Arsenal settled for yet another draw, this time in the Champions League group stage game against PSG at the Emirates. The home side were far from their best in the game but for the second game running, they managed to get a point from a game they should have lost. There is a clear presence of resilience in the Gunners team of this season but they would need to regain their form and momentum of the previous months quickly if they are serious about maintaining their challenge for silverware.
In a game which was fiercely contested, there were a few talking points and let’s take a look at those which surfaced after the game.
Penalty Decisions
There were quite a few occasions in the game when the referee was called on action to judge a foul inside the penalty box and he did award a penalty to Arsenal at the end of the first half. The first incident had Aaron Ramsey go down inside the area with Thiago Silva on his shoulders which was not adjudged to be a foul but the one which was given minutes later when Alexis Sanchez fell to the ground with Krychowiak sliding in, but there was no contact with the Chilean.
It was a penalty which was earned with simulation and in the second half Edinson Cavani tried to do the same when he went down and replays showed that Laurent Koscielny never did touch him inside the box. We can really blame it on the referees but when established players like Sanchez and Cavani do such things it really becomes very tough to determine if a player is actually being fouled or is trying to earn a penalty with cheating.
Mustafi Getting Exposed Again
It seemed that the Gunners were able to fix the problems at the back when they signed Mustafi in the summer but in the last few games, there were worrying signs of the defender getting exposed with his lack of pace. Last night Blaise Matuidi went past him with a quick change of pace, a bit too easily, just like Heung-min Son of Tottenham did in the derby.
Against a real lack of acceleration, the German defender struggles to cover the lost ground when turned by an agile attacker and it is a real concern for the manager Arsene Wenger. Bought as the replacement of Per Mertesacker, who suffered from his lack of pace, it is not a good sign that the former Valencia defender is also suffering in the kind of situations with the same problems for which he was supposed to provide the solution.
Cover Needed At Right Back
As I have written in one of my previous articles, Carl Jenkinson is not a player who is fit to play at the level required at Arsenal. The fullback was very poor again, especially with his crossing which seemed to waste opportunities to make an impression in the attack for the team.
Defensively he couldn’t win a single tackle and looked always like a player likely to make a mistake. The Englishman is just too big a degradation for his team in the absence of Hector Bellerin and needs to be sold immediately to whoever wants him at the very first chance Wenger gets. Jenkinson is really a player for the Championship, not the Premier league.
