Worrying Signs! (Harrison) | Fleetwood 1-1 (5-3 Pens) Arsenal

Mike from AFTV, I'm here with Harrison after Arsenal have been knocked out of the Carabao Cup on penalties 5-3 to Fleetwood Town. Run me through it. Disappointing night. Very, very disappointing. Embarrassed, all of the above. I don't really know what to say about the performance, to be honest. I do feel like it's been a consistent from the start of the season up until now. We just can't break teams down. And I don't even think Fleetwood, obviously credit to Fleetwood, played well. but I don't think they necessarily did anything to even really stop us tonight. They sat in a 5-4-1 and we couldn't hurt them. Couldn't create chances. No one was moving the ball around. They didn't look like they were under any pressure throughout the whole game, honestly. It wasn't like they really stuck it on us. We're making last-ditch challenges. None of that. We just couldn't create anything. And that's been the story of our season. We did have some chances. I mean, Havertz had a couple. Ben White had one, which I thought was in the back of the net. do you need to be more clinical then or is it just a case the whole team weren't at the races I don't think the whole team were at the races for sure but obviously with the chances we did have we should have done better obviously Havertz had a few chances but he definitely should have stuck away at least two obviously Ben White at the end it's a great save by the keeper but he's got a score as well but listen Fleetwood are in League 2 no disrespect they're in League 2 they're struggling to stay up what did you say they're 18th in the league something like that so they're struggling we should be creating way more chances than what we did tonight and I think A few of them chances came from Eze coming on the pitch, Erdogan coming on the pitch. I'm looking at the players that started the game and thinking, why are you not producing anything from the start of the game? You've got the likes of Jocreres and Havertz, who one of them is our starting number nine. We're going to go try and win the Premier League, the Champions League, and you can't create anything for yourself in a game against Fleetwood, who are 18th in League Two. So I think that's a worrying sign for me. Is that then just a case of thinking that this should be a formality and we should just roll them over and then as the game gets going, we realise and we start pressing and obviously Fleetwood get a bit of confidence and then we start struggling We was always going to be in trouble from when Fleetwood scored the first goal and obviously it was poor defending by Salmon. I think in the game in general he did okay but obviously people are going to remember that goal for Fleetwood and he was definitely at fault for that but no, it's disappointing. I think going into the game we were all really confident rightfully so as well and we should be rolling over teams like that so to even have the first team players come onto the pitch like the likes of Odegaard, Eze was embarrassing in itself and the fact we just got knocked out it was a hard watch Talk to me about the red card We had a little disagreement didn't we on the watch along but it's a blatant red card I can't defend him he retaliated he's a young kid so he will learn from that Arteta was fuming as well it will be interesting see what he said to him but it's a blatant red card and for me I know you said about the tackle being strong that it's Fleetwood they're a league two side of course they're going to try and smash some of the Arsenal players and and he found the perfect chance to go and smash Downman on the on the touchline so for me the Fleetwood player did nothing wrong it's a strong challenge he tried to leave something on Max Downman and listen right rightfully so they're a league two team they're not not just going to let Arsenal play and he's gone to smash Downman and Downman's retaliated so For me, yeah, it was poor from Max. Anfield on Sunday. Let's roll on to that quickly before we wrap up. How do you see that going? I'm still confident. I'm still confident. I think obviously we'll go there with our strongest XI. And it's probably good that we've got a big game coming up at the weekend to try and hopefully put this game to bed. I think if we go to Anfield on Sunday, it's a huge game. We always struggle at Anfield as well. If we go there and win, listen, all's forgotten about tonight. but at the same time obviously tonight was very disappointing I think EFL trophy is probably something that I wanted to win this season for sure and I think it's one that sets us up for the rest of the season with the final coming on early in the season but yeah listen if we go to Anfield on Sunday I'm sure this will all be forgotten and I'm confident going there even though we didn't play very well tonight I'm definitely confident going to Anfield on Sunday