Arsenal 0-2 Man City: Gunners fumble the final

Match report – Player ratings – Arteta reaction – Quotes round-up

Arsenal’s wait for silverware continues after a poor performance led to a 2-0 defeat to Man City at Wembley yesterday.

If there was no surprise about the selection of the goalkeeper, a team without both Jurrien Timber and Eberechi Eze, despite that info hitting the rumour mill in the hours before kick-off, wasn’t quite what people had expected. It meant a start at right-back for Ben White, with Kai Havertz in the midfield role behind Viktor Gyokeres up front.

To be fair, we started brightly enough, a smart first time pass from Martin Zubimendi created a good close-range chance for Havertz which the keeper came out well to save, and the rebound from Bukayo Saka was blocked. It’s one of those where you feel like a player properly match-fit, with some form and rhythm, would probably score taking the shot a fraction earlier, but that’s not where he is right now.

Despite having less of the ball, we’d had 5 attempts on goal as the first half continued, and it took until the 44th minute for City to register their first, a Jeremy Doku effort that was blocked, before Erling Haaland headed over at the back post under good pressure from the Arsenal defenders. It wasn’t a stellar first period by any means, but it wasn’t hugely discouraging per se.

The same can’t be said for the second half though. After the break City were energised, and Arsenal were borderline abject. We allowed ourselves to be pushed backwards, and we sat too deep. Their line of four players blocking off passing lanes meant when Kepa had the ball at his feet, it was difficult to find a pass, and while the spotlight on the keeper will be about how the first goal went in, I think this is an element of his selection that was part of our struggle.

While I understand this is by instruction, I thought how slow he was to use the ball in the opening part of the second half contributed to our nervousness, but it went beyond just him. From the moment the whistle went at the start of the second half to the point they opened the scoring, City had 80% possession, most of it in our half as we didn’t have the technical security or the hold-up play further forward to get out, and our pass success rate when we did have it was just 61% compared to their 86%.

Collectively Arsenal were really poor, and then we gave them a goal. Rayan Cherki clipped in a cross from their right, Kepa let it go through his hands and Nico O’Reilly was there to head home from close range to make it 1-0. It was, by any measure, a horrible mistake from the goalkeeper, and brought the manager’s selection decision into sharp focus. City had been knocking hard on the Arsenal door, but had hardly created a chance – this was a gift of a goal.

As Arteta pondered subs on the sideline, City scored again. Again it came from the right hand side, I think Declan Rice needed to go an engage the ball rather than point at Gabriel, the cross came in, O’Reilly ran off the back of an unaware Bukayo Saka and guided a good header home for 2-0 to City. And honestly, at that point, I knew the game was up.

Riccardo Calafiori came on for Piero Hincapie and did make some difference. He had a shot which clipped the outside of the post and he provided some forward thrust, but everyone else remained below par to varying degrees. Noni Madueke came on and was bad chaos; Havertz and White looked exhausted after playing so little this season; the midfield duo were overrun and borderline anonymous; Saka’s recent form remains a big worry, his need to take an extra touch or step before doing things has robbed him of what made him so effective; and up front the lack of techincal quality behind a striker who has very little of that just compounded that particular issue.

I think it’s fair to say we missed Eze, and Martin Odegaard, two players who could have helped stitch things together better, but let’s not pretend those guys would have been the panacea to what was an awful Arsenal performance on the day. We picked a hell of a time to put in what was, arguably, our worst 45 minutes of the season. I think there are probably some physical explanations for that, but there was enough quality on that pitch yesterday to have done a lot, lot better, and while both goals were entirely preventable, Arteta couldn’t find an answer to the way Guardiola set up his City side.

The final whistle went, the TV went off. I did not want to watch any of it, because losing a final is hard to take. Losing a final when you absolutely deserve to lose it even more so. There was such hope going into this one, you wanted to see an Arsenal team rise the occasion, instead we felt flat like some kind of under-cooked soufflé, and even if this was our first defeat to City in six games, it scratched at some old wounds which made it more unpleasant.

Afterwards, the manager was asked about his team selection, and defended picking Kepa, saying:

I have to do what I feel is right, which is honest and which is fair. He’s played all the competition and I think it would have been very, very unfair for him and for the team to do something different.

We are guided by what we’ve seen and what he’s done in the competition, and he helped us to go all the way through here. I believe it’s the right thing to do and that’s it. Errors are part of football and today it happened unfortunately in a crucial moment.

As I said yesterday, I expected Kepa to start, but it was always going to be a risk, particularly when you’re a club looking for its first trophy in a long time. At worst, you want that selection to turn out to be neutral, where nobody talks about it afterwards when you lift the cup, but in this instance it backfired and there’s no hiding place for the manager on this one. David Raya is our best goalkeeper, up there with our player of the season so far, and while I know he has to consider squad/man-management, this felt like a decision guided by sentiment rather than the ruthlessness you need on occasions like this.

Arteta has rarely gone with his heart over his head during his Arsenal tenure, I think he did yesterday though, and it contributed to the defeat. The first goal in any game, especially a final is so crucial, and Kepa’s basic mistake handed it to them. Hindsight is 20/20 and all that, but this was always the nightmare scenario this selection decision had the potential to throw up. And it made me almost want to throw up.

I can’t say the bigger issue was the collective performance, because a howler like that to give the opposition the first goal in a final is a seismic moment in a game like this, but it would be unfair to put it all down to that. As I mentioned, as a team we were sub-standard, particularly after the break. For me, only William Saliba and Calafiori came anywhere close to the level we know they’re capable of, everyone else struggled. Collectively we were poor, individually we were poor, and City made the most of two moments when both those levels fell well below the standards you expect in a game like this.

As for what’s next, or how we respond, I think that can wait for tomorrow, or another day. I understand why the manager said what he said in his post-game press conference, but right now, I think it’s all right to be sad, angry, frustrated, disappointed, or whatever combination of all of that you feel at losing a final. And not just losing it, but how we lost it. If it’s a great game the best of two good teams won, it’s not much better, but it’s easier to take. When you shit the bed like Spud from Trainspotting, it’s not much fun at all.

I think fans can recognise there’s still a lot to play for this season, but be annoyed about yesterday. It’s an unpleasant feeling to take into the Interlull, but unfortunately we didn’t do anywhere near enough to deserve to win a final, and that reality hurts.

Right, I’ll leave it there, but you can join myself and James an Arsecast Extra a bit later, perhaps some podcast catharsis might be useful for all of us. We’ve already put out the call for questions on BlueSky @gunnerblog.bsky.social and @arseblog.com. So fire away using the hashtag #arsecastextra – or if you’re an Arseblog Member on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord server. The pod should be out around midday.

For now, have a good one.

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