Expensive Arsenal flops produce a low budget show
FUNNY how £182million can just vanish into thin air these days. It’s the sum Arsenal laid out on new players in the past financial year, with an average £104,000-a-week salary to keep them happy, even after a pay cut. Yet the walking calamity called Granit Xhaka still turns out to be the man in possession at the pivotal moment.
Arsenal were knocking the ball around their six-yard box with no one looking particularly disposed to do anything decisive with it as half-time approached, when Xhaka neglected to detect the 6ft 3in presence of Chris Wood standing precisely in the spot where he placed it.
No one was more surprised than Wood when Xhaka’s pass rebounded off him and into the net. The Kiwi’s shrug told the story.
Bukayo Saka, so often the shining light this season, was launching into eye-watering challenges. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, the early threat, evaporated into the background. Thomas Partey, initially working box to box, was bullied out of possession by Matej Vydra on the edge of his own area.
Arsenal became a study in beige. There was possession but, with the exception of a pinball finale, only a little prodding around the edges.
The notion of a £104,000-a-week footballer is an alien one to Burnley. Half that sum is their general frame of reference. They had spent matchday morning announcing a new contract for a player who has been around for an eternity: 35-year-old Phil Bardsley.
Matt Lowton, Erik Pieters,
Kevin Long and Johann Berg Gudmundsson — all in their 30s — have all extended this month.
When you don’t possess one of the most expensive strike forces in Europe, as Arsenal do, you employ intelligence. It seemed as if
Burnley had spotted that Mikel Arteta’s ball players were at a point of maximum vulnerability while mincing around in possession on the edge of their own box.
‘Against popular belief, there is always that Burnley storyline that we wait for the chance,’ Sean Dyche said of Burnley’s press. ‘We like front-foot football.’
Arsenal struck after six minutes. Partey instigated a sharp counter-attack which Willian drove forward and Aubameyang finished — exploiting the way Lowton stood off to shape a right-foot shot which crept over the line.
Arsenal would have been out of sight had Saka made more of the two chances that fell his way. He really should have scored from the shot he poked wide after Burnley had cleared a ball straight at full-back Charlie Taylor and into the Arsenal player’s path.
There were grounds for Arsenal optimism in that first half. Willian’s visible frustration with himself after losing a duel with Gudmundsson telegraphed the different player he has been these past few weeks. There was a threat from wide areas, with Kieran Tierney excellent as usual. All that, before the team drained away.