Stoke City 1-0 Arsenal: 5 Talking Points, Premier League 2017/18

Stoke City 1-0 Arsenal highlights
Another season, another early loss for Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger

As Mesut Ozil trudged off the pitch shaking his head, that old familiar feeling crept up on Arsenal fans watching on. The same errors reared their heads at the lair of the Gunners' least favourite away fixture in the Premier League - Stoke City.

The Potters put Arsene Wenger's side to the sword and won their first points of the season with a 1-0 win - thanks to a Jese Rodriguez goal two minutes into the second half. It's only the second game of the season but the manner in which Arsenal lost the game will leave fans irate with the manager and the squad.

Here are the major talking points from the game.


1) Hector Bellerin and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's swapped roles

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain right wing back Arsenal
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain played as a right wing-back for Arsenal

When the lineups were announced, everyone expected Arsenal to line up in their now-standard 3-4-2-1 formation with Bellerin on the right and Oxlade-Chamberlain on the left. Even when Arsenal tweeted the lineups an hour before kickoff, Bellerin was on the right.

However, when the game kicked off, Oxlade-Chamberlain started out on the right and that was where he played the entire game while Bellerin moved to the left. It brought out the best in Oxlade-Chamberlain (with the limited time he had on the ball) but Bellerin clearly struggled after a brief spell of good football in the first half.

The Spaniard did get into the final third on a couple of occasions with some neat one-twos but couldn't make the best of it as Stoke stood resolute in the box. As the game wore on, his contributions became few and far between - neither here nor there in attack and defence.

After Arsenal switched to a back four, Oxlade-Chamberlain was wasted as a right-back and on the odd occasions that he did manage to beat his marker and put in a cross into the box, those opportunities were wasted.

2) Stoke's mobile front line punishes Arsenal despite Shaqiri injury

Jese Saido Berahino goal Stoke City Arsenal
Jese and Saido Berahino combined for Stoke City's solitary goal against Arsenal

Mark Hughes' team has evolved in the past couple of seasons from the "rugby style" they were notorious for to a style that sees the ball on the ground more often than in the air.

Their front line of Xherdan Shaqiri, Jese Rodriguez and Eric Choupo-Moting looked good enough to trouble Arsenal's makeshift back-three of Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal (who played in the centre) and Sead Kolasinac.

Stoke had only 22.7% of the possession over the 90 minutes. But they still looked threatening, especially on the break. Shaqiri's injury after 25 minutes threw a spanner in the works but Saido Berahino did provide an attacking impetus when they won the ball back to counter.

And they punished Arsenal with a quick counter-attack following two mistakes from Granit Xhaka in two seconds. The midfielder first played a loose pass before committing himself to win it back, leaving the backtracking defence completely unprotected.

It allowed Berahino to slip in an unmarked Jese whose neat finish beat Petr Cech to find the back of the net.

3) Welbeck wasteful, Lacazette forced to feed on scraps

Danny Welbeck Arsenal Stoke City
Danny Welbeck was far from clinical against Stoke City

With 77.3% of possession in the game, Arsenal had 18 shots on goal in 90 minutes. Only six were on target, all blocked without giving Stoke goalkeeper Jack Butland too much to worry about.

Danny Welbeck, playing on the left of Alexandre Lacazette, was the most wasteful among the lot. The English striker first had a chance to square the ball to Lacazette but instead took a shot from a very narrow angle, allowing Butland to stand tall and make the save.

In the second half, Welbeck had the chance to equalise with a header where he was completely unchallenged but the ball ended up coming off his shoulder to go over the bar.

In contrast, Lacazette was dropping deep to link up play and making some intelligent passes to get his teammates into better positions to attack. But when it came to finding him in the box, those incisive passes were non-existent.

The one time he did get a shot on goal (thanks to Olivier Giroud), he found the top corner with ease. But the linesman's flag was up for offside and replays proved it was a very controversial call as he was marginally onside.

"It was a goal. 100%. It wasn't offside at all, not even his foot. It was a detail that didn't go our way." - Wenger

4) Zouma stars at the back, Diouf not suited to a wing-back role

Kurt Zouma Stoke City Arsenal
Kurt Zouma was Stoke City's best defender against Arsenal

Playing a back-three seems to be the name of the game in the Premier League now and even Hughes lined up Stoke City in a 3-4-2-1 formation to counter Arsenal. With Geoff Cameron, Ryan Shawcross and Kurt Zouma lining up at the back, he deployed Erik Pieters and Mame Diouf as the wing-backs on either side.

Chelsea loanee Zouma was undoubtedly one of the Potters' best players on the pitch. Wave after wave of Arsenal attacks were thwarted by the Stoke defence and Zouma was central to it all on the right side with Welbeck and Bellerin seeing a lot of the ball on that flank.

The 22-year-old Frenchman made 3 tackles (with a 100% success rate), 3 interceptions and 7 clearances in the game to cap off a memorable afternoon at the bet365 Stadium.

However, playing Diuof as a right wing-back almost backfired for Hughes. He is a striker and not suited to the defensive duties tasked with a wing-back.

It became quickly apparent when Arsenal continually got in behind the the Senegalese player - which is why Zouma was called into action more than required.

While Diouf could make runs with the ball at his feet, he is at times unaware of where he needs to position himself when they do not have the ball.

5) Wenger's baffling substitutions see Arsenal lose momentum

Arsene Wenger substitutions Arsenal Stoke City
Arsene Wenger's substitutions against Stoke City lost them the game

Arsene Wenger's discipline sometimes tends to be his own undoing. With the Gunners down 1-0 and unable to find a way through Stoke's defence, he waited till the 66th-minute mark to make his first substitution when the team was clearly bereft of ideas.

Only Aaron Ramsey and Lacazette seemed to be making an effort to move the ball forward while Mesut Ozil had a poor game without any players ahead of him free to receive a pass.

With Bellerin and Welbeck also clearly struggling, Wenger chose to take off Kolasinac for Olivier Giroud, pushing Oxlade-Chamberlain to a right-back role in what was now a back four with Mustafi, Monreal and Bellerin.

Later, he brought on Theo Walcott and Alex Iwobi for Lacazette and Xhaka instead of taking off Welbeck and Ozil. Xhaka may have made an error early on but the north London side looked soft in midfield without his presence and lacked the ability to win the ball back quickly (he had made 3 interceptions in the game) with time running out.

Alex Iwobi Arsenal Stoke City
Alex Iwobi had no idea what to do with the ball after coming on

It forced both Ozil and Ramsey to drop deeper leaving little to the imagination in a front three where Walcott barely got on the ball while Iwobi was unclear on what he needed to do to get in the final third.

Wenger was clearly going route one with Giroud and Welbeck on the pitch and Oxlade-Chamberlain looking to find them with crosses. But both strikers were not on the same wavelength and Giroud's knockdowns and passes (which worked so well with Lacazette) were wasted with Welbeck in the wrong positions.

Quick Links

Edited by Rohith Nair