Arsenal’s second-half capitulation in Watford on Super Sunday was like watching a’semi-pro’ team, states Graeme Souness.
After being 2-0 up in Arsenal hauled the points away through two mistakes. Before David Luiz gave away a penalty which Roberto Pereyra converted first, Sokratis Papastathopoulos attempted to play for Tom Cleverley, just of the back to capitalise and halve the deficit.
Arsenal have conceded seven goals in their past 3 games, a lot of them coming from mistakes in the back, and Souness did not return in his evaluation of the Gunners.
«They capitulated in the second halfof Arsenal. They did not win a challenge. You must be scratching your head, if you are an Arsenal supporter watching that. It has two unique teams. It is like here is the very first team from the first half, along with a second one later half-time. Proper teams don’t play like this.
«Arsenal in that second half were similar to a semi-professional group playing football. That I mean they weren’t learning from the mistakes they were performing and time again.»
In particular, Souness questioned why Unai Emery brought on Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson when leading 2-1 in the second half.
«They bring on some kids, which was a match where at 2-1 it was time to dig in and regroup, be sure they didn’t lose the match, and they should’ve dropped it. When the kids came on they had been all over the place, it was like a sport of basketball and if you’re still an Arsenal fan, that would deeply, profoundly worry you.»
The first goal came from Papastathopoulos’ central pass from defence from a Bernd Leno aim kick, something seen longer in the Premier League this year after rules altered allowing the ball within the box to accumulate.
However, Souness said Arsenal should have gone after a warning sign in the first halfof the
«There are mature players in that defence. As a supervisor, you expect your players that are larger, it doesn’t have to be the earliest ones, operate out it that they’re likely to concede.
«Why did the huge players not say’let us just go long with it for 10 minutes and watch where it takes us’, since persisting by it was likely to cost themand they’re lucky it only cost one.»
Among the better players Granit Xhaka, on the afternoon of Arsenal confessed Arsenal were’scared’ from the second half,» however, stated playing out from the trunk was among many problems, not the sole problem.
«That which was incorrect [in the second half]we didn’t play our gamewe were fearful , we know they would push us more in the second half but we have to show more personality and drama, rather than be scared. You can’t provide a performance.
«We train for brief target shouts, of course mistakes are here however, it is not an excuse. Next time we have to do much better, we have to analyse and we’ll see what happens. It wasn’t just this scenario that was a problem – it had been the whole second half»
Back in the studio, Souness reacted to the interview of Xhaka by asking:’How do Arsenal be fearful?’
«They are saying they were scared – I’ve never been frightened at a game of soccer in my own life. I don’t understand it. In the game program Watford dropped off.
«It’s easy to play with no one’s coming after you, in mind. I could have played at the first half in that Arsenal group hour! But the thing changes when Watford are allowed off the lead, you’re faced with a person who’s moving through youpersonally, and they didn’t stand up to it.
«Sometimes you have to have a hat on for one sort of match, and yet another hat on for another. Arsenal proved now they can only play one way – they can’t go to war.»
Talking after the match, Arsenal director Emery admits that his side needs to learn from their mistakes, and explained the ball from goal strikes would have caused his side to get rid of the conflict at midfield.
«Trying the long ballthey are stronger than people, and they have been winning that chunk. We wanted to break the line and connect to Mesut [Ozil], just like we did with the goal.
«It had been two unique halves. In the first we commanded the match we desired, in the moment they pushed for our errors, and we’d more than we wanted to do. We will need to think how we can perform.
«We can develop all the mistakes and find out for the future games. Knowing they’d do more, and at the second half we needed to perform the work, although we said that 2-0 isn’t enough. They did this, and the lines couldn’t split.
«I continue with our method of functioning. We will need to enhance, take some information from this match. We can be disappointed, but we know about that.»
Arsenal visit Eintracht Frankfurt within their first Europa League group stage clash on Thursday at 5.55pm, before hosting Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday at 4.30pm.
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