Changing of the guard?

West Brom 0-1 Arsenal

Arsenal consolidated their mid-week victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League with another victory in the Saturday lunch time kick off against West Brom.

The Gunners came into the game on a patchy run of form to say the least and amid supporter unrest which is beginning to spill out into the stands, as for the first time a banner was held up in the away end, with the words: “Arsene thanks for the memories but it is time to say goodbye.”

Given this unprecedented level of unrest amongst the Arsenal faithful, Wenger would have hoped for a fine display from his side to silence those daring to question his reign, yet the performance of the players did little to appease those fans demanding change. It was simply more of the same from Arsenal; another game in which the Gunners dominated possession but didn’t do enough with the ball to really trouble the opposition goal and as a result the overall performance wasn’t impressive at all.

With Giroud back from injury, Wenger elected to select him up front, restoring the central pivot point upon which so many of Arsenal’s attacks were built last season. Danny Welbeck was moved to the left flank as a result, but was also given licence to drift into the middle and found himself in a central position on numerous occasions, while also combining well with Sanchez as the two interchanged positions throughout the game.  

This could be an interesting development for the Gunners moving forward as with both Welbeck and Sanchez using their pace to burst forward, beyond Giroud, to whom the ball would be played to first, for the Frenchman to flick it on, to one of his colleagues, Arsenal should be able to cause plenty of problems as they get in behind the opposition defence. There were glimpses of promise on Saturday, but the understanding between all three is still clearly in its infancy.

For all the possession enjoyed in the first half, Arsenal never really forced the goalkeeper into a top drawer save. The closest the Gunners came was mid-way through the first half when Ramsey played a through ball to Welbeck and the Englishman’s first time effort was comfortably parried away by Ben Foster.  Moments later, Foster almost gifted Arsenal the opening goal as his attempted clearance was charged down by Giroud, but unfortunately the angle was just too tight for the Frenchman to profit from his hard work and he couldn’t find the back of the net.

Although the away side had enjoyed the vast majority of possession and therefore West Brom were barely able to muster an attack of any note, there was no disguising the fact that Arsenal looked more resolute at the back. The return of Laurent Koscielny was undoubtedly a massive boost to the team, with the Frenchman being the best defender at the club. Koscielny’s pace offers a reassurance and therefore confidence in defence which can help the Gunners to secure more and more clean sheets.

In front of the defence, Mathieu Flamini, filling in for the injured Mikel Arteta, is more tactically astute than the Arsenal captain and more accomplished at providing the defensive shield in front of the back four, although he did seem to tire towards the end of Saturday’s match. This is an area of the team which Wenger has resolutely neglected to address for several years, to the detriment of the team, but must now sign a true defensive midfielder within the next two transfer windows to appease the fans.

The second half continued in the same vein as the first, with Arsenal continually pressing forward in search of the opener, but struggling to open up the West Brom defence. A number of chances went begging, but in truth they were half chances at best, with the best being Cazorla’s attempt to connect with a Kieran Gibbs cross, which was just a fraction too high for the diminutive midfielder. The Spaniard has had a relatively difficult start to the season, as like several of his teammates he has struggled to regain the form he is capable of, but in the past two games his performances have been most encouraging, suggesting that we will very soon witness the best of Cazorla once again.

The Spaniard was instrumental in creating what turned out to be the winning goal on Saturday, using great skill and speed to evade a couple of tackles on the edge of the box and surge towards the by-line, before picking out Welbeck with an inch perfect delivery which the Englishman headed home. It was an extremely well worked goal, but Arsenal didn’t build on it at all. West Brom had been dominated all game, were now a goal down and clearly there for the taking. But the Gunners disappointingly didn’t go for the jugular and in the final few minutes of the match, found themselves under unnecessary pressure.

In fact had it not been for the crossbar coming to their rescue in the dying minutes, as Berahino’s firm header came crashing back off the crossbar, Arsenal would have had to settle for a point. This, in a nutshell, is why fans have taken it upon themselves to display banners calling for the manager to leave, for the very first time. Watching the Gunners play is like Groundhog Day. Each and every game is almost identical to the one that preceded it and nothing ever changes. The same mistakes are repeated time and time again, the same pattern of play unfolds week after week and the fans have become restless. Their club is standing still. In the ever changing and developing modern game, that is unforgivable. Last season, not even major collapses away to all the big sides were enough to force the manager to change his tactics or style, which is why some fans have now taken matters into their own hands and done the previously unthinkable. Arsenal have gone from the all-conquering Invincibles to a side yet to win against a team sat higher than 13^th in the table this season. That may well change in the mid-week game at home to Southampton, but the mood has changed amongst the Arsenal faithful. For so long Gunners fans held up a banner reading “in Arsene we trust” in many ways it became the club mantra, but that has slowly disintegrated and has now been replaced with the banner witnessed on Saturday. Unless the team dramatically improves over the course of the season, the ill feeling will soon spread and the ugly scenes following last season’s opening day defeat to Aston Villa could well become the norm.