The fish must be fried

Morning.

Just woke up. Checking dust levels: settling, but not settled. Which is fine. This is some dusty dust. As it should be when you lose a final. I do think a little time gives us some distance and the ability to consider things differently. I still don’t like that we lost, and I really don’t like how we lost.

What’s key for me is that this game, for the manager and the players, is compartmentalised as a one-off in which we got things wrong, and did things wrong. Man City deserved their win, we have to be honest about that, and you could probably argue quite successfully that their goals came from putting us under pressure and playing in our half for a sustained period.

At the same time though, both goals were easily preventable, particularly for a team as good as we are defensively. The first, a complete howler from the goalkeeper; the second, players not reacting quickly enough to danger when throughout this season that’s been one of our great strengths. After that City didn’t need to play in our half, but we didn’t have enough to cause them sufficient problems.

As I said yesterday, for all the focus on Kepa’s mistake, the bigger issue was his inability to find the kind of passes David Raya can. For me, Raya 100% finds Ben White here – or at least tries to.

Next time we face a team who set-up like City, perhaps even City themselves, a few passes clipped over the top of their static ‘press’, and the dynamic of the game changes. It’d be even better if we had technical quality in midfield and up front, players like Martin Odegaard and Eberechi Eze give you much greater security than we had on Sunday. I know Kai Havertz doesn’t play that role the same way as either of those two, but we need better than 55% pass completion from the player in that position.

I recognise he’s still making his way back from what was, essentially, a year out, but he and too many other players fell below their best on the ball on Sunday. Other pass completion percentages include Piero Hincapie at just 62.5%, Martin Zubimendi 69%, Leandro Trossard 61%, Bukayo Saka at 73% (11 of 15 passes), and up front Viktor Gyokeres completed just 3 of 7 passes at a 43% success rate. Arsenal have been famed/criticised for control, but you can’t have any of that when such a fundamental part of the game is as sub-par as that.

A couple of weeks ago, we found it a real struggle against Bayer Leverkusen away, after which Mikel Arteta said they had to analyse that game to see where they could improve in the second leg. We had just 6 attempts at goal in Germany, we had 21 in the game back at our place. I don’t want to go down the road of how we have to use Sunday’s defeat as motivation, to take the pain and use it in a positive way. It feels a bit trite, of course that’s what you need to do on an emotional level, but the reality is that can only be achieved by improving things on a tactical level, and eliciting the kind of performance on the pitch when we visit City next month, that enables us to play better and take something tangible from that game, whether it’s one point or, ideally, three.

Anyway, there is a lot for the manager to ponder between now and our next game, which is obviously not for a couple of weeks as we’re now into an Interlull. Regardless of how Sunday went, it feels like a decent time to stop, reset, and get ready for the final push until the end of the season. I think it’s clear some players could do without international commitments, particularly those who aren’t involved in play-offs/competitive games. At this point, there’s little an international manager can learn about established players, so I don’t think it was any real surprise to see quite a few pull out of friendly fixtures that mean little in the grand scheme of things.

William Saliba and Gabriel won’t be going with France and Brazil for games in the US; Leandro Trossard is also out of Belgium’s transatlantic trip; while Jurrien Timber and Eberechi Eze, who missed the final on Sunday, have dropped out of their respective squads. It’s worth pointing out that I don’t believe these are injuries of convenience, Alex Ferguson style. These players are dealing with ongoing issues, so hopefully this two week break is a chance to rest, recuperate, recharge some batteries, and get ready for what lies ahead.

There’s some common sense from England who won’t use Declan Rice or Bukayo Saka until their second game, at home to Japan next Tuesday, while there’s also been a surprising and potentially useful recall to the England squad for Ben White. I don’t know how much he’ll play, but I think you could see at Wembley his level of match-fitness isn’t 100%, so it could be beneficial for him to get some ‘competitive’ minutes. It also shows that his decision not to play for England was nothing to do with him spurning his country because he hates it, but entirely down to Gareth Southgate’s dickhead assistant. Let’s hope he can come through unscathed and return to us in better shape.

Painful as Sunday was, and it was, we now face an intense end of season period where Arsenal have bigger fish to fry. I’d have loved to win the Carabao Cup but it would not be the measure of a successful season on its own, we all know that. The job for Arteta, his coaching staff, and these players, is to ensure that in Premier League terms, those fish get fried. Anything else on top of that is bonus territory for me. Very welcome, obviously, but full focus has to be on going to distance over the 38 games.

Fry those bastard fish to within an inch of their lives. Start heating up that oil, there’s still a lot to play for.

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For more on yesterday, if you haven’t already, there’s an Arsecast Extra below. Not necessarily a fun listen, but a chance to get some stuff out there and off our chests before we move on and focus on those goddam fish. Enjoy, more here tomorrow.

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