Out of the cup

Arsenal 1-2 Watford

Arsenal lost their grip on the FA Cup with yet another insipid display on Sunday as the Gunners once again struggled to create goal scoring opportunities and on the few occasions they did, failed to take them.

After a testing few weeks, the mood around the training ground should have been improved following the hard fought draw against Tottenham and then the 4-0 victory over Hull.

Confidence should have also been somewhat restored, but Arsenal simply reverted to type against Watford and got just what they deserved. Arsene Wenger’s side have now won just 4 of their last 14 games as the manager struggles desperately to halt a slide which began at the turn of the year. For a manager who put so much faith in his players, declaring that he could not find any players better than those already at his disposal, Wenger must be extremely disappointed.

Watford didn’t do anything particularly special and in truth, they didn’t need to. Any side faced with the prospect of stopping Arsenal’s attack, now simply needs to be well organised and 9 times out of 10 they will succeed in frustrating the Gunners. As so often has been the case since January, Arsenal just froze whenever they reached the Watford penalty area, clearly lacking ideas as they passed the ball backwards or hit hopeful crosses into the box, aiming for one player amongst a sea of Watford shirts. The fact Costel Pantilimon did not have many saves to make, said it all.

Even when they managed to conjure up a promising piece of build up play, they still couldn’t put the ball in the back of the net, with Mohammed Elneny culpable in the first half of blazing his shot high and wide when more composure would have seen the ball hit the back of the net.

There can be no mistake that Arsenal have serious issues. They are just not clinical enough in front of goal, with Giroud once again enduring a game to forget despite hope that his two goals against Hull would somehow kick start a goal scoring run to propel Arsenal from now until the end of the season. However if the team were creating numerous chances and not taking them, fans could at least take some solace in the fact that chances were still being created, but the Gunners play has gone stale. They just cannot break teams down anymore as their slow and ponderous attacking game has become painful to watch. And yet the manager refuses to change anything. Week after week after week now he has been watching the same lethargic play having no impact on the opposition but he has done absolutely nothing to change it. The formation for example remains the same, no matter what. Even when losing 2-0 against Watford and desperately needing two goals just to secure a replay, Wenger still stuck with the same formation instead of switching to 2 up front as he had done successfully against Leicester in Arsenal’s last home win.

The continual faith placed on Theo Walcott is also worrying, given the Englishman has been abysmal and appears to be hiding when on the pitch. He was thrown on yesterday in an attempt to save the game, but he does not have the confidence to do attempt anything when he is on the ball and ends up passing the ball back to a teammate instead of attempting to take on a defender. Whenever another Arsenal player has the ball, Walcott hides behind an opposition player, hoping the ball will not come his way. It is a terribly sad sight but Walcott is in no fit state to help the team at the moment.

There are also problems in defence with Per Mertesacker and Gabriel struggling to work in tandem against Watford. During the first half in particular Ighalo simply ran off the back of Mertesacker on several occasions and it was only a poor final pass which saved the Gunners each time. Ighalo scored the first Watford goal turning Gabriel brilliantly to fire past Ospina, but the Watford man should not have been allowed to turn Gabriel so easily. The second Watford goal from Guedioura was a thunderous strike which flew into the top corner of the net, but again Arsenal were culpable. There is just no heart in this team at all and as the Watford man lined up to hit the ball with all his might the Gunners players just stood and watched. Not one of them attempted to close him down or put their body on the line, throwing themselves into the line of fire to block the shot.

Danny Welbeck did reduce the deficit with just over one minute of normal time remaining with a neat finish. Then seconds later he could have restored parity as Iwobi’s shot came back off the post and fell to Gibbs, who passed to Welbeck, only for the striker to have to turn and shoot, seeing his effort fly wide with the goal gaping. Had that effort gone in, Watford would have been hard done by. Arsenal didn’t deserve anything from this game and the fact their defence of the FA Cup ended so meekly was testament to the many problems this side have.

The Gunners season is now in serious danger of unravelling fast as they travel to Barcelona to complete a tie they have no hope of winning and then back to Everton for a Saturday tea time game which will be extremely difficult given Arsenal’s travel schedule and more importantly their terrible form. This turn of events is not surprising at all, in fact many Arsenal supporters could have foreseen this exact scenario in the summer and that is what is so frustrating for the Gunners supporters. Year after year the same mistakes happen time and time again, nothing changes and no one at the club is held accountable. When will it change?