing, it's always been by bypassing their midfield,countepressing and using our width and forwards, via direct passes to hurt them. There's a reason why we have a poor record at the Emirates in recent years. Arsenal's style mimics them, and it's no surprise that we've had difficult periods in all 3 games we've played against them .
That's not to say that we couldn't have played better, but there were far too many individual mistakes and lack of cohesion, part because we didn't deliver on the day and part due to the opposition. You can't just put it the attitude bin.
