Mikel Arteta made a critical error during the second half of Arsenal’s Premier League clash with Bournemouth on Saturday afternoon, which ultimately cost the Gunners.
The North London outfit slumped to a 2-1 defeat at the Emirates, courtesy of goals from Junior Kroupi and Alex Scott, cancelling out Viktor Gyokeres’ equaliser. Kroupi gave Bournemouth the lead with a tap-in at the back post, before Alex Scott slotted beyond David Raya late on, with these goals coming either side of Gyokeres’ emphatic penalty.
The result leaves Arsenal nine points clear of Manchester City, although the Citizens now have two games in hand, and have an opportunity to close the gap to the Gunners when they take on Chelsea on Sunday.
Mikel Arteta’s substitution nightmare vs Bournemouth
With Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka out injured, and Eberechi Eze only just returning from injury, Arteta was limited with what he could do regarding his team selection in attacking areas.
Thus, he had little choice but to start Gabriel Martinelli and Noni Madueke on each flank, with Kai Havertz and Viktor Gyokeres inside of these two wide players. All four of these forwards aren’t high-touch players, and predictably, Arsenal struggled to control territory and retain the ball in the final third.
Arteta sought to rectify this issue early in the second half, although he made a mistake whilst attempting to do so. In the 54th minute, he brought all three of those operating behind Gyokeres off, introducing Max Dowman, Eberechi Eze and Leandro Trossard in their place.
The balance of the new front four was almost just as off as the initial front four. All of a sudden, there was significant onus on Gyokeres to provide the direct threat in behind Bournemouth’s backline, with the other three players all eager to receive the ball to feet.
Meanwhile, Dowman was called upon too soon. Introducing a 16-year-old in a tense environment like this, still with 35 minutes left to play, puts a lot of pressure on this youngster to deliver.
He was unable to exert influence for much of his time on the pitch, stuck out on the touchline, and he seemingly felt the weight of this pressure. In reality, Arteta should merely have used Dowman as a Hail Mary substitution later in the game.
What Mikel Arteta said about Arsenal’s performance vs Bournemouth
In retrospect, Arteta will probably recognise that he was overly reactionary with his substitutions, and that he got the configuration of Arsenal’s attack wrong throughout the game.
Speaking to the media after the game in N5, the Spaniard described his team’s performance as ‘extremely disappointing’.
“It’s extremely disappointing; it’s a big punch in the face, but what I said to the boys, now it’s about how we react to that, because it’s game on, it’s going to require now a big spirit, a lot of fight and very clear how we’re going to approach that,” he said.
“There are no grey areas; we are in, we are out, and we need to be very, very, very strong and determined to approach it in a different way than we’ve done today, especially when the game wasn’t going our way.
Asked if he was worried his team won’t react, he responded: “No, because I’ve seen them before in many scenarios and I’ve seen them for nine months.
“But today there were some very basic things that we did extremely badly against a team that, when you do that, they’re going to capitalise, stretch the pitch, and the game becomes very chaotic and very difficult to control.
“So it’s a lot of good things that they’ve done, obviously, and credit to them. But I think there’s a lot, a lot, a lot on our plate to look at ourselves.”
