Crystal Palace (1.40) 3 - 0 (1.05) Arsenal
Well... that could have gone better. Yesterday's match was the first time in a long time where I felt that familiar doom and gloom feeling that was commonplace prior to this season. The result on any day will have you in the dumps, but the news we received after the match was the most damning - confirmed this morning, Kieran Tierney done for the season. On the positive note, Partey will be assessed ahead of Brighton this Saturday, which leads me to believe his thigh issue is not as worrisome as it first looked.
Glad I elected to not type this up last night after a few beers. It was going to very emotional and probably a lot of hot takes, but hopefully cooler heads do indeed prevail. It is hard to not start with Nuno Tavares; he stepped in for KT and well let's just say he didn't do too much to calm the nerves of millions of Arsenal fans who are dreaming of a return to the Champions League. Yanked off at the half, which later Arteta explained to be down to tactical purposes, he looked completely off of it. That is twice now where the manager has pulled him early - see Forest in the FA cup for the first encounter, I believe he only made it 35 minutes. Xhaka was the man to take the job in the second and while we looked a lot better I don't think this can be the solution going forward.
Let's be honest, Palace deserved that first half lead. They started bright, Selhurst was rocking, and we looked lost. We had two good opportunities in the second half via way of ESR and Ødegaard, but just wasn't meant to be. I thought the pen on Zaha was soft, he was always looking for it and went down pretty easy. Of course VAR took 0.005s to check it while Saka on the other end is getting bowled over, but I digress. It is easy to feel like the season was up last night I am not gonna lie. Still kinda feels that way right now however much I know it to not be true. I am kinda scratching my head as to where we go from here and I will be an anxious man come Saturday when lineups come out.
I have tried working out what we could do and honestly without Tomiyasu until Chelsea I just do not know what to expect. We can't drop Saka to LB/LWB, he is far too valuable going forward and with how Laca is scoring he is basically one of the few goal threats we have. You can't move Xhaka there, especially if Partey will miss out Saturday. Ben White to RB and Cedric to LB? Back 5 to cover for Nuno at LWB? I truly have no clue. All I do know is I don't think in a back 4 Nuno is going to be ready. I am not slating the kid, it is just a fact it seems. I hope he can bounce back from this, but being clear off the pace against Prem and Championship opposition it just doesn't bode well.
I am ok with the result in terms of I am not panicking because we lost. We were never going to win every game in the run in, but like most, the fear comes from where do we go from here from a personnel perspective? It is a question we may have a little more clarity on come Saturday. It's not completely up yet, but Spurs are looking solid as much as I hate to admit and they do have a better run in. Luckily for us we still control our own destiny. A game in hand, we play them in May, and they still have to travel to Anfield. It's normal to panic a little, but this team has shown grit and generally have responded after bumps in the road.
No time to give up on this lot yet. We go again Saturday and they'll need us behind them till the end of the campaign. Until then, come on you Gunners!
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