~snip
In this type of competition we will always see surprising results, I mean teams that fight for the title in the Premier League fall early and do not reach the final while teams that are not fighting for the title in the Premier League are going far in this competition, in some cases even reaching the final, perhaps this happens because the coaches who are fighting for the title in the Premier League underestimate the other teams or want to spare the physicality of their players by limiting them to playing moderately, without making much physical effort to avoid injuries.
I'm not really sure if this is the case here. I remembered I pointed out that few players in the Arsenal team were sick in their last premier league game, so I don't think the manager is trying to spare the physicality of his players for any coming game. And let's just be honest, Arsenal don't have that title winning mentality. This fact hurts, but it's just the truth. A team with a strong winning mentality would want to win as many trophies that can be won.
And if the manager actually made his players sit back for some reasons, do they even stand a chance to win other trophies? That's a massive NO IMO. Because, Arsenal dominated the game as usual, but just couldn't put that ball at the back of the net. And team that must win trophies must learn how to score as well. And, this is why changing of strategies is very important. Newcastle was able to neutralize Arsenal set-pieces from corners, which I believe served as a lesson that not all teams are weak.
Technically both of the teams are in good form, but this match played in Emirates Stadium and Arsenal dominated the match, the results ended Arsenal without score is really surprising. At least Arsenal should able to score one goal, but Martin Dubravka is too good.
It will be hard for Arsenal to play in the next game since they will play away, Arsenal should bench Odegaard, this guy is no more like in the past, Mikel Merino is better than him now.
Of course, it will be a very difficult task for Arsenal to take a two goal lead at St.james park, but I'm not sure if the benching of Odegaard is the best thing to do. Like I said, there is a current sickness in the team, and Odegaard happens to be among those who's currently ill, but I won't still choose merino over him. I think in the last EPL game they played, Odegaard kept losing ball easily to their opponents, which was just too obvious that something was wrong. Playing a game without a key playmaker is dangerous because as it stands, Arsenal's attack is very shitty. From Havertz, Martinelli, Trosaard, Merino and Odegaard, these players are not even offering their best. The only solution I see here is bringing fresh legs to the team, because most players tends to do well when they're in competition with other players for a specific position.