Arsenal: Consistently inconsistent

Every team has their bad days, and boy did Arsenal have a bad day on Sunday.

How bad was it? Well, I hate to admit it but I actually dozed off during the first half.

This was the most horrific Arsenal performance we have witnessed in the Arteta era.

A lack of press, a lack of creativity, a lack of communication, and an overall lack of effort led to a 3-0 hammering by Aston Villa.

Villa came into the Emirates Stadium and did everything to the Gunners we expected the Gunners to do to the visitors. You have to give a lot of respect to the Aston Villa club. They took charge from the opening whistle and never stop playing their hearts out until the final whistle.

Only a VAR ruled offside cancelled a Villa goal in the opening minute of the match. At that point, I knew we were in trouble.

Here’s what Mikel Arteta told Arsenal.com after the match…

“I didn’t like it from the first whistle, we conceded on a mistake and got away with the goal on VAR and afterwards it was just not good enough.”

“I don’t feel like we were the team we’re supposed to be, we performed below our standards, our ability and I didn’t see the spirit for the first time that I have seen every day in training and every day when we compete. This is totally my fault, it is why I am here, I am responsible for that, to make sure the team performs and competes at the highest level every three days. Today I haven’t done that, so obviously it is my fault.”

“It is very tough to find the reasons. I cannot say I have seen a change or this week that we have trained a different way. I would be lying if I said that. But obviously there was something there today that [Villa] wanted much more than us, and they showed it. At the end of the day, if you are late in ever decision you make, if you don’t win enough duels, if every second ball isn’t for us, you don’t show the quality with the ball, you cannot defend your box, and when you get chances you don’t even hit the target, it is a really complicated way to win football matches.”

Arsenal had 59% possession, but only 2 shots on target. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang had zero shots in the match for the first time at home during his Arsenal career.

So, as we head into the international break, the Gunners are in 11th place in the Premier League table with a -1 goal differential.

Over the last four PL matches, Arsenal’s league record is 1 win, 3 losses, and a -4 goal differential. Atria’s squad has been shutout three times in those four games.

After the Gunners terrific performance at Old Trafford the previous Sunday, we all hoped the squad had found the ability to gut out those tough matches. However, Sunday proved to be a total 180 in every phase of the game. Not only that, but Emiliano Martinez returned to north London to face his former club. He walked away with a clean sheet, but then again, he only had to make two saves throughout the entire match. I’m sure he enjoyed some satisfaction watching his new teammates tear apart his old teammates.

John Cross of The Mirror summed it all up much better than I can. He wrote…

Gunner1953