Things have been worse

I wanted to be reminded how bad things could get in football. So, I went and rewatched the 8-2 loss to Man U. It’s available for viewing on Footballia if you’re interested in sharing the misery.

The lineups aren’t spectacular for either team.

Rooney was one of the best forwards in England, yes, but Welbeck was in front of him and he was incredibly raw. In fact, “raw” is the best adjective to describe both teams’ lineups. It’s incredible that these two managers fielded these two teams.

Smalling had played just 33 times for United and 55 professional matches total. That match was one of Phil Jones’ first ever Manchester United matches and he’d played just 1.5 seasons for Blackburn before that game. That was also de Gea’s first season at United, Anderson was never more than a bit part player at that club, and Cleverley was a noob.

But if United was raw, Arsenal were somehow even rawer. Coquelin had been on loan to Lorient and watching him with the ball in that match was actually sad. He had no business being in Arsenal’s midfield that day. In the first 40 minutes of that game, Jenkinson made just 46% of his passes. Not a surprise since he’d played 13 professional matches before that day.

And some of the players just weren’t up to the required level. That would be Armand Traore’s only Premier League match for Arsenal that season.

What happened, however, was a bit weird. United weren’t exactly certain of themselves and it took about 15 minutes or so before they figured out that Arsenal weren’t the kind of passing team that they used to be. Then they pressed, forced turnovers, and got chances.

United went up 1-0 off what we would now call “a very Welbeck” goal. Anderson chipped a little ball in, Welbeck bodied Djourou, and Koscielny didn’t quite get a head on the ball, so Welbs just kind of bounced the ball into the back of the net like a salmon climbing a fish ladder. He would pull up injured a few minutes later.

Arsenal got a chance right away after that. Evans hauled down Walcott in the box and up stepped Robin van Persie to face rookie keeper, de Gea. RvP took one of the weakest penalties I’ve ever seen and de Gea easily saved. Man U countered off the corner but it wasn’t like they opened Arsenal up. It took fully 2 minutes for Young to sweep in the second goal, a shot from basically outside the box, curled neatly into the upper right corner.

Preceding the 2nd goal, however, Arsenal were infighting. Walcott yelling at Jenkinson, Jenkinson yelling at Walcott, Szczesny yelling at the entire defense. Arsenal were in utter disarray.

It’s a funny thing. Arsenal created plenty of chances in this game, 20 shots. And when I plugged the data into my xG formula, it was 3.65 for Man U to 2.63 for Arsenal (including penalties). Man U only created 5 big chances, Arsenal 4. Man U only created 25 shots, Arsenal 20. Man U scored 3 goals from outside the 18 yard box. Statistically speaking this was an extremely unlikely scoreline.

I don’t know why I went back to look at this match from 8 years ago. Curiosity, I guess. I wanted to see how bad things could be. I wanted to be reminded of just how low Arsenal could go. I’m not saying that things are great at Arsenal right now but man, they could be so much worse.

For those who want to peek at the stats, they are still available here and on the Stats Zone app.

https://www.whoscored.com/Matches/505502/Live/England-Premier-League-2011-2012-Manchester-United-Arsenal

One final thing: Wenger went out and got Arteta that season, along with Mertesacker, Benayoun, Santos, Gervinho, Ox, Park, Jenkinson, and Joel Campbell. Yet, Arsenal didn’t really spend any money and made a net profit on transfers that season. And incredibly, Arsenal finished 3rd in the League, one point above Tottenham and above former Arsenal player, Adebayor.

Qq

63 comments

  1. Painful memories, Tim, but not as painful as the 6:0 fiasco at the Bridge in Arsene’s 1000 game in charge.
    As a matter of fact I think that one was featured on Discovery channel’s at number four in “10 worst ever bridge collapses “.
    Maybe because it was to a Mourinho lead team, or maybe because outside of Jenkinson Arsenal squad was full of quality that day.
    Or maybe because Arsene’s game plan was suicide- like to honor his attacking style against the safety first Mourinho’s.

    I still remember Gibbs, a left back, chasing loose ball deep into Chelsea’s opposite corner flag in the opening minutes.
    That’s our left back playing right winger. Truly total football Cruyff would’ve been proud of.

    1. You’re giving me nightmares Tom 🙂

      My second worst was the tonking at Anfield under Rodgers when Suares tore us a new hoop and we were 4-0 down in 30 minutes. What hurt most is we were on quite good form and usually held our own against ‘Pool. Plus it was a Rodgers masterclass and let’s be honest, there’s something terribly smug yet unaware a out him.

      But I’m fully with you on the Bridge Massacre. Arsene’s 1,000 game and his arch nemesis. Until JM arrived our record vs Chelski was great but this beatdown was the day I wanted Arsene to be set free at the end of the season so that neither he, his team and the fans would have to experience that again.

      1. Matt,
        Giving you nightmares?
        I went to London twice that season to see Arsenal play.
        Witnessing the Chelsea game in person kinda made me forget who I saw Arsenal play and beat at home earlier that season. Talk about being traumatized 🙂

        1. Tom, that’s horrific. I’m sorry that game had to be one of your in-person Arsenal experiences. I remember it well, unfortunately. I was definitely up for it and felt like we had a chance (when do I not!). Afterwards the feeling I had was one of emptiness, that the football gods are dead and the good guys will never win in this sport. How could the universe allow Wenger to be humiliated on his milestone day by his arch-nemesis? It didn’t seem fair. I still don’t understand it.

    2. The 4- 4 draw at Newcastle after leading 4 -nil, was an awful, dispiriting game of football. The 8-2 was the worst I felt as an Arsenal fan. But the Newcastle game and my 3rd most painful memory, the 2006 Champions League final were games that turned on refereeing injustices, and were hard to get over.

      1. That game was full of mitigating circumstances ,so for me it didn’t register that high on the list of Arsenal biggest disappointments.

        Red card and two soft pens Arsenal would never, not in a million years ,get awarded themselves.
        That and a super strike from Tiote worthy of any draw, however disappointing the final result.

        1. The worst I’ve felt as an Arsenal fan was the Obafemi Martins Carling Cup Final. I don’t think I’ve had such a visceral reaction to an event on television before or since.

          1. We wanted that trophy that had long eluded us really badly. For us, for Arsene, and to bury a tedious media talking point. Yes, that stung too.

  2. For me the worst of Wenger were the hidings we took. Some terrible beat downs from Liverpool and Bayern would make a real video nasty.

    On the flip side, until his final two seasons you always knew Arsene could steady the ship and restore confidence. With Emmers we’ll never experience the dreadful lows nor the exhilarating highs. Just lots of meh and why bother.

    1. Oh, you just wait. I bet we get a real blow out under Emery soon. The way the players are infighting and outfighting it won’t be long before we see them just give up on the pitch. Man City next month maybe.

  3. Three things I remember very clearly from that game…

    *Everything they hit seemed to go in, and Young’s long-range curler was a beauty

    *Ferguson wanted the punishment to stop. The CW in sport is that you keep your boot on the opponent’s neck, but the game was so exquisitely humiliating for Wenger, that even Fergie was taking little joy in the slaughter. Wenger looked old, beaten, and done. I’ll never know how he managed a few more years, and a few more trophies. Fergie noticeably softened towards Arsene after that, in part too because he no longer represented a title threat. But it seems that he’d honestly have settled for a less severe beating of the old enemy.

    *Arsenal had had next to no transfer activity that summer, and this game occurred very late in the window. We will never know if Wenger would have brought in all or any of those players if Arsenal hadn’t been humiliated and if fan anger hadn’t been directed at Wenger in the way that it had, but I wouldn’t have bet against few or no reinforcements. Wenger is guy after all who signed ONLY Chelsea’s aging castoff goalkeeper in a summer transfer window, when it was clear that the team had a lot of gaps to fill (he signed Elneny the following January).

    Here was a guy who boasted of giving transfer money back to the board, a reckless thing to do when the squad needed improving. It was the first major sign of Wenger’s increasing hubris coming back tot bite him in the rear. He never did fully grasp the lessons of 8-2, but he stayed around long enough to win the FACup again.

    1. We were in touch with the players for some time before the 8-2. With the exception of Arteta. I think the holdup was the confirmation of CL football. We secured that against Udinese 4 days before (from a Szczesny penalty save).

      That summer of Cech was a huge mistake, and that is what ultimately ended his Arsenal career. It seems to me that when we didn’t win the title that season, the players lost belief that they could do it under Wenger.

  4. Trying to play expensive football with a squad often times built on a budget was a Wenger thing,
    Playing conservative, safety first football with a squad full of quality players often against lower opposition is an Emery thing.

    Unless teams convert a lot of low percentage shots Arsenal seem to afford anyone these days, the chances of a blow out loss are smaller now than they ever were under Wenger.

    1. Love the logic, however.. Emery lost 6-1 to Barcelona when he was in charge of PSG and 7-3 to Real Madrid in his last season at Sevilla. What I tried to say in this article – which I apparently didn’t do well – is that these kinds of heavy losses are usually very unusual. Normally, 8 goals takes something like 80 shots. I suppose if a team created 10-15 big chances you could see 8 goals on something like 35-40 shots.

      So, the 7-3 loss by Emery Real Mad only took 18 shots and the 6-1 only had 20 shots and Chelsea beat Arsenal 6-0 with just 21 shots. Those blowouts are more about penalties, errors, own goals, and red cards. All of those things are about losing discipline.

      Given the error-prone history and current incredible indiscipline, this squad right now is ripe for a huge blowout.

      1. That’s an interesting and very logical take on blowouts in football matches. It’s a bit strange, isn’t it, that in some games the ball just wants to find the net and in others it just won’t go in. That one was a game where it felt like if anyone aimed at the net, they would score. It would be like if a team shot 60% from 3 in the NBA. It doesn’t seem like chance is enough to explain these events that statistically make no sense. There must be something human, something emotional that makes players feel invincible in these types of games and gives them that extra surety and calm to make plays with a frequency that would otherwise elude them.

  5. Don’t feel anything under Wenger has been worse.
    8-2 was a hiding. But was also an anomaly.
    Arsenal did finish 3rd in 2011.

    This? Isn’t getting better until Emery leaves (and could be some time afterward). The reason it won’t get better? Is Emery refuses to play his best players together, and consistently. There is nothing– literally– which points to an overall improvement on the horizon. (Oooh– a seeming run of games against ‘easy opponents’! Go ahead. Enjoy the fools gold– if Emery even manages to pan it.)

    Arsenal is being burned-down. To within an inch of the ground. A controlled burn.

  6. I think that was the season van Persie put us on his back, unexpectedly, and became a complete forward on his way to the golden boot and 30 league goals. Even more shockingly, he stayed 100% healthy that whole season. I think we also signed Henry on loan from Red Bologna and started them in a 4-4-2 in some games.

    I know it’s fashionable to hate him for leaving us for Manchester United but he was one of my favorite players to watch and in that particular season, he practically single-handedly dragged us into the CL places with his goals. We might’ve finished 3rd that year but we might as well have been a million miles from winning the PL trophy: 19 points off the pace and were never going to spend enough to get close. So, in a vacuum, you can understand RVP’s desire to play in more meaningful games. I also didn’t have such a negative view of his farewell letter as many people did. But it did suck majorly to watch our best player head over to such an already strong rival.

    So if we are looking for positives, the financial growth of the club is one. I think part of what made that 8-2 result seem so cataclysmic is because the team Arsenal trotted out there were so painfully not ready to compete. Today, we still have a raw team but at least it’s talent we can all get excited about. Unlike Jenkinson, Traore and Coquelin at the time, we can look at Tierney, Saka and Willock and see real potential. We have spent, spent spent and that has just about kept us in the sub-elite stratum of English and European football even with the team currently less than the sum of its parts. So yea, things could be a lot worse.

    1. My view of the Van Persie thing is that he had the unwavering support of the club, the manager and the fans for years as we all looked forward to the time when his obvious skill wouldn’t be so consistently, and so detrimentally to the team, lost through fairly constant injury issues.

      For a long time, we were the ones carrying him.

      And then, as soon as he had the one injury free break out season we’d all waited years for, he decided the club was too small for him, he was tired of carrying us. and he went off to join our biggest rivals and scored the goals that won them the league.

    2. van Persie was absolutely my favorite forward to watch when he was healthy back then. He was stylish and fun to watch on the pitch, and as you said, when he took a step up and became more well rounded (or maybe just stayed healthy for a period of time), he was magnificent. I believe Wenger called him a 9.5 in his skill set. An apt description.

      We’ve really had some wonderful players over the years. Damn.

  7. one of the biggest eye openers for me was in 1982 when spartak moscow visited highbury.
    it wasn’t so much the score it was the manner and difference in ckass. we lost 5-2 .
    after the shock and disapointment we realised we were being given a footballing treat and a glimpse into the future that I thought we would never reach.
    the whole crowd stayed until the end even on a dark midweek highbury night and applauded the visiters off at full time.
    sometimes it’s not all about winning .

    1. In that sense, I find it easier to accept the behaviour of Cesc, who was fine with being arguably our best player for years while we struggled to win anything.

      Van Persie had one season where he was arguably better than the team that surrounded him, and as soon as it happened he was off.

      I get that playing football is a job at this level and that expecting loyalty is a fools game. But in a world where players still get abuse for choosing to merely fulfill their own contract, I do feel animosity towards Van Persie for the way he left because when he choose to leave he gave the impression that he’d been tired of carrying us for years, when up until then, for years, it had been the other way round.

      I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I genuinely have more respect for William Gallas as an Arsenal player than Van Persie.

  8. Wow Knobby thank you. I was there that night and will never forget what i witnessed. To fill you chaps in we lost the 1st leg 3 2. In the return we were 1 1 at ht. Our manager Terry Niell who made emery look like klopp or pep in terms of attacking football went for it and played an attacking 5 at start of second half. That 2nd half stays in my memory as if it happend yesterday. We were ripped to shreds by Spartak and to this day scored the greatest team goal i ever witnessed at Highbury. Goalie threw ball to their left back, lb ran five/ten yrds with ball an hit a 50 yrd diagonal to the right winger, but proceeded to sprint 60 yrds up the pitch, rw took 1 touch and hit 40 yd diagonal to said left back, with 1 touch lb cushioned the ball to the cf around 3yrds outside area, cf 1 touch laid ball backwards to lw who smashed it 1st time from 25 yrds into roof of the net. After a split second silence whole of Highbury applauded what we had just witnessed. Only time in my living memory i can remember an away team getting a standing ovation off the pitch at final whistle. Thanks for reading and Knobby thanks again .

    1. thanks tony, your memory is far better than mine or it was the shock of seeing into the future and it was beyond my understanding that night, brady’s goal at the lane bruce grobellar getting stick and walking out for the second half on his hands to his goal and sammy nelson mooning in front if the north bank. best memories from highbury great days eh.

    2. Well, now, that’s a thanks to you both! A great description of what sounds like a great goal – no matter that it was by the opposition.

      1. Sorry for late reply. Thanks Knobby an thanks FUBS.. Maybe i/we should start a link (Tim permitting) where we show the younger guns what it was like to support this great club back in the day. 1st out Remember Arsenal 0 Sunderland 0? Night match, Sunderland wrong end of the table, brought their 3rd choice goalie Barry Siddell (where are you now Barry?) We threw the kitchen sink at them (to use Tim xG 21) 7 clear chances but 3rd choice Barry kept em all out. That was the 1st time i remember a keeper having a blinder against us an as usual the afc faithful gave him an ovation for a masterful display of goalkeeping. I’m delighted to be allowed to take a trip down memory lane..so many memories, so many great times and so much hardship..Onwards n upwards me AFC chums

  9. The 8-2 didn’t traumatise me. It was a weird game and the overall performance wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the scoreline indicated. We could have shored up and decided to take a loss earlier, but that’s never been the Wenger way.

    The worst performance in the Wenger era… Hmm.. The 6-1 to ManU might be it. Or the 6-0 to Chelsea. Or a loss against Liverpool. I think it was 4-0. I think that was it. That’s the worst I’d seen us play.

    The worst game I have ever seen Arsenal play, I think it just might be the 1-1 draw with Vitoria 2 weeks ago.

    Great point about the blowout in the comments, Tim. Now I’m dreading things even more. Set of 4 winnable games next. Is anyone confident we’ll get 10-12 points from them? My guess is 7, and only because the players have some professional pride.

    1. I would vote for the 6-0 to Chelsea as the worst defeat ever. The fact that it was the 1,000th game in charge added salt to the wound. Mourinho completely outdid Wenger tactically, exposing how naïve Wenger’s football could be at times.

      1. Yeah maybe, that’s a fair shout. But worst defeat isn’t the same as the worst we’ve played, which is what I was thinking of. In terms of worst defeat I’d put the CL final on top just because of the impact it would have had on the club.

        Most painful for me personally was the League Cup final loss. I don’t think I’ve ever sat there just staring into space for longer or felt worse looking at another team lifting the trophy.

      2. That 6-0 was the one for me as well.
        Coming a month after a 5-1 drubbing by Pool– and earlier in December a 6-3 thumping from City (Wenger with Mertesacker playing a high line all season).

        Those three matches were just the loudest nails in the coffin– finishing 4th, just 7-points off title-winning City. But that 6-0 was in the midst of a 4-6-3 stretch– killing off any last chances (in winning 5 straight to close the season).

  10. Worst games for me:
    4. 4-4 Newcastle.
    3. 0-4 Liverpool.
    2. 2-1 Birmingham League Cup loss.
    1. Wenger’s 1000th match 0-6 Chel$ki.

    We played like a dog’s breakfast too many times under a manager who had lost any ability to be objective and do things differently. The suicidal high lines, left and right backs bombing up and down the pitch like ice hockey wingers, throwing caution to the winds and bottling it at other times.

    As much I love and admire him, some of those Wenger matches were inexplicable and I’ll never forgive him for not doing better when he probably damn well knew how but for his ego.

  11. You did what, went back and saw that shit shower again! You’re either a bigger man than I’ll ever be or a sucker for punishment.

    Hell no, that’s one of the worst nights ever. The Stamford bridge thing is painful too but not close to the 8-2 debacle. That thing hurts, still.

    1. I watched the 6-0 last night. I think the sentiment in that match is much higher but Chelsea just smashed Arsenal whereas Man U-Arsenal was worse because we were just so bad all over the pitch.

  12. I understand your train of thoughts. If manure could score 8 goals in 25 shots which is absurd but yet happened. Why could not a similar thing happen again.

    Well, this is what makes it so absurd. Ofc it can happen again if players down tools and anomalys happen. They’re tired of Emery and his muddled thoughts.

    But that implies that Wenger had lost it already 2011 and to me that’s what it felt like. You can’t lose to your major opponent in that fashion and still carry on.

  13. strange thing about the 8-2 game; i was out of town when it happened so i recorded the game. after all these years, it’s still on my dvr and i’ve never had the nerve to watch it. why don’t i just delete it? i don’t know. like i said, strange.

    arsenal had just lost cesc and samir and did nothing to replace them. they stuck ramsey in the cam and gervinho replaced nasri. it was arteta and mertesacker that made the difference. yes, rvp balled out of his mind but arteta and mertesacker provided control and leadership which allowed our dutch striker/captain to focus on being a great scorer. if arsenal hadn’t bought those experienced players, a deviation from the norm of bringing in youngsters, i believe arsenal would have had a catastrophic collapse. claudeivan is right when he says arsenal probably wouldn’t have bought anyone at all if not for the brutal nature of that scoreline. many of the arsenal players were so young and the thing about a team that young; despite their talent, they need leaders providing direction.

    i can tell you, categorically, that traore and djourou are form players; ie they have to play regularly in order to play well. the drop-off in quality is incredibly significant when they don’t.

    the premise of the overall thread is a lie. the 8-2 game was a single match day. the emery nightmare is a comprehensive 18-months long and counting. since 1995, when i became an arsenal fan, it’s never been worse.

    1. Agree about the importance of Arteta and Per. Disagree that this wouldn’t have happened if not for the heavy loss. It was a progression in how Arsenal spent money. From buying kids, to buying experienced players with little to no resale value. We still had our budgets really tight but knew that in a couple of seasons the new commercial deals were coming. That’s why those buys were considered. Per said we’d been in touch a few weeks before. We were also looking at Cahill at the time but Bolton wanted more for him than Per cost.

  14. there was a documentary on tv last night about gary linekers grandad in ww2 he was a front line nurse.
    they found a vet who served next to gary’s grandad and
    they met in italy where he served and the first thing the 104 year old war veteran wanted to tell lineker was he had been an arsenal supporter for 95 years.
    he doesn”t care abiut the stats or xg’s he was a gooner for nearly 100 years. thank you sir I am humbled and very proud.

  15. Things can always be worse. In this case it seems pretty subjective, it all depends on the things. In 2011 a threadbare squad endured a rough opening, only winning 2 out of the first 7 games of the season. And yet after 12 games they still managed 5 more points than the current vintage.

    As much as that team was capable of leaking goals, it was also capable of scoring them. The end result was lots of wins, lots of losses, only 7 draws. We got a bunch of scorelines like 8-2, 4-3 (loss to Blackburn), two 5-2 wins (Chelsea away, Spurs home) and a 7-1 (Blackburn again but a win).

    Was that 2011 squad qualitatively any worse than the one we have now? I don’t honestly know but the football it occasionally produced was on another planet by comparison. It gave us the highest highs and the lowest of lows. This season feels joyless, a slow death, like a never ending morning commute. I know which one feels worse to me.

  16. Having dementia is never a good thing except when it comes forgetting the painful memories of Arsenal’s blowout losses.

  17. I was hoping, from the title of your article, that reading it would make me feel better about where we are now. It didn’t. You should have titled it “You could feel worse, and probably will in short order”. Thanks very much.

  18. prophetically, luís enrique is going back to the spain job. there’s a bit of drama there, as that’s how the spaniards tend to do, but i always thought he’d go back to spain before coming to arsenal.

  19. Pocchetino sacked! Muahahahahahahaha…. the best manager Spuds have ever had – gone! Maybe their plan is to bring ‘arry back.

    All because one player decided to sleep with another one’s wife and boom! Team chemistry destroyed. It’s a fragile thing.

    1. …but we’re holding on to emery. damn shame!

      poch can’t control what does grown men do. once again, damn shame!

      1. Well, in keeping with the theme of this article – things could be worse! We could be Spurs!

        Now, do they hire Mourinho? Pull Rafa out of China? Pay Bournemouth for Howe? Is Tim Sherwood available?

    2. What are you laughing at? He was.

      And we are coddling Emery. Not a flattering perspective for us.

      Ting to cry you laughin’, as we say in my part of the world.

    1. I’m just glad we’re not wondering what Mourihno could with Arsenal. He should be off the market by Christmas time and shopping for a house in North London.

      1. I’m pretty sure he still has his property in London from his Chelsea tenures. He doesn’t need to move specifically to North London to manage Spurs.

  20. mourinho going to the tiny totts thank you, please you deserve each other…

    ps.. respect to you tony…

  21. is this the third chelsea reject the spuds have had has a manager. haha forever in our shadow..
    no class..
    hashtag stop the moaning get behind the arsenal..

  22. Sacking him after getting to the champions league final seems harsh. Is tottenhams current fall from grace down to him alone?

    I suppose the obvious question is who’d be happy to have him as manager now?

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