THE CURSE OF DON UNAI

FINDING HOPIUM IN A SEA OF APRIL MISERY

You can look at coefficients, analyse the colour of a gilet, get hyped about starting line-ups... but none of it matters when Arsenal face up against Don Unai Emery. His exit from the club cast a forever curse on the big occasions when we have to deal with him.

Sadly, there was no exception to that rule yesterday when his team walked away with a deserved three points after Arsenal put on the worst second-half performance of the Mikel Arteta era.

Our opening 45 was pretty much spot on, we cut through Villa with ease, releasing Trossard, Jesus and Kai. It felt like it was only a matter of time before we opened the scoring. The delicious hope was that if we scored first, Unai would give up and start thinking about Europa Conference.

We didn't score, so instead, he focused on that sexy feeling you get when you go three points clear in the fight for top 4 against Spurs.

It's hard to fathom an excuse.

Villa played on Thursday, we played on Tuesday.

Our players might have been shook by Liverpool, but Villa could have been shook by Spurs.

The big occasion was the same for both teams, fighting for positions in the league they don't normally fight for.

The explanation was pretty simple: Villa fancied themselves and delivered.

My view is the team looked gassed in the second half. Rotation isn't Mikel Arteta's strong suit, but we've gotten away with it this season. The Villa game combined with the return of the Champions League might just have put the team over the edge. The emotion of that Bayern game rolled over into the Villa game and we were fried in the second half. Even Emery admitted he didn't change much; it was more about Arsenal not showing up.

You can point to this being a mental toughness type of evening, but that'd be pretty harsh considering the season we've had and what we've delivered. This was a pivotal moment in the season and we didn't have what was needed in the tank of Champions. But going down that path would point to our title challenge being over with 5 games to go.

It is not. If you are saying it is over, you have the mental toughness issues. So stop the crying and carry on reading.

It doesn't matter how much your heart believes it's over... mathematically, we're in great shape with 5 games to go. Though the inevitability of City does tend to make it seem less likely, you cannot rule out anything. No one thought Palace would do that to Liverpool today. Sport carries no guarantees. We have to go one game at at a time and hope someone can lay a glove on them.

I don't want to scapegoat anyone, but there were four things that stood out to me about that game, and I have to talk about them.

Falling in love with the wrong attributes

Kai Havertz is a beautiful man and player. But he kind of epitomises our idolatry of the wrong attributes as Arsenal fans. He wasn't playing as a striker yesterday, but he was put in striker positions numerous times and it didn't work. He wasn't aggressive enough at getting shots off and he lacked killer when we needed it. I remember arguing aggressively against Jesus a few years ago because of his lack of goals a couple of years on, and we're sighing at the lack of them.

We need to stop falling in love with forward options that don't deliver the number currency a striker should be judged by: goals. Off-the-ball movement, dancing body movement, and selflessness all matter... but only if they are secondary to scoring.

I don't want to hear anyone saying we don't need a striker this summer. We badly need one and they need to be about the goals. If they don't have a great NOW record, they at least need to have the potential to be that guy.

Rotation

I predicted we'd go strong in the Villa game - we did. But was it the right decision? Well, hindsight would say no. But one of the views this blog had 3 months ago was that our fully fit squad would be decisive in the home stretch. The problem? Instead of putting returning players back into the fold, we've benched them. Could Thomas Partey have given us something from the start today? Could Tomiyasu have taken some minutes for Ben White or Zinchenko? Would Eddie have been a better option than Gabriel Jesus?

We still put too many minutes on too few players - and the consequences look the same as last season.

Cooked players don't win you league titles.

Gabriel Jesus

A fabulous player in an identity crisis and a confidence hell hole.

He's playing with pain, we have to empathise with that. But for me, he's not playing with freedom or purpose. His instinct in front of goal is just not there. He's a giver, not a taker. He will slow down a transition moment to find the perfect pass versus go-it-alone for a chance of goalscoring glory. He is indecisive about who he wants to be on the pitch and it's given us a glorious talent lost at sea.

4 Premier League goals in 1361 minutes is not good enough.

Zinchenko

I'm in a crisis with this man. I love his talent, his bravery, and his unique ability to invert. However, that performance yesterday epitomised all of the things we don't like about him. He held onto the ball too long, he dithered defensively, some of his decisions were outright reckless... and he played the ball out for some injury fakery in a game where Aston Villa ignored one of their own players when he was writhing around in real agony.

Old Arsenal would do overly sporting things like that. Not the new team.

His culpability in both goals conceded today felt like the mistakes Aaron Ramsdale made against Southampton last season. I don't know if Arteta will forgive them like he might have done in the past. This is a player who had made too many errors this season - and lacks availability to correct for them. We need a better idea there. It'll probably be Jurrien Timber next season - but that doesn't help us for the Bayern game on Wednesday.

Conclusion

It's going to be very, very hard for the team to dust themselves down and win the next two games. But that's what Champions do. They get over poor games and react right away.

Losing games is part of the process, particularly with young squads and young coaching staff. This week we find out where we are compared to one of the best teams in Europe. This weekend we find out whether we grew as a team this season when we go to a Wolves that could easily beat us if we play like we did in the second half.

Football is hard. Disappointment happens to every big team. The best of them find a way to stay in the fight.

Ok, that's me done.

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