Football is a very simple game until it actually begins. The act of scoring one more goal than the opposition becomes a lot more complicated when there are 22 elite athletes crashing around the pitch at full speed, with an army of coaches, medics and analysts preparing rivers of information for days on end before each contest.
Nevertheless, people still search for the simplest ways to explain these complexities—players and managers are the guiltiest parties.
In an attempt to capture how Arsenal went from deservedly limping away with 2–2 draw against rock-bottom Wolverhampton Wanderers to recording their largest ever Premier League win away to Tottenham Hotspur in the space of four days, Viktor Gyökeres cited an impassioned team meeting ahead of the fixture.
As compelling as Gyökeres’s emotional argument may be, it ignores the simple fact that Arsenal were playing a side riddled with even deeper uncertainty and inferiority complexes than themselves.
Gyökeres Reveals Details of Arsenal’s Heart-to-Heart
“It’s always going to be difficult when you get a result like we had at Wolves, but it’s how you handle that, and how you respond to it, and today we showed that it in a good way,” Gyökeres beamed after scoring a crisp brace on Sunday afternoon.
Arsenal’s often ungainly forward was as sharp as he has looked all season, the coordination of his high knees and pointy elbows for once moving in unison towards goal. Gyökeres fired the visitors in front two minutes into the second half after taking advantage of the oceans of space afforded to him at the top of the penalty box.
Tellingly, Arsenal’s striker likened it to one of Eberechi Eze’s goals in the reverse fixture between these two teams. The English playmaker was on the scoresheet again this weekend for the first time since that north London derby back in November. That’s no coincidence—no one else in the division will let an opponent shoot from that part of the pitch without offering any challenge.
Yet, rather than put it down to a forgiving opponent, Gyökeres pointed to a sharp-tongued discussion between the players.
“It’s important sometimes just to say what you feel and to let it all out in the group,” he mused. “Most of us spoke. Everyone can recognise how different people feel in the moment and you get a better understanding of the feeling.
“When you speak in the group openly like that, you come closer together and it’s very important to do that sometimes. If you’re not honest, I think it’s hard to improve. It was a good chat.”
Arteta: Arsenal Players Were ‘Ashamed’ of Wolves Collapse
Mikel Arteta shed some light on how low the mood was after Wednesday’s draw at Molineux. “It feels like the end of the world,” he reflected. “And then you have to lift yourself up because you’re feeling angry, upset, ashamed at some point.”
Arteta was keen to ram home how his players channelled this hurt. “We are all different nationalities, we all have different feelings, and then you have to bring everybody together,” he said. “It’s been a joy to spend that time together with them, to align everybody and to say: ‘O.K., what is going to be happening in the next chapter?’
“This one is gone, how do we use it to be a turning point and to make ourselves better, and that was the focus, that was the intention. But after you have to do it on the pitch, and I think what we’ve done from the beginning to the end of the match. It was outstanding.”
Real Test Comes This Weekend
For all the good will washing around the Arsenal dressing room, it only takes one slip to send this team into disarray. Lest we forget, it was a draw away from home (not a defeat) which set the narrative of “bottling” the title raging once again.
This coming Sunday will be a far sterner test of Arsenal’s credentials. While Spurs are four points above the relegation zone, Chelsea are fifth. Liam Rosenior has adapted swiftly to life in west London and remains unbeaten in the Premier League—even if he is unhappy with back-to-back draw against newly promoted opposition.
Arteta has already beaten Rosenior twice across both legs of the Carabao Cup semi-final this calendar year, yet both contests were tight affairs informed by selection decisions during a congested part of the calendar. Each team has a full week to prepare for the clash at the Emirates, plenty of time for those all important player meetings.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Viktor Gyokeres’s Secret to Tottenham Thrashing Ignores One Glaring Reality.
