Have Arsenal blown their title chance after Bournemouth defat? | OneFootball

Arsenal are still top, but the defeat to Bournemouth has changed the feel of the title race for many Arsenal fans.

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Before the game, Mikel Arteta had called on supporters to “bring their lunch, bring their dinner” as Arsenal returned to Premier League action for the first time in four weeks with the chance to go 12 points clear of Manchester City.

Instead they produced a dog’s dinner – a performance that was ragged, short on control and, by the second half, increasingly familiar in the worst way.

There was fortune in Bournemouth’s opener, the ball glancing off William Saliba and dropping kindly for Junior Kroupi, but that only explains how the goal arrived, not why Arsenal lost.

Bournemouth were comfortable enough once they went ahead and Arsenal never looked like a side able to force them back for any sustained period.

Arsenal were not undone by one freak moment so much as by their own lack of cohesion.

Without Ebere Eze, Martin Odegaard, Mikel Merino, Leandro Trossard or Bukayo Saka in the starting lineup, there was very little rhythm or creativity to their game. That is not an excuse, but it is plainly part of the explanation.

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Without Odegaard in particular, Arsenal become a different side, and they have had too many afternoons like that this season. 22 matches without him is not a minor detail.

Arsenal’s penalty will be forgotten after all this, but it was a penalty. Ryan Christie had his arm outstretched inside the six-yard box, the shot was hit from just outside it, there was nobody between him and the goalkeeper, and the ball was heading towards goal until it struck his arm.

It was given and correctly so.

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The changes came early in the second half, with Trossard, Eze and Max Dowman introduced after five minutes, but the pattern barely shifted and, for a time, actually got worse.

The immediate mood among many supporters online at full-time was that it is over. The title is gone, Arsenal’s chance missed.

The Gunners remain top and nine points clear, but City have two games in hand and Arsenal still have to go there next weekend.

That is enough to make this result feel more significant than the table, in isolation, might suggest.

Even so, there is still a tendency to jump too quickly to absolutes. Arsenal have not won it, clearly, but neither have they definitively thrown it away.

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Get Odegaard back and the level rises.

Get Saka back and it rises again.

That may not fix everything, but it would change the look of the side considerably.

City are also not in the remorseless form memory tends to assign them. They have drawn with Nottingham Forest and West Ham United in the last month, and conceded five against Real Madrid.

They remain dangerous, not invulnerable.

The lazier version of this discussion always ends up in the same place, that City are inevitable and Arsenal are brittle. Football is usually more messy than that, although any more results like this from Arsenal and we will all end up in that place, anyway.

Saturday looked, above all, like a team running on tired legs. Bournemouth had played just over 30 games this season, Arsenal more than 50. Arsenal had also played three times since Bournemouth last had a competitive match. Saturday at 12.30 is not a helpful slot in those circumstances.

None of that excuses the performance, but all of it helps explain some of it.

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So no, Arsenal have not blown the league, not yet. But they have made the margin for error much smaller, and turned a position of strength into one that now demands near-perfection.

That is the damage done here, and it has all been self-inflicted, once again. Arteta said it was a ‘punch in the face’. He didn’t say who threw the punch.

“Disappointing,” he told TNT Sports after the match. “It’s a big punch in the face and it’s about how we react now. They are a team who haven’t lost for 11 games for a reason, they did a lot right.

“We were far from efficent. The first chance they had to attack the box, it’s a deflection, a bad defending action and it’s a goal. That’s something we have to recover from.

“The second half you expect a different game. We did a lot of strange things today.

“We have been very consistent. This can happen, this is football.”

On whether the players are hurting: “A lot. It has to hurt. They have to take it on the chin. You stand up and go for the fight or you’re out.

“It’s a big week. A lot at stake. We’re still in a good position in both competitions.”