Bournemouth 3 Arsenal 3: Teams trying to win the Premier League title don't celebrate draws at Bournemouth - Harry Redknapp

Getty Images
Harry Redknapp5 January 2017

Arsenal's jubilation at getting a point at Bournemouth tells you a lot that’s wrong with that team at the moment.

Coming back from 3-0 down in any game gives you a buzz but what happened when Olivier Giroud scored in stoppage time was strange. He should have gone into the net, picked the ball up, taken it back to the halfway line and told everyone to get on with it.

They had four minutes left against 10 men and there was every possibility they would get one more chance to win the game. Instead, Giroud is messing around doing that scorpion kick celebration and all that cobblers. What’s all that about?

If you are Arsene Wenger on the touchline, you’d be saying:“Stop jumping about, get back in position and get ready”. A team supposed to be trying to win the Premier League does not celebrate a draw at Bournemouth. The great Arsenal sides containing Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry would never have leapt about like that, especially when they are fighting to close a big gap to the leaders.

Arsene even hinted at it after they took an in-swinging corner which was easier for Artur Boruc to claim than an out-swinging one. “These are the details that you have to keep composure and play until the last minute,” he said. “That’s down to keeping your head cool.” Arsene doesn’t ever bawl his players out in public but it is pretty clear what he was getting at there.

Bournemouth are a good side, don’t get me wrong, and they should have won but you are talking about a team that are supposedly trying to prove they are the best in the land.

Before the game I still thought they had a chance of winning the League but you don’t lift trophies playing like that. Don’t be fooled by the last 20 minutes: Arsenal got away with murder.

They are too inconsistent. Sometimes they can turn up and tear you to pieces but then out of nowhere they can throw in a woeful performance like they did for the first 70 minutes on Tuesday.

Arsene said they were tired. Well, okay but they have ended up finishing the game by scoring three goals in the last 20 minutes.

It wasn’t tiredness that cost them, or Bournemouth for that matter. It was a mental thing for both of them. Arsenal weren’t at it early on but when they came back into it, Bournemouth got a bit nervous, they stopped playing as much and ended up conceding.

Too many managers talk about players being knackered before a game. Telling footballers they are tired gives them an excuse straight away. You have got to be positive as a manager. If you look at the pitch before the game and start complaining about it there and then, it gets into the players’ heads. If you went back in the dressing room in, say a cup game away somewhere, and started saying, “I’ve seen this pitch, it’s not good enough for us and I’ve told the referee”, the players change their attitude. You should be saying, “we’re good enough to play on anything” and, “our players are the fittest around so they can cope with the workload”.

In Pictures | Bournemouth vs Arsenal | 03/01/2017

1/33

Arsenal are not defending well enough to win the league, either. I’m not sure about Shkodran Mustafi —he hasn’t convinced me. And everyone is raving about Hector Bellerin but he makes rickets.

He is a promising talent and could be great but, a bit like Kyle Walker, he is open to the ball inside him. Glen Johnson used to be the same. When you have quick full-backs, they want to get so close to the winger they’re marking to counter-attack that people play balls in behind them.

I’ve seen it three or four times with Bellerin and that is something he needs to work on. Charlie Daniels is a better player than Nacho Monreal and the only one I’d take is Laurent Koscielny who does his best to hold the whole thing together.

Arsenal are still just about in the hunt but they’ve got plenty of work to do if they want to achieve something really worth celebrating.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in