Except for those taking comfort in blaming the referee, I guess most fans first reaction was to heap it all on Emmanuel Eboue.
I was certainly stunned by him conceding a daft penalty and I had a bit of a post-match rant myself. Lucas was heading away from goal with only seconds to go before the whistle and Eboue was well-placed between him and the goal if he tried to turn. Whatever you think Lucas was up to, there was no need to risk making contact.
The irony is that Eboue actually had one of his better games up until that point. Yes he still got caught out of position, leaving some big gaps for Meireles, but he was more effective than usual and more determined than some of his team-mates.
More of a problem was the fact that it took us ninety-eight minutes to score despite dominating the possession through-out. And that was on the back of two previous goal-less home draws.
Kenny Dalglish is no fool and had correctly analysed the videos. Stick two diligent defensive midfielders (Spearing and Lucus) in the middle and tell your fullbacks to stay in a tight formation with the central defenders to form a tight barrier on the edge of the box. Don’t worry if that means Arsenal get down the sides because when they do get crosses in there generally isn’t anyone running into the box to do anything with them.
What will happen next (as in the whole of the next ninety minutes) is that Arsenal’s talented midfielders will grind down their enthusiasm and their very souls against this wall of six disciplined defenders until their passing becomes more and more ambitious and less and less effective. Give Arsenal’s midfield space to play and they will up the pace, stretch the game and kill you dead. Take away the space and they won’t know what to do.
Arsenal were quite good at the back yesterday, despite opting for Diaby over the more consistent Song. Koscielny plays better alongside Djourou than he does alongside Squillaci. Presumably because he can focus more on his own play. Rather like Viera playing better alongside Gilberto.
Clichy, with good help from Nasri, kept Kuyt under control. Eboue was better than usual until his gaffe.
Szczesny kept his concentration up to be good when needed. His distribution still needs work as he put Clichy and Djourou in difficult positions during the game, but he’s convincing me at the moment that a new keeper isn’t the priority.
The problem is that we don’t score enough goals.
There’s quite a bit around the blogs today about how Arsenal should stop all this tippey-tappey football. But I don’t think that’s quite the point. The only problem with the way we attack is that it’s the only way we attack. We’ve been sussed!
Eboue (we’re a forgiving lot!) and Djourou lead the man of the match poll. Add your vote here.
