3 positives & negatives from Arsenal’s defeat at the City Ground

Positive #2: Avoided capitulation

I’ll admit that I was a little concerned that after Forest scored the first goal, the players’ heads were going to drop and the result was going to become embarrassing. A defeat in a game of this magnitude is never acceptable, but, at the very least, the team pushed until the very end.

They lacked guile, and perhaps some belief, but at no point during the game did they simply give up. That was a minor positive, but a positive nonetheless.

Negative #2: Lack of imagination

In recent weeks, a lack of creativity in the final third has been a consistent issue, and as I mentioned, that was the case again in this match too.

Despite recording 82% possession in the game, our expect goals figure, according to The xG Philosophy, was just 0.66.  For a team that for a large portion of the game needed to score at least two goals, that is not good enough.

The system is an easy target for blame, and I do believe that it was part of the problem, but this has been an ongoing issue for some weeks now and needs resolving.

Continued on the next slide…