THE SUN DID *NOT* SHINE

BOURNEMOUTH BANANA-SKINNED US

Sorry for the late post - I was so ill yesterday, I missed half the game, and I missed the On The Whistle podcast!

I also wanted to see what the reaction would be like after the game.

Predictably, not very good.

Arsenal were dreadful. Top to bottom. Well before we went down to 10 men.

Saliba was red carded after pulling over Evanilson close to the halfway line. The Wirral (Scouseland) referee initially gave a yellow card, then the avowed Liverpool fan in VAR (who always seems to be on our games) called him to the monitor to issue a red card. I thought the rules changed with VAR to stop red cards being issued when the fouls were that far up the pitch. Apparenlty not. What made things even worse was Howard Webb flagged on the Sky Cameras with a radio wire, phone in hand, texting. Carragher tweeted about it, he deleted, and Sky went on a clean-up job after - because to be honest, it was horrible, horrible optics across the board. How can a leader like Webb, who seems so attuned to his own image, not see how bad he looks to the rest of the world with the unforced errors he makes week in week out?

But… in the cold light of the League 2 floodlights, it was a red card. Saliba didn’t react fast enough to compute that living to fight for 65 minutes with 11 men was a better option than taking the red and stepping out of the Liverpool game with a suspension.

The wider concern here is that we’ve had 3 red cards in 8 games - and we’ve had 18 since Arteta took over in 2019. The highest amount in the entire league. I can think of very few that were for violent conduct. It’s hard to think we’re not refereed differently to other teams.

Back to the game. Arteta reacted by rolling on Kiwior and taking Sterling off. It was not a great decision. The Polish defender had a nightmare of a game. Trossard, who was misplacing passes all afternoon, looked very disinterested in the game. Raya’s kicking wasn’t where it should have been. Our entire frontline looked off.

Martinelli had a glaring chance before we conceded that he fluffed - very poor from him.

Everything collapsed on 70 minutes. We conceded from a corner. Then we gave away a penalty that was caused by some awful Kiwior defending.

It was a poor three points dropped.

I’m not going to vent a spleen over it - this sort of stuff happens in football. Bournemouth are a nightmare team to play after the break. They go man for man, they’re excellent in the press, and they’ll continue to take scalps this season. This is the second Premier League game we’ve lost in 2024.

The tactics were to play the game of attrition and beast them late in the second half. We weren’t really interested in taking risks early on because we didn’t want to give them an early goal. Arteta was derisking the game. That all went up in flames when Saliba had his airhead moment.

I don’t think people quite understand how difficult these sorts of away games are right after the break. Tired players getting on bus to go to a stadium with League One facilities, to get beasted by fresher players. It’s not an excuse, it’s context. City, as it stands, are 1-1 against Wolves away from home. Bournemouth are a far better side.

The bigger worry about all of this for me is the players that weren’t there. Where was Saka after everyone said he was ok? What’s going on with Timber after having two weeks off? The rough away games are always going to be tough if you don’t have your best players and this was one of those days.

There’s some concern about our attacking bite - but I have to remind myself we have 15 goals this season after going down to ten men three times. We scored 91 goals last season, despite not having a Haaland. We are not lacking creativity even without Odegaard in the side. That line-up yesterday, particularly in midfield, certainly lacked a bit of spark that should really be coming from someone like Nwaneri. Is Arteta maybe showing too much restraint by keeping him on the bench? No point in nominating him to backfill for Odegaard if you’re not going to give him the chance to play.

Declan keeps getting criticised - but he’s another player who has had no rest and is constantly having to take up new roles in the side. This has been a very tough start to the season and he’s done really well in my opinion.

Raheem Sterling already has people gunning for him - which I think will backfire. He hasn’t had a proper preseason, he’s learning a new system, and I’m absolutely sure he’ll come good. If he was doing it in the mess at Chelsea, he’ll do it in a more structured world at Arsenal. These things take time - just look at Kai from last seasons. Knives were out for him at this time, then he banged.

The job to be done now is dust ourselves down, get three points against Shaktar, and deal with Liverpool next week. It’s going to be very interesting to see what he does at centre back, my bet is it’ll be Timber in the middle. But who knows. This is a big week. Phase three is going to be brutal and we’ve started poorly. Champions react with fire, let’s see if the boys have got it. x