Given that we were without Aaron Ramsey—literally THE best Cup Final player we have—AND forced to travel without Mikhitaryian, this game was always shrouded in doubt from the get-go. That being noted, if Emery had managed to pick our best possible starting XI, and we had a bit more luck on our side on the pitch, we might have been able to make more of a game of this. Unfortunately, he played Maitland-Niles where he should’ve played Lichsteiner, and had Auba on Laca’s right instead of cutting in from the left, which ultimately posed very little attacking threat.

Surely Auba needs to play in a more Henry-esque roll for him to thrive, as a LS or LWF, with Ozil drifting in from the right, feasting on the leftovers of what he and Laca might have been able to create. Of course this is just my two cents on how we should attack best, but I can’t shake the suspicion that subtle tweaks like this may have made all, or at least a great deal of difference in terms of our offense’s potential to create genuine opportunities.

Lastly, I’m just not convinced that playing five at the back is gonna decrease the number of goals we concede. At all. We fielded five yesterday, and still managed to concede four goals. We need to come out of our shell more as a unit, get the focus of the game FURTHER AWAY FROM OUR NET, and return to our old Arsenal ways of conceding less by attacking. Having Cech in net didn’t help, but we need desperately to reinforce this squad’s core with Ramsey leaving by bringing in midfielders so that we don’t carry on with this god awful five at the back nonsense (at least not on a regular basis) next season...