{"id":292316,"date":"2023-10-04T07:24:12","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T07:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=292316"},"modified":"2023-10-04T07:24:12","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T07:24:12","slug":"owen-hits-out-at-sluggish-zinchenko-in-arsenals-shock-loss-to-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/owen-hits-out-at-sluggish-zinchenko-in-arsenals-shock-loss-to-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"Owen hits out at &apos;sluggish&apos; Zinchenko in Arsenal&apos;s shock loss to Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Michael Owen calls out a &#8216;sluggish&#8217; Arsenal star for his role in shock defeat by Lens and suggests he can&#8217;t last 90 minutes&#8230; as ex-Gunners hero Martin Keown insists he &#8216;got done&#8217;<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Arsenal were beaten 2-1 by French outfit in the Champions League on Tuesday\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Pundits Michael Owen and Martin Keown were critical of Oleksandr Zinchenko<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Listen to the latest episode of Mail Sport&#8217;s podcast &#8216;It&#8217;s All Kicking Off!&#8217;\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Arsenal defender Oleksandr Zinchenko was labelled &#8216;sluggish&#8217; by pundit Michael Owen after the club&#8217;s shock 2-1 loss to Lens on Tuesday &#8211; while club legend Martin Keown claimed he &#8216;got done&#8217; for the French side&#8217;s winning goal.<\/p>\n<p>The Gunners were beaten for the first time this season as the Ligue 1 outfit picked up a famous victory in what was their first Champions League appearance at home for more than 20 years.<\/p>\n<p>Mikel Arteta&#8217;s men went ahead through a great finish from Gabriel Jesus before Adrien Thomasson levelled the scores. Elye Wahi then put Lens in front with 20 minutes to go &#8211; with the Ukrainian guilty of being pulled out of position and allowing\u00a0Przemyslaw Frankowski to run in behind.<\/p>\n<p>Wahi then converted to convert what would prove to be the winning goal and former Liverpool and Man United star Owen was highly critical of Zinchenko&#8217;s involvement, questioning why he &#8216;gave himself away so easily&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Zinchenko is halfway house, isn&#8217;t he,&#8217; he told TNT Sports.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76146083-12591809-image-a-2_1696398455054.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Oleksandr Zinchenko has been dubbed &#8216;a halfway house&#8217; after his difficult night for Arsenal in their 2-1 loss to Lens<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76146111-12591809-image-m-8_1696398498213.jpg\" height=\"434\" width=\"306\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76146105-12591809-image-a-9_1696398507209.jpg\" height=\"434\" width=\"306\"><\/p>\n<p>Michael Owen called him &#8216;sluggish&#8217; for his role in Lens&#8217; winning goal, while former Gunners star Martin Keown said the defender &#8216;got done&#8217; for the second goal<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He has to either get close and affect the ball \u2013 either tackle or bring the player down or something \u2013 or he stays where he is.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But he can&#8217;t give himself away so easily. Sluggish. As soon as he was played around: sluggish.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We were talking before, he often gets brought off in games. Can he last games fitness-wise and stuff like that? He looked tired there when Lens played the one-two pass.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Keown agreed with Owen and said Zinchenko committed himself too much, admitting he would have been disappointed if a similar goal had been scored against him during his playing days.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76146163-12591809-image-a-12_1696398693117.jpg\" height=\"425\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Zinchenko found himself pulled out of position to allow\u00a0Elye Wahi to net the winner<\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I think Zinchenko just gets done, doesn&#8217;t he,&#8217; Keown said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He goes in too much. For me, I&#8217;d have just waited for [the Lens player] to come on, I wouldn&#8217;t have thrown myself in there. Little one-two behind him, attacks the space.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;And then the marking in the box. You&#8217;ve got to mark in the box!<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;I know that they&#8217;re in a line there trying to deal with the ball that&#8217;s coming across, but you can&#8217;t pick out a player with that.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s a wonderful finish, he comes onto it beautifully, but I&#8217;d have been really disappointed if he scored that goal against me. You have to, as the second central defender there, be looking to pick up inside the box.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>A difficult game for Arsenal was compounded by an injury to winger Bukayo Saka &#8211; just before the Gunners play Man City in a crucial title clash.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76131423-12591809-Mikel_Arteta_left_will_he_hoping_his_injury_is_not_major_with_Sa-a-10_1696398530342.jpg\" height=\"436\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Arsenal&#8217;s difficult evening was compounded by an injury to star winger Bukayo Saka\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Arteta defended his decision to play the England international but admitted the injury &#8216;doesn&#8217;t look good&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>Asked later if he regretted picking Saka following his issues against both Tottenham and Bournemouth, Arteta replied: &#8216;No. It was a knock that he had the other day and he was perfectly fine. It was a backheel, an action that can produce that kind of injury.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Let&#8217;s see what the extent of it is and afterwards it&#8217;s too late. The last few were more knocks than anything else. He hasn&#8217;t really missed games. We gave him a break against Brentford (in the Carabao Cup) last week and that was all.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He tried to backheel a ball in the first half and felt something muscular. He felt uncomfortable to carry on so we had to take him off. We don&#8217;t know anything more. It was big enough not to allow him to continue to play the game and that&#8217;s a worry for us.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2023\/10\/04\/06\/76132795-12591809-The_Gunners_suffered_their_first_defeat_of_the_season_in_Wednesd-a-11_1696398532888.jpg\" height=\"428\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The Gunners suffered their first defeat of the season in Wednesday&#8217;s Champions League tie<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;He was really looking forward to playing like every player. It was a big Champions League night. I painted a picture and the type of scenario we were going to face today and they all knew about it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;But this Champions League is so difficult to win away from home. Today we take a big lesson.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Discussing the disappointing defeat, Arteta was keen to avoid &#8216;excuses&#8217;, adding:\u00a0 &#8216;First of all, congratulations to Lens. They are a really good side. Really well coached. We knew it was going to be a really tough match.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;In the boxes we had four or five chances we didn&#8217;t put away and we didn&#8217;t defend the boxes well enough.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s true there were moments in the second half we struggled to be more threatening in the final third and find spaces.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;They defended with those numbers really good. That&#8217;s something to take for the next game.&#8217;<\/p>\n<h3>IT&#8217;S ALL KICKING OFF!\u00a0<\/h3>\n<p><span><span>It&#8217;s All Kicking Off is an exciting new podcast from Mail Sport that promises a different take on Premier League football.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><span>It is available on MailOnline, Mail+, YouTube, Apple Music and Spotify.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Your browser does not support iframes.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2017\/08\/02\/636x90_facebook_ad_sport.png\" width=\"636\" height=\"90\"><br \/>\nSource: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/sport\/football\/article-12591809\/Michael-Owen-hits-sluggish-Oleksandr-Zinchenko-Arsenals-shock-defeat-Lens-dubs-defender-halfway-house-ex-Gunners-star-Martin-Keown-insists-defender-got-winning-goal.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Michael Owen calls out a &#8216;sluggish&#8217; Arsenal star for his role in shock defeat by Lens and suggests he can&#8217;t last 90 minutes&#8230; as ex-Gunners hero Martin Keown insists he &#8216;got done&#8217; Arsenal were beaten 2-1 by French outfit in the Champions League on Tuesday\u00a0 Pundits Michael Owen and Martin Keown were critical of Oleksandr [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292315,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Owen hits out at &amp;apos;sluggish&amp;apos; Zinchenko in Arsenal&amp;apos;s shock loss to Lens - Sports Life Tale<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/soccer\/owen-hits-out-at-sluggish-zinchenko-in-arsenals-shock-loss-to-lens\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Owen hits out at &amp;apos;sluggish&amp;apos; 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