Right, so, I've given it a day to relax and think about the game.
It was a creditable draw, and that's two of our toughest four away games dealt with (the other two are Liverpool and (imo) Leicester). But overall, Arsenal were the better team - hard to argue that. And that was down to one short term reason, which will rectify itself over the course of the season, and some worrying long-term ones.
Short term -
1) We had no press-resistance in midfield. Arsenal were just far superior on the ball - they were able to retain possession, outmuscle us in challenges, and progress the ball past our first line of pressing with ease. By contrast, we panicked all game - the attackers were too far up, the defense left exposed to pressing lines of two or three players converging on the man on the ball, and a lot of panicked turnovers of possession resulted that put us under immense pressure. It's a pattern we saw in the City game as well - we can't handle pressure, *at all*.
However, I think that will fix itself with Ndombele and Lo Celso coming into the team. Both those players replacing less technically-gifted players in the likes of Winks and Lamela will help to no end in terms of beating the press, and I think having a press-resistant midfield will afford the defense more cover, thus lessening the problem overall.
Long term -
1) We have no defensive midfield - this is a painful one, but it's true. Sissoko is strong, fast and hard-working, but his positional awareness isn't great. Winksy's positional awareness is good, but he's too slow from a standing start, and loses too many of his challenges to really be a defensive midfielder. If the two could combine, we would have a perfect defensive midfielder. Alas, they can't, and we have a worrying tendency to leave gaps and yawning spaces in front of the defense that *forces* the CBs out of position to close down shots/cover. Not sure how to fix this - Wanyama and Dier are permanently broken (I'm not sure how Dier suffered such a catastrophic breakdown in his fitness but he has).
2) We have no distribution from deep midfield - the above tendency is compounded by the inability of our deep midfield players to play accurate long balls from deep. Xhaka is a macaron, but he gave Arsenal one thing yesterday that we lacked - long, accurate, raking passes into the channels for their pacy forwards to chase. Our defense can usually do this with Toby + Jan, but teams have wisened up to this and close them down quick when they're on the ball, because they know they have no options. They can't ease the pressure by passing to Hugo (he'll miskick it), or the flanks (will get to that), or Sissoko, or Winks. So their long passes usually go to the opponent, and we turn possession over.
3) Our flanks are a major weakness - everyone saw this coming. *Everyone*. And yet, we made the mistake of going with our full-back roster of Foyth, KWP, Aurier, Rose and Davies. It isn't good enough for a team at our level - I feel fairly confident in saying that four of the top six have better full-backs than we do, with United being the only possible exception. And given how much we rely on wing-backs to create overloads and provide width, it's a terminal weakness. Either get better wing-backs, or shift the system to not rely on them so much (for example, by shifting to a 3-man back-line and letting Son stay wide + Rose/Sessegnon provide permanent width on the left). We didn't do either, and don't seem like doing either.
4) Our players are just mentally all over the place - I don't know why this is, but for some reason, no one feels like they're on the same level this year (and indeed, since January 2019). Kane's strolling around up front, barely pressing - the defense is panicked into making easy mistakes and give-aways, and our vaunted press is *gone*. We fail to press, and when we do try, the opposition easily plays around it. Something's missing - motivation, energy, fitness or togetherness. But it's worrying.
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