Well, this was a really anticlimactic title race in the end. Arsenal utterly choked away their best title challenge in the last twenty years as they lost 1-0 to Nottingham Forest, ensuring both Forest’s place in the Premier League and the title stays with City.
I know a lot of people are saying Arsenal didn’t choke the title away given the preseason expectations, but what do you call dropping points to Forest, West Ham, a weak Liverpool, Brighton, and Southampton in the span of two months to blow over 240 days sitting atop the league?
Arsenal officially wrapped up the Premier League title race for Manchester City today as they fell 1-0 to a Nottingham Forest side that also ensured they’d be staying up in the Premier League for a second season with the win. And, despite the fact that Arsenal were always fighting an uphill battle against the all-powerful Manchester City, they really shot themselves in the foot in this title race.
Obviously, this loss to Forest today was the title-deciding match and officially cemented Manchester City as the 3X consecutive title winners (2021-23), but the utter collapse this Arsenal side has suffered in the final two months of the season goes beyond the horrid 1-0 defeat today. Well, sort of.
Today’s defeat was easily the worst performance Arsenal have put out these last two months as they could only muster 3 shots on target with 82% possession, 718 passes (Forest had 161), 88% passing accuracy (Forest only had 50%), 11 total shots (Forest had 6), and 6 corners (Forest had 3).
Players like Martin Odegaard, Gabriel Jesus, Bukayo Saka, and Leandro Trossard all looked tired and fatigued in attack from the 1st minute, allowing Forest’s defense of Joe Worrall, Felipe, Serge Aurier, Reman Lodi, and Moussa Niakhaté to swam them and shut down every single attack on goal. As for the Forest goal, that too was a simple case of the Arsenal defense and midfield losing its focus.
First, Martin Odegard literally passed the ball straight to Morgan Gibbs-White in the middle of the field, both Gabriel and Ben White failed to close down the onrushing Gibbs-White, and then Gabriel gave Taiwo Awoniyi too much separation on the counter as the Forest forward jammed the ball past Aaron Ramsdale to win the game for Forest and secure their status as one of England’s 20 best clubs for another season.
Along with 60+ minutes of ironclad defending by Forest, that’s pretty much how the game wrapped up. As I said, Arsenal were tepid, uninspired, and completely lacking confidence as they just couldn’t break down a Forest team that played with all the heart and passion a relegation-threatened side should have.
Still, if this game was played just two months ago (or during that 3-straight draw streak), Arsenal would have found a way to at least get a point out of this game. The lack of depth in this Arsenal side has really been exposed in the rawest of fashion as these players just simply ran out of steam during April and May.
Even though a lot of Arsenal fans like the bench players, such as Reiss Nelson, Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith-Rowe, Fabio Viera, etc., these players just simply aren’t good enough to be the go-to players when the starters are either injured, ill, out-of-form, etc. on a title team. They certainly wouldn’t have a spot on City’s bench.
Against Real Madrid, a game which Man City won 4-0 to reach the club’s second Champions League Final, City brought on Julian Alvarez (2022 World Cup Winner), Riyad Mahrez (now 6X Premier League champion), Phil Foden (one of the brightest young Premier League stars, now 5X Premier League champion) to replace Erling Haaland (2022 Premier League Golden Boot winner, one of the world’s Top-3 players), Ilkay Gundogan (club captain, 6X domestic title champion with City and Borussia Dortmund), and Kevin De Bruyne (who needs no introduction).
Oh, and the likes of Kalvin Philips, Aymeric Laporte, Sergio Gomez, Cole Palmer, and Rico Lewis were all unused substitutes in that match. That’s an INSANE level of squad depth!
If Arsenal were going to complete the upset title victory, they either needed their starters to never tire out (which didn’t happen) or their bench players to come up with crucial goals in key moments (which didn’t happen often enough).
And that’s why they will finish the 2022/23 season as only the 2nd best team in England.
As for Forest, this was a fantastic win that capped off a brilliant return season to the Premier League.
Steve Cooper literally pulled off a miracle by keeping a squad that was not only completely revamped and replaced during the summer transfer window, but also only scored 37 goals (3rd lowest in the league) up with a spare game in hand. This team should have been crippled by all the turmoil and poor goalscoring form, but it wasn’t as the group came together and won three of its last five matches against the likes of Arsenal (2nd) and Brighton (6th).
Congratulations on staying up Nottingham Forest, you’ve more than earned another year in the Premier League.
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