Bournemouth - on the bus. Unfair treatment

Arsenal starts the new year with another important win.

The starting XI saw two new faces, with Martinelli and Madueke both coming in. It’s exactly the kind of healthy rotation you need if you’re going to navigate a grueling Premier League campaign successfully. Declan Rice also returned to the fold, despite that lingering knee issue. Personally, I’m not a fan of taking those kinds of risks with the Liverpool game looming next week, but then again, Merino is proven to be the wrong midfield profile for a side as dynamic as Bournemouth. With Arteta seemingly losing faith in Norgaard, Rice’s inclusion wasn’t a total shock. If the Norgaard snub continues, we’ll surely have to dip into the January market to fish for someone the manager actually can trust.

We started brightly enough, but that early optimism was soon extinguished by a calamitous error from Gabriel. He essentially handed the ball to Evanilson on a silver platter, and with Raya caught out of position while trying to offer a passing lane, it was a recipe for disaster. It’s one of the most certain ways to gift an opponent a goal.

Five minutes later, Madueke sparked a response, driving into the box and dancing past a couple of defenders. After two blocked efforts, Gabriel redeemed himself with an equalizer. It was an admirable reaction to his earlier blunder, but the fallout left me feeling there’s a bit of a double standard at play. Arteta was quick to heap praise on Gabriel for his mental toughness, and the “online scouts” were happy to follow suit.

Contrast that with Arteta’s recent comments regarding Eze:

With Ebs, we’ve had some great moments during his first few months, but there are other areas where we need to see improvement. We are on that journey.

It felt like a very public call-out. If you look at the minutes, the turning point was clearly that Aston Villa game and Cash’s goal.

Eze minutes in the last 8 games - FotMob

Before that, he’d featured in all Arsenal matches. Since then? Zero minutes in the last four Premier League outings. What’s baffling is that while Gabriel gets praised for “responding” to a mistake, Eze wasn’t even given the chance to put things right, having been hauled off at half-time. Besides, Eze’s error wasn’t nearly as terminal as Gabriel’s—Cash still had a lot to do to score from there, and you’d back our keeper to stop him four times out of five.

And we’re not talking about a raw prospect who needs to “learn the ropes.” In his short Arsenal career, Eze has already bagged a North London Derby hat-trick, a winner against Palace, and a vital assist for that late leveler against City. He’s proven he has a massive upside. Yet, for some reason, “Ebz” is currently grounded, and there’s no telling when he’ll be back in favor.

Eze seems to be following the Nwaneri blueprint, just on a senior scale. Ethan is another explosive talent with an eye for goal, but he’s been completely frozen out because his defensive work isn’t “at the required level.” Now, Ethan can’t even make the bench (not that it helped him before to get minutes). It sends a worrying message to the youngsters: how can Nwaneri expect to develop at Arsenal when even the senior second-choice in his position can’t get a look-in? He’s basically waiting for an injury crisis at this point. We had Odegaard out for two months—if Ethan wasn’t used then, when will he be?

I know some will argue Eze’s absence is just down to Odegaard’s return, but that doesn’t hold water. Lately, whenever the captain needs a breather, Arteta turns to Merino. Why? Because the Spaniard offers more defensive cover.

Arteta had three “number 10s” in the squad but opted for players who are better drilled out of possession. You can’t get a better proof that we’re being led by a “defense-first” coach. We all remember that overly cautious setup in the home draw against City earlier this season. Most of us hoped Arteta had learned from that, but here he is at it again, reverting to a “3 DM” midfield.

I saw a comment the other day suggesting Arteta has turned Gyokeres into the most attacking defender in this team, and it’s hard to disagree. Yes, we’re top of the table, so the results are shielding the strategy for now. But we’re winning almost everything by a single goal. I’m not sure how sustainable it is to keep hanging onto these narrow leads, or how long we can keep running Odegaard into the ground while Merino remains the only possible alternative.

Attacking discourse

Let’s get back to our first goal. The main architect behind it was Madueke, who was absolutely brilliant right up until the point he had to pull the trigger. Just minutes earlier, he’d surged into the box only to see his effort fly high and wide. It’s honestly baffling; he excels at the hard part—beating defenders in tight spaces and carving out a clear sight of goal—yet fluffs his lines when it comes to the supposedly simpler task of actually hitting the target.

Don’t get me wrong, having that kind of directness is a massive asset, but the side needs to be balanced to suit him. He needs to be surrounded with clinical finishers who can turn those line-breaking runs into goals. Trossard or even Merino as a false nine are the names that immediately spring to mind.

The online chatter calling Madueke a “proper baller” reminds me a lot of the Ozil era. It’s that same obsession with technical flair while overlooking the lack of a complete game. I’m an Arsenal fan and I want to see us winning matches and lifting trophies. To do that, you need goals and the right application. What’s the use of a genius pass from Ozil every now and then if he’s playing in the first gear in half of the games?

Despite the finishing, Madueke’s first-half display was decent. The same can’t be said for Martinelli. I’m not sure what’s happened since those strong cameos against Palace and Brighton, but Martinelli managed to make Gyokeres look like prime Lewandowski today. It was Martinelli who twice killed the momentum of promising counters the two of them led in the first half.

On the whole, our attacking play was a bit disjointed. We registered just 0.5 xG in the first half, with nearly all of that coming from the three shots that led to the goal. Declan Rice clearly wasn’t at 100%—looked more like 80% to me. But I forgot that even a Rice at 80% is still an £80 million player (and our record signing) and he stepped up exactly when it mattered.

Gyokeres dragged four Bournemouth defenders away with one of his trademark sprints, and when they failed to clear their lines properly, the space opened up for Rice to sweep it home from the edge of the box in clinical fashion. Fifteen minutes later, Saka came on for Madueke and instantly showed the gulf between a “baller” and a truly efficient operator, setting up Rice for his brace with a pinpoint assist.

Rice and Trossard are the only two who seem to have that knack for keeping their cool in the big moments. It’s not about set pieces, reflexes or tap-ins; it’s that ability to understand the weight of the chance before taking the shot and still deliver the decisive blow. We need more players with that composure—players who evoke memories of a certain French striker with a statue outside our ground.

Bournemouth pulled one back with a cracking strike to keep things tense. Gabriel Jesus came on for his usual thirty-minute cameo but failed to make any real impact. It’s a recurring theme; when the pressure is on and we need a goal to kill the game, Jesus is often nowhere to be found. During one late counter-attack, he was the fourth or fifth man to join the break. He’s essentially another creative midfielder roaming around the pitch, and frankly, we have plenty of those. What we lack are players who can constantly pin center-backs back and create openings for themselves.

I honestly don’t understand the fans who get hyped every time Jesus returns from injury. He’s let us down so many times; why set yourself up for more disappointment? It’s time to face facts: Jesus is our Jorginho at number nine—a high-quality player who can do a job in case of an emergency, but not more than that. And the picture below is another confirmation of this:

A final word on Hincapie. It’s becoming increasingly evident that he’s the weak link in our backline when it comes to ball progression under a heavy press. Against Villa, Arteta put down the fire by pushing him higher up the pitch and dropped Zubimendi into a back three during the build-up (more in the Arseblog article), which worked a treat. But for a player tasked with operating closer to the final third, his end product is sorely lacking. We splashed £50 million on a defender—and let’s be honest, the defender market is far more reasonable than the striker one, where a single decent season sees price tags rocket to £80 million-plus—so it’s only right that the expectations match the fee.

The big revenge

Up next, it’s Liverpool at the Emirates. Thankfully, the fixture isn’t until Thursday, giving the lads nearly a full week to recover. Given Liverpool’s current run of form, this is a categorical “must-win,” especially after that daylight robbery we suffered at Anfield back in August.

I’d expect Arteta to make “revenge” the focal point of the pre-match talk, and rightly so. The big question is whether there’s enough left in the tank for another high-octane encounter. The Villa game took its toll, as did the Bournemouth clash yesterday. Can they really find the mental focus required for a third massive shift in such a short space of time?

Good news is - Saka and Trossard should be back in the XI after a well-earned rest. Personally, I’d like to see them complemented by Eze and Merino upfront. Merino’s hold-up play is streets ahead of our other forward options, and Eze is exactly the kind of threat you want against a side that doesn’t just park the bus. But let’s be real—Arteta isn’t likely to pitch him in for a game of this magnitude. That said, Odegaard is finding his groove again and should be more than capable of providing the creative spark on Thursday.

We’ve made a habit of dispatching top-quality opposition at home lately, and Thursday night under the lights should be no different!