Arsenal capitulation in Watford on Super Sunday was like seeing a’semi-pro’ group, states Graeme Souness.
Arsenal hauled away the points through two mistakes after being 2-0 up in half-time through a Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang twice. To begin with, Sokratis Papastathopoulos tried to play from the trunk, just for Tom Cleverley to capitalise and halve the deficit, before David Luiz gave away.
Arsenal have conceded seven goals in their last 3 games also Souness didn’t hold back in the Sky Sports studio in his evaluation of the Gunners.
«They capitulated in the second halfof Arsenal. They did not win a challenge. You ought to be scratching your mind, if you are an Arsenal supporter watching that. It’s two teams. It’s as if here’s a second one after half-time, and the team at the first half. Proper teams do not play like this.
«Arsenal in that second half were like a semi-professional group playing football. That I mean that they weren’t learning from the mistakes they had been doing time and time again.»
In particular, Souness questioned when major why Unai Emery brought on Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock.
«They bring on a few children, that was a game where at 2-1 it was time to dig and regroup, be sure they did not lose the match, and they should have lost it. When the children arrived they had been all over the place, it was like a sport of basketball and if you’re an Arsenal fan, that would profoundly, profoundly fear you.»
The first goal came from Papastathopoulos’ central pass from defence by a Bernd Leno goal kick, and something found again this season after rules altered allowing the ball within the box to collect.
But Souness said Arsenal must have gone after a warning sign in the first halfof the
«There are mature players in this type of defence. As a manager, you hope your players, it does not have to be the ones, work out it that they are going to concede.
«Why did the huge players never say’let’s just go long with it for 10 minutes and see where it takes us’, because persisting with it was going to cost them, and they’re lucky it only cost them one.»
One of the greatest players on the afternoon, Granit Xhaka of Arsenal confessed Arsenal were’scared’ at the second half,» however, stated playing out from the back was among several issues, not the problem.
«Everything was wrong [in the second half], we didn’t play our gamewe were fearful , we understand they would push us in the second half but we have to show more personality and play, rather than be scared. You can’t offer a performance like this.
«We train for short target yells, of course mistakes are here however, it’s not a justification. Next time we must do much better, we must analyse and then we’ll see what happens. It was not just this situation that was a problem – it had been the entire second half.»
Back at the studio, Souness reacted to the interview of Xhaka by asking:’How can Arsenal be scared?’
«They are saying they were scared – I’ve never been frightened in a game of football in my own life. I don’t understand it. From the game program, Arsenal were permitted to possess the ball,» Watford dropped .
«It’s easy to play with no one’s coming after you, in your face. I could’ve played that Arsenal team hour! Nevertheless, the thing changes when Watford are allowed off the lead, you’re confronted with someone who’s moving through youpersonally, and they did not stand up to it.
«Sometimes you have to have a hat on for a single form of match, and another hat on for some other. Arsenal proved today they could only play 1 way – they can not go to war»
Speaking after the game to Sky Sports, Arsenal director Emery stated the ball from goal kicks would have induced his side to get rid of the battle also admits that his side must learn from their errors.
«Trying the long ball, they are stronger than us, and they have been winning that chunk. We wanted to break the line and join with Mesut [Ozil], just like we did with the goal.
«It was two distinct halves. At the first we controlled the game how we desired, for our errors they pushed at the moment, and we’d more than we ever wanted to perform. We will need to think about how we can enhance, how we could perform.
«We can grow up with the errors and learn for the future games. Knowing they’d do more, and in the next half we had to do exactly the same work, although we stated which 2-0 isn’t enough. They did that, and the lines couldn’t be broken by us.
«I continue with our method of working. We need to improve, take some advice. We can be let down, but we know about this.»
Arsenal visit Eintracht Frankfurt in their initial Europa League group phase battle on Thursday at 5.55pm, before hosting Aston Villa at the Premier League on Sunday at 4.30pm.
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