Liverpool will give dozy Arsenal a wake-up call if Unai Emery's side make another stuttering start

On target: Emile Smith Rowe celebrates after scoring the decisive goal
REUTERS
James Benge1 November 2018

Arsenal fans must be starting to wonder whether they are better off waiting until half-time before heading into Emirates Stadium after witnessing another insipid first-half display.

League One Blackpool, just like Watford, Leicester and Crystal Palace before them, were more than a match for Arsenal in the early exchanges.

Unai Emery’s side may have done enough in the second half to carry the day but if they repeat this stuttering start when they face Liverpool on Saturday, they could find the game is beyond them before by half-time.

Of the 37 goals Arsenal have scored under Emery, Stephan Lichtsteiner’s 33rd-minute opener was just their 11th in the first half. Having named Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Danny Welbeck in his starting line-up, the Spaniard would have expected his side to blitz their way past Blackpool but before Lichtsteiner scored, they failed to register a shot on target.

Yet again, Emery’s half-time team talk helped to swing the match in Arsenal’s favour. Emile Smith Rowe’s first goal at the Emirates came at the end of a move more incisive than anything the team had managed to put together before the break.

Even after Matteo Guendouzi was sent off in the 56th minute after being shown a second yellow card for a clumsy challenge, Arsenal looked no less incisive in attack with 10 men in the second half than they had in the first.

It was at the back where familiar problems reared their head, with Shkodran Mustafi misjudging a corner which Paudie O’Connor turned in and Petr Cech struggling to display Bernd Leno’s composure when playing out from the back.

Only a linesman’s flag saved Cech from an embarrassing blunder. Attempting a Cruyff turn in his own box, he failed to evade Jay Spearing’s tackle but as the ball trickled towards the goal, an offside Nathan Delfouneso helped it on its way, denying Blackpool an equaliser.

In Pictures | EFL Cup | 31/10/2018

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Emery is convinced Cech can still fulfil his demands. He said: “It’s better to continue giving him confidence to continue our style and ideas. He has experience and he can do well.

“We will continue with this idea with security and with confidence.”

Whether the former Czech Republic international inspires such confidence playing out against the energetic press of Roberto Firmino and Co is another matter. Wednesday's shaky display from the 36-year-old goalkeeper may just have just answered the question whether Leno should be the club’s number one.

The gloves are off: Leno is winning the race to be Arsenal's first-choice goalkeeper
Arsenal FC

If that particular problem is solved, however, there seems to be no progress on the burning matter of how to start games as effectively as Arsenal have been ending them.

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