Arsenal deliver but ‘unwatchable’ debate refuses to disappear

Arsenal deliver but ‘unwatchable’ debate refuses to disappear Arsenal have taken four points from two difficult away games, yet much of the conversation around the champions has somehow centred on how they are supposedly playing football the wrong way. Paul Williams explains more… Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images I’m sure I have mentioned this before, but I’ve been on blood pressure medication for the last three and a half years. I think I might also have mentioned that this all started with a proper health scare just days after Arsenal ‘s 1-1 draw at home to Brentford , when Lee Mason “forgot” to draw either of the two lines which would have disallowed Brentford’s equaliser. I’m not saying the two events were connected, but I’m sure Mason’s forgetfulness, if we may call it that, didn’t help. Since then, I have generally tried not to let myself get aggravated by things which are outside of my control, especially football-related things. There’s enough out there in the world trying to get you without adding the trials and tribulations of 11 heroes in red and white every three days. However. I have been left utterly bewildered, to the point of blood-pressure-bothering levels, by the tone of the commentary around the Premier League champions over the last week. Daily Mail 19 October 2026 Full disclosure: I was out for my sister’s birthday on Sunday afternoon, so I didn’t get to watch the game at Nottingham Forest live. I did manage to speed through it about an hour after the game finished, though. I was able to speed through it because, obviously, not a lot happened. Not a lot happened partly because Arsenal passed the ball from side to side for the guts of an hour and a half. Arsenal passed the ball from side to side for the guts of an hour because Nottingham Forest set themselves up, with partial success, to be incredibly difficult to break down. I say partial success because Nottingham Forest were indeed very difficult to break down, giving up just the one Noni Madueke shot on target. Unfortunately for them, though, Madueke’s one shot on target found the net and was enough to win the match. Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images Nottingham Forest might have rescued a point had both Liam Delap and Chris Wood been a bit quicker to get shots off, and had Luis Murillo matched a wonderful piece of skill with a shot on target, but he didn’t and they weren’t. End result: one point fewer for Forest than they played for and another three for the champions. Much of the criticism post-match was of Arsenal’s “unwatchable” approach to the game, as if they would have wanted to come out in Nottingham and play a game like that. No mention was made of Oliver Glasner ‘s ultra-defensive approach to the game and how it takes two teams to make a football match. Glasner’s approach might have been understandable, but who knows what might have happened had he taken the more adventurous approach he was forced into with 10 minutes left for the full 90? It’s all very well for people to sit and say Arsenal should be good enough to break Forest down. The thing is, we did. Photo by Carl Recine/Getty Images My personal view is that the noise around this game is purely because it was the “Super Sunday” 4:30 kick-off. Nobody would have anything to say about this game had it been played at 3pm on Saturday, the kind of nondescript 1-0 win a title challenge features four or five times a season. However, some genius at Sky, perhaps thinking Arsenal might get a bloody nose, decided to make it a TV game, ignoring the fact that the previous three hours of this fixture had seen precisely zero goals. And then we have to listen to anyone with a mouth telling us we’re ruining football. Do me a favour. Similarly, the way Fletch and co were talking about Bayern Munich on Wednesday night, I had to stop and check that it was Bayern Munich we were playing at the Allianz Arena and not Bromley Town . I mean, I know, at heart, it’s a backhanded compliment to us, but it started early and didn’t stop. Before the game had even begun, much was made of Bayern’s injuries, with Arsenal being said to be at “full strength” and no mention made of a certain French centre-back we’ve not seen all season . Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images It turns out that a team unbeaten in their last 39 group and league-stage matches in the Champions League, with a man Steven Gerrard described post-match as England’s greatest ever (I’m paraphrasing) player up top, are actually quite good at football. Gerrard also seemed to think Bayern would be happier with the point than Arsenal, but this just seemed one more comment in a night full of comments aimed at aggravating as many of us as possible. Let me remind you, 39 games unbeaten at home… I thought it was an incredibly positive night for Arsenal, except for the obvious injury to Bukayo Saka . On the night, Ebere Eze was able to provide a silver lining with something of a blueprint performance, full of running, no little skill and intelligence and, obviously, a wonderful finish from an even more wonderful Martin Odegaard pass to put us 1-0 up. Photo by Leonhard Simon/Getty Images For him, the chance to get back on the bike immediately after his half-time substitution in Nottingham was one he took with open arms. There’s no sugar-coating an injury to Saka, though. Even if you don’t think he’s been that good this season, and I’d disagree with you, if he has indeed suffered a significant injury to his quad, well, that’s a little bit disastrous. Unless your name is Max Dowman , maybe. I don’t have to reach back too far into my memory banks to remember Arsenal away days in Europe that have started really positively before subsiding into nothing. There are also the scars of so many Munich-based humiliations. The inevitable Harry Kane penalty in the second half, to go with his brilliant assist in the first, then, was extremely deflating. With Odegaard to the fore, we’d more than matched the hosts, Manuel Neuer having made a Seaman v Peschosolido-style save from a Bruno G header early in the second half. I don’t actually know how we didn’t score from any of the brilliant dead-ball deliveries we put into the box last night, something of a Munich miracle, I think. Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images Just as I was beginning to resign myself to the “well, it’s a defeat, but there are clearly positives to take” line, we found an equaliser. Ironically, given the criticism of the side-to-side nature of our play on Sunday, it came after Arsenal went from Odegaard on the right to Eze on the left, who spun into space and found MLS, back to Konsa, then to Decs on the right. He passed into Madueke and set off. Madueke’s pass into Gyokeres was cushioned perfectly into Decs’ third-man run. A touch to set and then the England man, laughably described as “cheating” by Scottish misery guts Graeme Souness , blasted the ball from the corner of the six-yard box into the bottom corner of the net. “Are you not entertained?” Honours even, deservedly so. Whatever people outside the club might think. Photo by Alex Grimm/Getty Images