The Arsenal substitution that might explain their crumbling title bid | OneFootball

Mikel Arteta waited 84 minutes to make a substitution in this damaging draw with Aston Villa, and when he finally broke glass, his only tool was a blunt Raheem Sterling. For all Sterling’s known talents, he is a 30-year-old winger of fading impact and it was enough to wonder whether the player he was replacing, an utterly shattered Gabriel Martinelli, might still have been the better option as the minutes ticked away.

Arsenal’s lack of depth right now doesn’t entirely explain how they contrived to draw this game 2-2, having led 2-0 after an hour, as mighty chunks of their title bid crumbled away. Aston Villa deserve plenty of credit. But it was conspicuous that where Arteta made only one substitution, just minutes before kick-off here, Liverpool had snatched victory at Brentford thanks to a £60m substitute, Darwin Nunez, one of five luxury second-half changes by Arne Slot.

Football in the five-subs era is now a new game of two halves: the first hour, in which the first XIs play; and the final 30 minutes plus added time when half of the outfield players change, when tactics shift and identities morph and games are won and lost. Arsenal have lost 12 points from winning positions this season, more than in any of the previous four seasons under Arteta. Right now they are unable to muscle the result away from their opponent, unable to bend the game’s narrative arc in their favour in the way Liverpool did at Brentford, and again in midweek when Diogo Jota came off the bench to sink Nottingham Forest.

open image in gallery

Ollie Watkins scored Villa’s second-half equaliser (Getty Images)

open image in gallery

Arsenal’s Leandro Trossard reacts during the Premier League match (Zac Goodwin/PA)

Arteta can justifiably blame key injuries to Ben White, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus, as well as knocks to winger Ethan Nwaneri and left-back Riccardo Calafiori. Yet that should not be enough to leave a title-chasing squad so thin in a key Premier League game, and seemingly unable to cope with the rigours of a title race. Certainly they seem unable to cope without William Saliba, injured here and missing for only the second time all season.

Villa scored two goals from the centre of the penalty box in distinctly Saliba-ish spheres of influence. At least Youri Tielemans was made to sprint for the first goal before launching into a headed finish; Ollie Watkins just loitered silently for the second before volleying home unopposed. Saliba’s only other absence was the visit of Liverpool in October, when Virgil van Dijk headed in from two yards and Mohamed Salah slotted from eight. Here Villa found Arsenal’s defence just as accommodating, with Jurrien Timber caught out of position and Gabriel stranded without his regular partner.

And so for the second season in a row, two second-half goals by Villa at the Emirates have punctured Arsenal’s title credentials. They are still only six points behind leaders Liverpool, but they have played a game more, and the electric surge of Wednesday’s north London derby win has already fizzled away.

open image in gallery

Gabriel Martinelli scored Arsenal’s opening goal (Getty Images)

After the full-time whistle, Arteta shared a curt handshake with Unai Emery, with whom he had bickered during a feisty game (both were booked), and then marched on to the pitch towards the referee, but there were no more remonstrations. This was a victory taken away fairly and squarely, notably when VAR intervened in the dying minutes after Kai Havertz appeared to have scored the winner. Replays showed the ball strike his hand as he diverted Declan Rice’s shot home, and the goal was chalked off.

Arsenal’s players trudged down the tunnel one by one with shoulders slumped, as if they didn’t know quite how that had happened. Despite what Villa did here last season, the form guide suggested this would be an Arsenal victory. They came into the game with the best home record of any side in the Premier League, while Villa were on a run of five away defeats.

And if Arsenal were deflated by the news just before kick-off of Nunez’s late goals to save Liverpool, they didn’t show it, going straight for Villa’s throat, which in this case was their crossbar attacked through the medium of vicious in-swinging corners. Gabriel and Martinelli both went close with back-post headers in the early moments.

In the first half Villa carried only some counter-attacking threat through quick passes to an impossibly isolated Ollie Watkins, who tried gamely to fashion a shot on target while surrounded by Arsenal shirts, like those segments on Planet Earth when a young wildebeest is shepherded away from the rest of the herd by a pack of hunting dogs. Inevitably he ended up U-turning towards the safety of his teammates.

Arsenal’s first-half pressure finally brought reward when Leandro Trossard made an under-lapping surge into the box on the left side, before shifting the ball on to his left foot and swinging in a cross in one quick motion. Martinelli pounced in front of a stationary Ian Maatsen at the far post before poking the ball on target and despite Martinez’s best efforts to claw it off the line, the referee’s watch buzzed to signal Arsenal’s opening goal.

After the break, another slick Arsenal move was finished off this time by Havertz, anticipating another left-footed Trossard cross and calmly volleying towards Martinez, who again managed little more than to accompany the ball on its way over the goal line.

open image in gallery

Youri Teilemans celebrates after scoring Villa’s first goal (Getty Images)

open image in gallery

Watkins turns to celebrate after scoring Villa’s second goal (Getty Images)

Most teams would have folded there and then, 2-0 down at the toughest ground in the Premier League this season, with only half an hour to go. But unlike Arsenal, Villa were able to call upon game-changers from the bench like left-back Lucas Digne, and they sparked to life. Tielemans made a brilliant hail-mary sprint from deep to get on the end of Digne’s arcing cross from the left wing, meeting the ball with a precise low header past David Raya.

Tielemans almost levelled the game a few minutes later when he fired a low shot off the post, as the Emirates’ mood started to teeter, and then it came: Cash hacked out a cross from the right side which floated over the melee to an unmarked Watkins, and the striker’s first-time volley seemed to catch Raya off guard as it bounced in off the bar.

Arsenal kept going but they were running out of ideas, at which point: send for Sterling. He added lively jinking runs which lacked a telling pass or cross at the end of them. As the last minutes ticked away, Rice’s shot deflected into the net apparently off Havertz’s mid-riff and the Emirates briefly went berserk, but Havertz could be seen muttering behind his hand in the celebrations, the international signal of footballing guilt, and it was immediately obvious on replay that VAR would intervene for handball.

In the final seconds an exhausted Trossard ran through one-on-one and slid the ball wide of the far post, though he may have been offside anyway. He bent over on his haunches, head in his hands, beaten and bereft. It was the 97th minute and Trossard had given everything. And perhaps in hindsight that was part of the problem.