Gooner rant at the Sunderland performance

Coming off the back of a 4-0 defeat to AC Milan, Arsenal had a tough FA Cup trip to the Stadium of Light where they would face a rejuvenated Sunderland side under Martin O’Neill. It wouldn’t be easy, especially seeing as the manner in which Arsenal were completely outclassed at the San Siro, bundled along with absentees in Per Mertesacker, Laurent Koscielny and Thierry Henry from the previous week’s 2-1 win against Sunderland in the league.

This game was season defining – struggling to maintain a 4th position place, losing to Manchester City in the Carling Cup at home, virtually out of the Champions League…the FA Cup was our one chance of redeeming ourselves and ending the 7 year wait without a trophy. Lose here and our annual “February collapse” starts in full swing as it has in the past few seasons. How did we do?

Demoralized as they should be.

In one word, the performance was dreadful. After so called reports of Wenger “going crazy” at the players after their defeat to Milan and words of inspiration from various Arsenal players hoping to give the fans something back, you’d expect a good performance, wouldn’t you? Arsenal lost 2-0 to Sunderland, courtesy of goals from Kieran Richardson (which deflected off Squillaci) and an Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain own goal.

We may have had 55% possession, but we simply did NOTHING with it. We simply kept the ball, aimlessly passing it instead of initiating a move going forward. Maybe I’m being harsh given how well Sunderland played but at times, we couldn’t even keep possession! Sunderland did a fantastic job pressing us when we had the ball, forcing errors and causing us to lose possession many times – each Sunderland player gave a 100%. Don’t think I can say the same about the Arsenal team.

Whenever Sunderland had possession, we simply allowed them to initiate attacks, we didn’t even press them with the same magnitude as Sunderland did! Not only did we play badly but it was one boring game which frustrated me even more! Whenever we retained possession, we just simply couldn’t unlock their defense – this is where we are clearly missing Fabregas. A midfield of Song, Rosicky, Arteta and Ramsey are brilliant at ball retention but unlocking defenses? Not at all. van Persie and Theo Walcott (who played as a striker in the latter half of the game) barely got a sniff of the ball due to this.

I wasn’t even this angry after our 8-2 loss to United (given our absentees) or our 4-0 loss to Milan (due to their class) but against a Sunderland team, I surely expected more effort and commitment especially in a competition which held our only hope for a trophy this season.

Also, why not give Arshavin or Benayoun a run in the team? Players like Ramsey (who especially has played so many games after a career threatening injury) and Song are clearly overworked and their form is dipping due to fatigue. Arteta and Vermaelen have scarily been average the last few games as well – the team has clearly let Wenger down.

For now, our season is over – trophywise. All us Arsenal fans can do is just keep supporting the team, hoping they clinch 4th place and maybe a miracle against Milan at the Emirates Stadium. Maybe if we get an early goal and Milan somehow get a man or two sent off, we’re in with a shout, but let’s be realistic. I’m sure Wenger knows what changes must be made and has mentioned that players will now be playing for their future – there definitely will be a squad clear-out and I for one, am quite excited about it, along with seeing new faces at the Emirates Stadium. Until next season.