VAR incompetence costs Arsenal heavily against Brentford

Arsenal 1 Brentford 1   
Premier League   
Saturday 11th February 2023 3pm    

Even those who felt more optimistic about Arsenal’s chances of holding off Manchester City and winning a first league title in 19 seasons must have anticipated the kind of bumps in the road we have seen over the last eight days. Just lately, it feels a bit like the Gunners have run out of steam. They worked hard to fathom a goal against Brentford, who in fairness should have been ahead before substitute Trossard’s 66th minute finish gave his team the lead. But then having got in front, a mixture of shocking VAR officiating and poor work in the home side's penalty area saw the visitors level.

 

Arsenal’s forward players – including Odegaard – are all young with Jesus still unavailable and Trossard currently starting on the bench. At some point their levels are going to drop, and so it has proved lately. Brentford were organised, as were Everton the weekend before and the Gunners struggled to create clear cut chances. The stats of Thomas Frank’s team tell you this was not a surprise – unbeaten in their previous nine league games (and only four losses all season), a solitary goal conceded in the last five of those. Nobody was expecting this to be a walk in the park and so it proved. 

 

There were similarities with the defeat at Everton in that the opposition generally sat deep and did a containing job on Arsenal, and ultimately had the better chances to win the game. The difference was that at least Mikel Arteta’s side were not beaten, although two points dropped at home against anyone feels like a bad result. Facing Brentford though, this has to be put into perspective. The Bees have beaten Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City and Liverpool already in the current campaign. Nonetheless it was an opportunity to really emphasise Arsenal’s title credentials, and once they managed to establish a lead, it was highly frustrating to see the win slip away, especially given the controversial circumstances. 

 

The atmosphere during the game was a little more subdued than it has been at the Emirates (although there was a greater buzz around the place pre-match with more of the new banners now in place on the outside, not least the excellent Highbury East Stand façade that greets all those coming over the North Bank bridge from Arsenal underground station). It was as if the crowd were reflecting the tension on the pitch, rather than lifting the team to overcome it. Brentford had the two best chances to go ahead before the interval, Ivan Toney hitting the bar with the goal gaping the pick of them. They played to their strengths – physical and aerial – and won the majority of their duels. 

 

Although Arsenal showed a little more threat in the second half, after an hour, Trossard replaced Martinelli to try and freshen things up. Any of the forward players could have been hooked to be fair, but given the system, it was a natural switch. It paid off as not long after, Saka found the Belgian with a ball across the face of goal that he was able to steer into the net first time. The free kick that led to the equaliser eight minutes later was a 50/50 – both players holding each other - although there is no escaping that William Saliba struggled to cope with Ivan Toney physically all game. Arsenal’s defending from the subsequent set piece was chaotic to say the least, as the defending side failed to win any of a series of headers, although the key moment was Ramsdale coming out of his goal for a ball he didn’t reach, allowing a tap-in when it was lobbed into the centre.

 

There was brief hope of a let-off as a lengthy VAR check for offside took place, but to no avail. Subsequent television coverage revealed an obvious offside by the player who made the assist was not even checked, on top of the failure to award another offence before that. When one remembers that the PGMOL has admitted a Martinelli goal at a key moment of the defeat at Old Trafford was incorrectly ruled out, there are valid questions about the competence of the current officiating in the league. Lee Mason was the guilty official in the control room at Stockley Park yesterday. 

 

Arteta replaced Xhaka with Vieira in the hope of his creativity leading to another goal, but Brentford dealt with Arsenal’s attacking threat comfortably enough and the game petered out. 

 

So mixed feelings about the result. A draw was as much as the home side deserved, and yet they still managed to do enough to win the game, only to be denied by a very poor performance in the VAR room. How many officials were on duty watching the monitors? It’s frustrating as anything and only at the end of the campaign will we know how expensive it is. I think it’s fair to say Lee Mason is unlikely to get a good reception next time he is selected to take charge of a match at the Emirates. 

 

One positive about facing Manchester City on Wednesday is that at least we will see a game of football that suits Arsenal more in terms of having greater space to create attacks, although the physicality of Halaand up front will surely be something Guardiola utilizes after seeing Arsenal’s defenders struggle in their last two matches. If Arsenal are to harbour serious ambitions of dethroning City, they certainly can’t afford to lose this game. It would feel too damaging psychologically. One small advantage, on top of being at home, is a day more to recover, although of course Guardiola can swap around his starting eleven more easily without weakening the team. 

It will be interesting to see what Arteta does in terms of his starting line-up, maybe playing Trossard from the first minute being the most obvious change. One thing that won’t change is the availability of Gabriel Jesus, and his invention and movement is something that the team could have used yesterday. Nketiah works hard, but causes less havoc. His own dip has been reflected by his attacking colleagues, which takes us back to the start and the reality that this is a young team who will not be able to maintain their levels as much as, perhaps, is required to win the league. Nobody’s given up yet, but Arsenal can’t really wait much longer to return to winning ways. Victory on Wednesday evening would be absolutely huge, so let’s see what transpires then.

 

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