Arsenal: 4 negatives from miserable Nottingham Forest defeat

While the mantra this season has been to try and avoid overreaction to setbacks on account of the average age of this squad and limited time this Arsenal team have played together, this can’t go unmentioned.

Arsenal were catastrophically bad on Sunday night as Lewis Grabban’s late goal handed Nottingham Forest a richly deserved 1-0 win. Arsenal got precisely what their performance warranted: nothing.

Suddenly there is a new bogey team in town.

Losing away at The City Ground in the FA Cup third round consigned Arsenal to only a second third round exit in 25 years. The other defeat in that time? Four years ago on this very ground as Arsene Wenger’s final FA Cup match finished 4-2 to Forest.

Arsenal: 4 negatives from miserable 1-0 Nottingham Forest defeat in the FA Cup third round as Arteta’s side crash out

Everything about the display from Mikel Arteta’s side was horrendous. Having gone from putting in their best showing in the narrow loss to Manchester City, they responded with one of their worst ever in his tenure against vastly inferior opposition.

How important was the FA Cup this season? It’s a tough trophy to win, but one everyone wants to win nevertheless. There is passage into the Europa League as a result of it, although the ultimate aim remains to top four.

Arsenal’s inadequacies included, it was one of the best third rounds for many years. There were upsets galore, high-scoring matches and some cracking goals.

That doesn’t help the disappointment. There were literally no positives to take from this game. None whatsoever. There were plenty of negatives, though.

1. Eddie Nketiah Looking Completely Uninterested

Not the worst player on the pitch, he might win the award for least effort.

To some degree, it’s acceptable having a player who just isn’t especially talented playing. Eddie Nketiah does have his fair share of talent, but he is a player who without the right application can’t harness that properly.

He looked completely uninterested on Sunday night and that filtered into his game. Nketiah was very poor.

Martin Odegaard was seen marshalling him to press his man when he was otherwise stood meandering around, and his concentration levels were not at their usual self as seen with the way he fluffed at a header and then ballooned another effort over the bar.

Likely in the midst of talks with a host of clubs over his future, while his agents may be taking care of it he will still be involved, and it’s very possible his head is already at his next club. Arteta giving everyone the hairdryer treatment at half-time probably had him sitting there thinking ‘I don’t need this’.

You want to be wrong on that. Nketiah has always been praised for his professionalism and desire, but you were scraping the bottom of the barrel for anything on Sunday.

If it was the result of him perhaps not fully recovering from his recent Covid case then we apologise. However, this looked more commitment based than anything else. At a stage where Arsenal are one Lacazette injury way from crisis, that is concerning.

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