Stoke City 3 – Arsenal 1 : Poor Gunners Deservedly Beaten

Well, that was suitably awful, wasn’t it?

We lost. We deserved to lose. Now we’re mathematically eliminated from winning the league, and find ourselves in a real battle to finish as high as 3rd.

Arsenal started pretty brightly, and had a couple of really good chances early on. Within a minute, Jack worked really hard to break free on the left, and when his cross in was deflected up in the air, really threw himself at the ball to head it into the box to Arshavin, who had some space just outside the six-yard box, but his shot was poor and dragged well wide.

We had another good chance just a few minutes later from some neat interplay between van Persie and Ramsey — Rambo’s through ball was really beautiful and creative and right into the path of van Persie, whose run was perfectly timed to just stay onside. Instead of blasting it, he tried to toe-poke it into the roof of the net, and his shot was well over the bar for a goal kick. And a few minutes after that, Koscielny actually got the ball on the edge of the box and blasted it over.

And I find it maddening. Honestly — that was 3 good opportunities, all around the perimeter of the six-yard box, and we didn’t put a single one on target. At this point, I’m fully in favor of Wenger doing what the manager in “Major League” did with Willy Mays Hayes — if you have the ball on your feet in the box, and your shot doesn’t even test the keeper, you have to drop and do 20 push-ups. Immediately. Sairax and I both mentioned the thing Orbinho came out with this week which said that if every shot which clanged off the post or crossbar this season had been a goal, Arsenal would be top of the table. This was presented as an example of how unlucky we are, but honestly, I’m not convinced it’s down to luck at all. I think we hit more posts because we’re always too concerned about scoring the perfect goal, with the “unsaveable” shot, that we’re constantly aiming for the sides and top of the goal.

But what we could really use, in my opinion, is a lot more times when someone gets the ball in the box and just blasts it into the center of the goal. For one thing, if that’s where you aim and your aim is off, there’s a pretty good chance the shot will still be on target, and may actually drift into one of those corners. But for another thing, even if you say the shot will likely be saved if the shot is into the center of the goal, if you kick it hard enough for close enough, the keeper won’t be able to hold it, and then the ball is up for grabs in the box, with the keeper out of position, and if we can get to it first, there’s a great scoring chance to follow. We need to embrace the idea of scoring ugly goals a bit more, instead of spraying 15 shots off target every match — force the keeper to make a save!

After that, Stoke’s defense settled in and chances became much harder to come by. Sagna actually had a pretty good chance from the edge of the box, but, unbelievably, his shot was . . . wait for it . . . off-target. Sigh.

After that, the game got a bit boring, there were a lot of blocked shots from both sides in the next 15 minutes or so. It got a bit chippy, too — Jack, in particular, was having trouble keeping his temper in check, and at one point you would have bet just about anything on him getting a yellow card pretty soon with the way he was flying around and jawing at both the referee and Stoke’s players.

Also, I suppose I must say a word about the Stoke fans. Booing Aaron Ramsey every time he touched the ball. I predicted this in my match preview, but was hoping they were going to prove me wrong. They did not. What can you say? It’s completely classless, and so obviously classless that I don’t really even need to write anything else about it, do I?

And then came the goals. Oh, the goals.

The first one came in oh-so-typical fashion. Here’s what I wrote in my match preview yesterday:

they’ll try to hit us on the counter, and will try to draw as many set pieces as possible, where they can use their superior size and strength to cause us a lot of problems. We really do need to be much more careful than usual about kicking the ball out of bounds deep in our own half and fouling in our own half. We need to take the approach that they cannot hurt us from open play, and to let them have space and opportunities we don’t ordinarily look to concede, but it can be very tough to change your approach on something like that just for one match.

Of course, the first goal came when we didn’t do that. Arshavin was defending Pennant down our left defensive flank near the touchline. He probably should have gotten whistled for a foul when he caught Pennant with his thigh, but Pennant managed to keep possession and play continued. And then, for no reason, really, Arshavin just gave Pennant a two-hand shove, and the ref had no choice but to whistle for a foul. It was in a position where it was a virtual corner kick, and of course, they converted it. van Persie mistimed his defensive header and the ball sailed just over his head. I guess Wojo thought he was going to clear it, because he stayed glued to his line. And Djourou must have thought he was going to, as well, because his defensive run was very poor. His man, Kenwyne Jones, continued his run well, and when the ball went over van Persie’s head, Jones found himself with about as easy a goal as you’ll ever see — unmarked, in the six-yard box, with no defender or keeper in front of him. All he had to do was just collide with the ball and bundle it in, which he did. The free kick came from a terrible mental mistake from Arshavin, and was scored due to terrible set piece defending on several players’ part. 1-0 Stoke.

And then they doubled their lead about 10 minutes later. Jermaine Pennant was running with the ball on the counterattack, and no defender stepped up and stopped his run, so he had plenty of space. He decided to uncork a shot from outside the box, and Djourou, too late, decided to try to challenge him. The shot, which would almost certainly have been harmless, took a very unfortunate ricochet off Djourou’s leg, and looped up over Wojo, who had come out to outside the six-yard box and could only get a fingertip to it. The commentator blamed him for it, and I guess there’s that old thing that if you can get a finger to it, you should save it. But you’re also supposed to come out and shut down the angle, and to me, Wojo’s positioning was fine, and I think he was a victim of bad luck as much as anything. At any rate, it was 2-0, Stoke.

And given that Stoke had not conceded more than 2 goals at home in any match all season, you thought our chances of winning were very slim indeed at that point. They almost got even slimmer a minute or so later, when Jonathan Walters got through Arsenal’s defense and unleashed a great shot from close range that clanged off the crossbar. That would have well and truly put the match out of reach, but fortunately rebounded off harmlessly. The end of the first-half was pretty uneventful, and we went in down 2-0.

First-Half Stats:

Shots (on Target): Stoke City 6(3) – Arsenal 8(0)
Possession: Stoke 27% – Arsenal 73%
Passing Accuracy: Stoke 62% – Arsenal 87%
Corners: Stoke 0 – Arsenal 2

Wenger showed that he wasn’t happy with the team and how it was playing at the break, taking off Ramsey and Arshavin, and bringing on Bendtner and Chamakh. Would it kick-start the team, or would it be too little, too late?

Stoke had the first good chance of the second half, off of a (what else?) set piece, when Robert Huth’s cannon of a header went just over the bar. Replays showed that he was rugby-tackling Alex Song as he ran onto the header, so much so that Song’s shirt was badly ripped at the collar. Song retaliated by hands to the face, and handbags ensued, but no cards.

We then responded with a couple of decent chances from outside the box, courtesy of the half-time subs. Bendtner actually got off a half-decent effort that he tried to bend around the keeper, but went wide. Chamakh then had a great opportunity from the edge of the box, but let the ball run across him for no reason, then caught up to it and dragged his tame effort well wide. At that point we were up to 10 shots, with not a single one on target.

Then, with about 20 minutes left, things really started to heat up. Wilshere lept into a full-blooded challenge on Pennant and took him out. Jack did get the ball first, but kind of jumped onto the ball, and his foot rolled over the top of the ball into Pennant’s leg, and took Pennant out with his body. The announcers and a lot of people on Twitter thought he was going to see red for it, but I have to say, I didn’t think it was quite so bad as to deserve a red — I thought it deserved a yellow, and that’s what he got. Pennant also got a yellow for getting in Wilshere’s face afterward. But it was chippy.

Then we had a host of chances in a short period of time. In the 73rd minute, Bendtner ran into the box, drew some defenders, then tried to get a shot off. The shot was deflected directly into the path of van Persie, who ran onto the ball right on the edge of the six-yard box, but Begovic got out and got down and van Persie’s shot wasn’t high enough to get over him. By far our best chance of the match up to that point, and it really should have been 2-1.

Right after that, we got a corner kick, and Djourou had a pretty good header that was deflected from a Theo cross off a corner. From the resulting corner, RvP sent in a good cross that Chamakh headed wide. Stoke came right back with a good chance of their own at the other end, where Glenn Whelan’s shot from the right forced Wojo into a very good save.

Finally, in the 81st minute, we broke through. The ball came to van Persie just inside the box, and he had a bit of space and uncorked a very good low lashing shot with his “chocolate leg” that went just under Begovic to cut the lead in half. It was exactly what I had been pleading with Arsenal to do all match, and it resulted in us making it interesting. 2-1. Could we come back?

No. No we could not. Just a few minutes after that, Djourou’s “clearance” was inexplicably right back into the center of the box, and Jonathan Walters ran onto it and buried it into the net. Really bad defending from Djourou there. 3-1 Stoke, game over. Mathematically eliminated from title contention, and the battle for fourth place was very much on.

And . . . that was really about it. The players looked like they had basically given up. There was no real urgency or no real effort to try to get a desperation goal back. It was a pretty uneventful finish to the match, and we finished the match losing 3-1.

Full-Time Stats

Shots (on Target): Stoke City 12(5) – Arsenal 18(3)
Possession: Stoke 26% – Arsenal 74%
Passing Accuracy: Stoke 63% – Arsenal 87%
Corners: Stoke 2 – Arsenal 5

It was a pretty terrible performance from Arsenal. Full of the flaws that we’ve seen over and over again — stupid defending, inability to convert chances, set piece helplessness on both ends of the pitch. The truth is we didn’t deserve to win. We looked bad, and we didn’t really seem to have a plan for breaking down Stoke’s defense.

Here’s the thing. It’s easy to demonize and scapegoat Stoke, but it ignores the reality of the situation. Stoke were not dirty — at least not today. We committed more fouls, Jack could have been sent off for his tackle, and Song put his hands into Huth’s face. Any way you objectively look at it, we were the more physical team. Honestly, other than Huth dragging down Song in the box, I don’t think Stoke did anything that could be construed as “dirty.” They played hard but fair, and were simply disciplined. They had a strategy and executed it to perfection.

The real issue is that we’ve seen this strategy deployed against us so many times in the last few years, and it continues to be so effective. The responsibility is on Wenger to figure out exactly how to beat this strategy, and not only has he not figured it out, the strategy seems to be getting more effective, if anything. Teams are going to keep doing this, and it’s going to keep working, until some changes to either personnel, tactics, or both are made. Whether that will happen remains to be seen.

I don’t really know what to say — it was bad, and it was disappointing. On the plus side, I guess, people can finally stop talking as if there’s any chance of us winning the league, as we’re almost certain to be mathematically eliminated by the end of the day. But the race for 3rd, and the final qualifying spot directly into the group stage, is very much on, since Manchester City are 5 points behind us with a match in hand. The home match against Aston Villa becomes very important now, as it’s our best chance at another win and to try to close in on a top-3 finish. Let’s hope we can at least salvage this out of what has been an extraordinarily poor finish to our season.

To illustrate, here’s how we’ve played since the beginning of March:

Arsenal 0 – Sunderland 0
West Brom 2 – Arsenal 2
Arsenal 0 – Blackburn 0
Blackpool 1 – Arsenal 3
Arsenal 1 – Liverpool 1
Tottenham 3 – Arsenal 3
Bolton 2 – Arsenal 1
Arsenal 1 – Manchester United 0
Stoke 3 – Arsenal 1

That’s 2 wins, 4 draws, and 2 losses, with an even goal differential. That’s an average of 1.25 points per match — over an entire season, that would be 47 points — not exactly relegation, but in the bottom half of the table. And that’s the problem. We’ve played like a bottom-half side since the end of February.

I caught a lot of criticism for being pretty pessimistic about our title chances when people were saying “all we have to do is win our last x matches and we’ll probably win the league” the last couple of months. Somehow being realistic made me a worse supporter, according to some. And I don’t like raining on people’s parade. But my point was, and is, this: we have shown no ability to do that. This team, and this group of players, has never had a great run-in if anything is at stake. When there is pressure, they crumble. And we certainly had shown nothing which would lead me to believe that we were capable of winning however many matches in a row that we needed to win. It’s made worse by the fact that we can’t really blame injuries — for the most part, we were very, very healthy over the spring, especially the last couple of weeks. We just bottled it — no other explanation or excuses. We had it in our hands, and we pissed it away. And it is maddening.

But what can you do? That’s what happened, that’s what we did, and now we just have to live with it. I, for one, cannot wait for the season to be over so we can stop worrying about it, and after a couple of months off, hopefully we’ll be able to drum up some optimism for the new season. We’ll be back with any news updates this week, all the coverage of the Aston Villa match on Sunday. Since there’s not too much else to write about and we have a paucity of news going on this week, and we need something to discuss, I’ll probably just save player ratings until tomorrow. Until then.

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Category: Arsenal News, Fixtures, Match Review, Premiership, Stoke City