Yesterday, Arsenal quite disappointingly dropped points away at newly-promoted Leicester, only managing a 1-1 draw. Alexis opened the scoring in the first half only for Arsenal to concede the tying goal less than three minutes later. Leicester's Leonardo Ulloa headed his goal in over Laurent Koscielny, who earlier in the game had been down for several minutes after a clash of heads left him requiring stitches. The length of time he was down, combined with the fact that he was knocked directly in the head, would've been a good time to follow proper concussion protocol and sub him off. Instead, Kos had his head patched up and he was sent back on the field.
That decision cost us dearly in two ways. First and foremost, soccer has a real problem with following safety standards regarding player head injuries. For player safety, anyone who may have suffered a concussion needs to be substituted to prevent further damage from a repeat blow to the head and it really doesn't get any simpler than that. Secondly, that the goal was headed in directly over him leaves us wondering whether his timing, positioning or awareness were impaired in that moment. Also maybe being slightly reluctant to stick his head in again just moments after clashing heads on a 50-50 ball, or even whether it was even safe for him to head away a whipped-in cross after likely being concussed, for that matter. Any way you slice it, that was a key moment that cost us the three points, in my opinion.
Arsenal took lots and lots of shots, but many of them were blocked by Leicester's well-organized defense or were just unable to find the target. In the second half, Ulloa missed a chance with a wide open goal that should've sent us to defeat and other than a few counter attacks, Arsenal were unable to find a winning goal.
Yaya Sanogo started up top in place of Giroud, who is now out of action until January. Sanogo is the closest replacement we have for Giroud in terms of size, strength and style of play but yesterday showed exactly why we're going to need an upgrade in that position while we're without Giroud. Sanogo is still just too raw at this point to be an effective player for us. His first touch was off all game long and it looks like he knows what to do when the ball comes to him, it's just that his lanky legs can't quite execute it as of yet. Even his involvement in "setting up" the Alexis goal was really just him bumbling the bouncing ball and it kind of falling off of him into the Chilean's path.
It was also slightly worrying that Mesut Özil hasn't had a strong game since his return to action. At this point, it looks like it has less to do with match fitness and more to do with the fact that nothing he tries is really coming off for him. Many of his passes were intercepted, a lot of dribbles led to nowhere or to him losing the ball altogether and more than once he passed up the opportunity to go for goal himself only for it amount to nothing. In watching him, the quality and the class is still there, again it just comes down to the execution at this point.
At the end of the day, a draw on the road early in the season isn't the end of the world. At least we stay unbeaten and unfortunately, a draw was the fair result on the day.
As I'm writing this, the transfer window is drawing to a close and so does any chance we have to address the remaining holes in our squad (as well as the newly-formed ones). It goes without saying that simply buying available players is not always the best strategy, but it's time for Arsenal to follow up on the good transfer business done early in the window and bring in the required players on deadline day. While that's easier said than done, our depth has already been stretched thin barely weeks into the season. If we're serious about challenging for the Premier League title, we need to fully flesh out the rest of our squad.
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