Arsenal capitulation in Watford on Super Sunday was like watching a’semi-pro’ group, states Graeme Souness.
After being 2-0 up in the points withdrew away. To begin with, Sokratis Papastathopoulos tried to play out only for Tom Cleverley to capitalise and halve the deficit, even until David Luiz gave away.
Arsenal have conceded seven goals in their past three games, a number of them coming from errors at the back, also Souness did not return in his evaluation of the Gunners.
“They capitulated in the second halfof Arsenal. They did not win a challenge. You should be scratching your mind if you are an Arsenal supporter watching that. It has two teams. It is like here is the first team in the first half, along with a second one after half-time. Proper teams don’t play like that.
“Arsenal in the second half were just like a semi-professional group playing football. By that I mean that they were not learning from the mistakes they had been doing and time again.”
Specifically, Souness questioned when major 2-1 in the second 22, why Unai Emery brought on Reiss Nelson and Joe Willock.
“They bring about a few kids, which was a match where at 2-1 it was time to dig and regroup, make sure they didn’t lose the game, and they should’ve dropped it. When the kids arrived they had been all around the area, it was like a sport of basketball and if you’re still an Arsenal fan, that would deeply, deeply fear you.”
The first goal came from a Bernd Leno goal kick, and something seen at the Premier League this year after rules altered to allow the ball inside the box to collect in Papastathopoulos’ central pass from defence.
But Souness said Arsenal must have gone after a warning signal from the first halfof the
“There are mature players in this type of defence. As a manager, you hope your players that are larger, it doesn’t have to be the ones, operate out it that they’re likely to concede.
“Why did the huge players never say’let us go with it for 10 minutes and watch where it’s us’, because persisting by it was going to charge themand they are blessed it only cost one.”
One of the greatest players Granit Xhaka, on the day of Arsenal admitted Arsenal were’fearful’ at the second half, however, stated playing out from the back was one of several issues, not the problem.
“Everything was wrong [in the second half]we didn’t play our game, we were scaredwe know they would push us more in the second half but we have to show more character and drama, and not be scared. You can’t offer a performance.
“We train for short target kicks, obviously mistakes are here but it is not an excuse. Next time we have to do much better, we have to analyse and then we’ll see what happens. It was not just this situation that was a problem – it was the entire second half.”
Back in the studio, Souness responded to Xhaka’s meeting by asking:’How do Arsenal be fearful?’
“They’re saying that they were scared – I’ve never been scared in a game of soccer in my life. I simply don’t know it. From the game plan, Arsenal were allowed to possess the ball, Watford dropped off.
“It’s simple to play when nobody’s coming after you, in your face. I could have played in that Arsenal team from the first halfan hour! Nevertheless, the whole thing changes when Watford are let off the guide, you’re faced with somebody who’s going through youpersonally, and they didn’t stand up to it.
“Sometimes you have to have one hat on for one form of game, and another hat on for a different. Arsenal proved now they can only play 1 way – they can’t go to war”
Talking after the match to Sky Sports, Arsenal director Emery admits that his side has to learn from their mistakes, and said the long ball from goal strikes would have induced his side to eliminate the conflict that was physical in midfield.
“Attempting the long ball, they are physically stronger than us, and they were winning that chunk. We wanted to split the first line and join to Mesut [Ozil], just like we did with the second objective.
“It was two different halves. At the first we commanded the game how we desired, for our errors they pushed at the instant, and we did more than we ever wanted to perform. We will need to think how we could perform.
“We can develop all the errors and learn for the future matches. Knowing they would do more, and at the second half we needed to perform the job, although we stated that 2-0 is not sufficient. They did this, and we could not break the lines.
“I keep with our method of functioning. We will need to enhance, take some information from this game. We could be disappointed, but we know about this.”
Arsenal go to Eintracht Frankfurt in their first Europa League group phase battle on Thursday at 5.55pm, prior to hosting Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday at 4.30pm.

Read more here: http://apple101.my/2019/09/cleveland-cavaliers-5-2/