{"id":327599,"date":"2025-12-21T04:49:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327599\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T04:49:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:49:07","slug":"arsenal-unprofessionalism-shines-through-again-as-arteta-praises-duos-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/327599\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal ‘unprofessionalism’ shines through again as Arteta praises duo’s ‘leadership’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The comparison is imperfect. A nine-game barren run to start a \u00a365m Arsenal career is not quite the same as a final piece of the jigsaw nevertheless flopping his way to six goals in 19 matches<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it doesn\u2019t feel particularly likely that Arsenal will be accused of \u201cunprofessionalism\u201d<\/a> for giving proven proficient penaltyman Viktor Gyokeres the decisive spot kick in the opening half an hour of a narrow but deserved 1-0 win over Everton.<\/p>\n

That was the charge levelled against them two years ago when Kai Havertz had to have his hand held to break his Arsenal duck in a 4-0 thrashing of Bournemouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think him scoring a goal there is going to make any difference to the way he plays in the middle of the park?\u201d came one really quite bizarre line of criticism, the response to which was Havertz marking his next Premier League appearance with a match-winning assist against Manchester City.<\/p>\n

It was a shot in the arm, a confidence boost, a show of solidarity with a player under immense pressure as a natural lightning rod for Arsenal\u2019s collective problems.<\/p>\n

Arteta praised the \u201chuman qualities\u201d of his team that day, their \u201cempathy\u201d for a new teammate \u201cthat has some question marks to resolve externally\u201d. He hailed the usual takers in Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard for \u201ctaking the initiative and the leadership to make those calls\u201d, and suggested it would\u00a0\u201cchange everything\u201d for Havertz.<\/p>\n

History seemed to repeat itself at the Hill Dickinson Stadium. When Jake O\u2019Brien was penalised for a handball in the first half it was Gyokeres who was trusted to convert from 12 yards with Saka and Odegaard still on the pitch at 0-0, Manchester City having taken to the Premier League summit hours earlier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The pressure was immense but entirely shouldered by a man who has not missed a single penalty in the league since he joined Sporting two and a half years ago.<\/p>\n

Arteta was less effusive and far more matter-of-fact this time around, saying only that the players \u201chad a talk\u201d and \u201cthey gave it to Viktor\u201d, which he described as\u00a0\u201ca good decision because he put the ball in the back of the net\u201d.<\/p>\n

And it was a straightforward call, even if not all \u00a360m+ centre-forward signings are so eager to step up under the spotlight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the flipside \u2013 a Gyokeres miss in a game Arsenal went on to slip up in \u2013 would have created quite the unbearable but hilarious discourse on the weekend the Gunners dropped to second.<\/p>\n

It would have been another bitter turn in the career of the Arsenal \u2018lemon\u2019<\/a>. But in Arteta\u2019s own words, it could\u00a0\u201cchange everything\u201d for Gyokeres.<\/p>\n

And with their absurd defensive solidity returning in a game Everton failed to muster a shot on target in, that might be all they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The comparison is imperfect. A nine-game barren run to start a \u00a365m Arsenal career is not quite the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[220,3709,25822,218,448,348,50,35432,101,56,54,55,321],"class_list":{"0":"post-327599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-f365-features","10":"tag-f365-says","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-front-page","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-popular","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom","20":"tag-viktor-gyokeres"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}