“I hate to be critical of Arsenal, but I will be critical of him for his foolish behaviour in the 68th minute of yesterday’s match against Newcastle.” Following a shameful performance against Newcastle on Saturday afternoon, Ian Wright, a legend of the Arsenal team, calls one of the team’s players to put him on the cross.
Following Arsenal’s 1-0 loss against Newcastle, Ian Wright, a veteran of the team, criticised Mikel Merino, claiming the Spaniard “wasn’t tight enough in and around the midfield.”
In the fourteenth minute, Newcastle attacker Alexander Isak thundered a header past David Raya, and the Gunners were unable to respond in yet another lacklustre away performance.
The visitors, who finished second in the Premier League the previous season, were lucky that title rivals Manchester City lost to Bournemouth later in the day for the first time in thirty-three games.
Arsenal has obviously been lacking a creative outlet in the middle of the park since Martin Odegaard’s injury, and Mikel Arteta will be itching for his captain to return healthy and available for the London derby against Chelsea the following weekend.
After failing to make an impression in the final third, Merino, Arsenal’s £32 million summer acquisition from Real Sociedad, was substituted by academy product Ethan Nwaneri with 30 minutes left at St. James’ Park.
Former Arsenal striker Wright gave a Premier League Productions analysis of the game, stating that it appeared Merino was “still getting up to speed” with the demands of English football.
“Hey, Odegaard hasn’t been around for a while.” We discuss our management. Wright stated, “We haven’t seen a lot of Fabio Vieira, who was a player who was supposed to be in the same mould.”
Emile Smith Rowe is doing well for himself now that he has moved on and moved to Fulham.
We have witnessed the young player Ethan Nwaneri come on, and he is under a lot of pressure to play for a club that is vying for the championship.
“You just feel that we shouldn’t be playing and being as tepid as we are, not creating enough, not putting them under enough pressure, at this point in the season, ten games in.”
Merino wasn’t tight enough in and around the middle, in my opinion. I believe he is still catching up.
Wright says that supporters of Arsenal cannot continue to blame Odegaard’s absence for the team’s poor play in recent weeks.
“We only know how difficult it is to try and chase down Manchester City, so it is really frustrating to be ten games in and feeling like we do now,” he continued.
“One shot on target today, one shot on target against Bournemouth.” It is insufficient. For a squad vying for the championship, it is insufficient.
That dressing room has a lot of work to be done. We cannot continue to claim that Martin Odegaard is missed. We know we’re missing it, so we can’t keep saying it.
“We can talk about that all day long,” Arteta told reporters during his post-match press conference, echoing Wright’s remarks regarding Odegaard.
Right now, we haven’t had him yet; in fact, we haven’t had him for the past six weeks.
However, we have numerous more options that could work wonders.
“We must examine ourselves today, congratulate Newcastle, and move on.”
