Lucky Gunners steal point

PSG 1-1 Arsenal 

In keeping with the start to their season so far, Arsenal yet again produced a lacklustre display but once again got away with it, this time against PSG in the opening game of their Champions League campaign.

In each of the last two seasons the Gunners had suffered opening game defeats and going up against the most difficult side in the group, away from home, it would have been reasonable to presume that Arsene Wenger would elect for a more pragmatic approach than his usual attacking philosophy.

However Wenger simply doesn’t adapt for anyone, that game away to Manchester City a couple of years ago in which Arsenal sat deep, soaked up pressure and won the match, proved to be an exception rather than a turning point. As a result, instead of sacrificing attacking intent and opting for the energy of Mohamed Elneny or the more defensive minded and physical Granit Xhaka alongside Francis Coquelin at the base of the midfield, in order to combat PSG’s strongest department, their midfield, Wenger selected Cazorla, Iwobi and Oxlade-Chamberlain, with Alexis Sanchez up front.

The lack of two defensive midfielders in front of the defence allowed PSG to dominate the midfield battle for large parts of the game, while the lack of defensive cover from Iwobi and Oxlade-Chamberlain, left the full backs, in particular Nacho Monreal, desperately isolated. PSG’s goal, arriving after only 42 seconds, came as a direct result of Serge Aurier being allowed a free run at Monreal, before crossing into the box for the unmarked Cavani to head past David Ospina. The Uruguayan striker could have easily ended the evening with at least a hat trick, but a combination of poor finishing and top quality goalkeeping from Ospina kept the score down to one and allowed Arsenal the opportunity to steal a point.

Much was made of the decision to select Ospina instead of Cech for the opening game of the Champions League. The same decision had spectacularly backfired last season and after two games, led to Wenger selecting Cech once again. Ospina justified his inclusion on Tuesday night with a fine performance but his presence in goal in place of the clear first choice goalkeeper only seems to suggest that Wenger has already conceded this is a competition his side will not be able to compete in and so will not be taking it seriously. Qualification from the group stage will please the money men at the Emirates and at the end of the day that is all that counts at this once great club. The whole notion of building a new stadium to enable Arsenal to compete with the best teams in the world both on and off the pitch, has long been assigned to the history books. The Gunners are now just a revenue generating machine.

While the decision regarding the choice of goalkeeper seemed strange, the selection at the other end of the pitch was really inexplicable. Alexis Sanchez is not a central striker and prefers to play either on the flank or in the number 10 role. It is common knowledge to all who have ever seen him play, but Wenger is persisting on playing him up front on his own when he now has two fully fit strikers sat on the bench. Olivier Giroud did enter the field as a second half substitute and in truth his performance only served to justify why he was on the bench in the first place, collecting another ridiculous red card for two silly yellow card offenses committed within minutes of each other. Yet with Sanchez up front, Arsenal had no focal point, no shape and no attacking threat, which in turn placed more pressure on the defence.

Every time the Gunners had the ball, there were no options for the attacking midfielders and invariably the ball was lost time and time again. Mesut Ozil, a player who is usually at the top of the successful passing charts was among the chief culprits in giving the ball away but if Ozil doesn’t have forward options when he is on the ball, then his prowess is negated and he becomes a liability as he cannot harm the opposition with penetrative passes and does not do enough defensively to help the team when they don’t have the ball. At least with Giroud up front, Arsenal’s midfield can play balls off him, get a foothold in the opposition’s final third and build the attack around him. But Wenger seems oblivious to this and refuses to change. If the manager decided during the summer that Giroud was no longer his first choice striker then he should have identified a player with similar physical attributes or formulated a change in Arsenal’s attacking approach. But neither happened and as a result, the Gunners are left playing with a striker that does not suit their attacking style of play.

This should not be so surprising as even when being completely outplayed and in need of a goal the manager still refused to change his system and still persevered with the lone man upfront, making no effort to influence the outcome of the match with tactical changes. Ultimately the manager can point to the fact that Arsenal came away with a point in the end thanks to Alexis Sanchez’s goal with 12 minutes left and will use this as justification for his methods and decisions. This is the problem at the Emirates, because Wenger doesn’t really answer to anyone and because the board aren’t that fussed about competing for and winning the game’s biggest trophies, no one at a senior level will castigate the manager for a truly awful performance. Arsenal only had two real shots on target the entire game, not much better than against Southampton, but nothing will change, the manager will keep on deploying the same old tactics and Arsenal will continue to be a team that is mediocre at best, happy to just be making up the numbers rather than being at the forefront of the game. At this early stage it threatens to be a very long season indeed.