Arsenal stumbled to their first defeat of the season at Bournemouth, losing 2-0 after William Saliba was sent off 30 minutes into the game. The Gunners have themselves to blame for the defeat. Well, mostly. We'll get to that later.

Arsenal looked disjointed and sluggish from kick-off. The Gunners were able to put together something of an attack without Martin Ødegaard in the lineup, especially because Bukayo Saka has been great this season. Taking Bukayo out of the lineup will give you *Gestures to the first 30 minutes of the attack* instead. It turns out that it's difficult to create an attacking threat when you don't have two of your three best attacking players who are both world-class footballers.

It also doesn't help that the pitch appeared to be heavily watered. Several of Arsenal's passes effectively stopped in transit early in the game and were much easier to complete as they were moving at normal speed. I have to address the question of whether clubs are allowed to use poor pitch quality to, for lack of a better term, level the playing field, but that is a criticism for another date.

Arsenal didn't lose because of a wet pitch, although the attacking combinations might have looked better at 11v11 with normal ball movement. But they might also have looked better if Mikel Arteta had opted to use a little more creativity on the ball, rather than three fighters in midfield with Declan Rice, Mikel Merino and Thomas Partey.

I could understand that using such a strong, combative midfielder against a big, physical team or a more difficult opponent would force you to defend more, but against Bournemouth it wasn't a good decision. The Cherries press hard and high, so you would rather have more technicians on the pitch who can get around and penetrate the press.

To be fair, this midfield trio did well against the press, but with Jorginho, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri all on the bench, the Gunners had no one dynamic in the middle of the park to back them up To get things going once the ball moved up the field. Leandro Trossard had been that player, but with Gabriel Martinelli only fit enough to be a substitute, the Belgian was moved to the left wing, where he was ineffective and, frankly, rather weak.

It was Leandro Trossard's ill-advised volley pass back to the Arsenal goal and to no one in particular that turned the game around. Bournemouth striker Evanilson had a kick on William Saliba, who pulled the Brazilian back ever so slightly and hit him with his heels as he cut across his back to bring him down. The referee initially gave Saliba a yellow card for the foul, but this was upgraded to a red card by VAR.

And that's where I have my problem. VAR should not interfere. At the start of the season, the Premier League made it clear that the hurdle for VAR intervention would be even higher this season. There is no clear and obvious error here. So far from the finish and with Ben White able to do a recovery run, there's no way to definitively decide whether it was DOGSO or not. It's not about whether what William Saliba did was DOGSO or not. In this case, once the call is made on the field, there isn't enough left to change that call. You can't say unequivocally that it was DOGSO. You could perhaps say that it was possibly, perhaps even probably, DOGSO. But that's still not enough to overturn the on-field decision.

It was also a stupid thing by William Saliba. Honestly, probably an instinctive move from a defender. You see a guy start to break away and you grab him a little to slow him down. It is probably also an instinct to commit the foul a few steps in midfield, because experience shows that it is far too far from the goal for it to be a red card. However, if you commit the foul closer to the goal, you are much more likely to be sent off.

There's also a good chance Saliba can play defensively from this position, even if Evanilson gets him the ball initially. With his speed and strength, he is likely to be able to pursue and impact any chance that arises. The ball rolled and bounced toward the center of the field. Evanilson should have gotten it under control, which would have slowed him down and either given Saliba himself time to come back and/or Ben White had time to come over. Saliba made the wrong decision (after Trossard's terrible back pass attempt) and Arsenal received maximum punishment for it.

After being reduced to 10 players, Arsenal appeared to be incredibly exposed on the right, particularly through Antoine Semenyo. Mikel Arteta's response has been to ax Raheem Sterling and bring in Jakub Kiwior, who plays out of position at right-back, partly because all other right-back options are injured, and move Ben White to RCB.

It's easy to criticize Mikel Arteta's decisions from the sidelines and after the fact. So I will do it. In response to the loss of a centre-back, it was perfectly acceptable to substitute a defender. But it seems foolish to eliminate the quick player who can hit an opponent on the counterattack (Sterling) in favor of Trossard, who didn't have a good game from the start. The threat created by Gabriel Martinelli when he came on as a substitute in the second half only reinforces this point. Quickly attacking the space left by an 11-man team to push forward to score against a 10-man opponent seemed to be the best way to snatch victory from a difficult situation .

And what could have been for Arsenal. Midway through the second half, Kepa Arrizabalaga played a pass straight to the Gunners on the edge of the penalty area, Kai Havertz and Declan Rice combined to create a great chance for Martinelli, but his shot flew too close to Kepa, who was able to hit it on the shoulder. Less than two minutes later, Bournemouth scored after an excellent corner kick routine.

About ten minutes later Arsenal were undone by another cruel back pass. This time Jakub Kiwior didn't get nearly enough of the ball back to David Raya, allowing Evanilson to run onto the ball. The Bournemouth attacker tried to get around David Raya, who turned left to get to the ball. Raya didn't get the ball, Evanilson, who already seemed slightly off balance, ran into it and the referee awarded a penalty. Justin Kluivert converted and that was all she wrote.

I don't have a big problem with the penalty, although it hurts a little because it was quite similar to the move that saw Bukayo Saka not awarded a penalty against Bayern Munich at the Emirates last season. I wonder how referees decide who caused the contact, because in both cases an attacker moves forward and meets a goalkeeper who moves laterally. Comparing the two cases (admittedly from different competitions), it seems as if the first call on the field determines the final decision. Given everything else going on in this game, that's pretty painful to type.

On the one hand, it's a little harder to feel accomplished today because Arsenal didn't play particularly well in the lead-up to the red card and we have questions about Mikel Arteta's decisions afterwards. Then again, Bournemouth didn't do anything of note until they got the better of a man. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Arsenal are the more likely team to turn around a poor performance with some second-half adjustments to get a result with 11 seconds to play.

Gabriel Martinelli, Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri all looked lively when they came off the bench. At least one of the latter pair probably should have been there from the start, assuming Martinelli was on the pitch count. Let's face it – Mikel Arteta isn't starting Ethan Nwaneri at this point, so it should have been Gabriel Jesus.

Arsenal are really missing Martin Ødegaard and Bukayo Saka and need to have one or both back for the Liverpool game, especially as Arsenal may need to score two or three goals with William Saliba suspended. If not, hopefully Mikel Arteta will realize he has been too conservative in his approach and throw caution to the wind. Ethan Nwaneri seems ready to make a breakthrough. I want Mikel Arteta to give him that chance. But I don't think that will happen – I think that's Arteta.

But I digress. William Saliba made an extremely rare wrong decision. David Raya had an unusually bad game. Arsenal made two terrible back passes. Maybe it's better that the team got a lot of stupid moments out of their system in the same game, rather than spreading the stupidity across several and costing the team even more points.

It's never good to lose points, but every team, even champions, has a bad game every now and then. Manchester City's results are currently much better than the underlying numbers. If they keep playing like this, they won't score points at the same pace. Liverpool lost to Nottingham Forest and have hardly played a difficult game. It's a long season. Unexpected things happen.

Arsenal have just lost their first game of the season, their first away Premier League game of the calendar year and only their second in the PL in 2024. The important thing is to regroup and move on. Last season, Arsenal's Christmas wobble spanned a few games that could be described as the stretch that “cost” Arsenal the title. It is imperative that this one bad result that every club will have does not turn into two or three bad results.

Arsenal are at home to Shakhtar Donetsk during the week before hosting Liverpool next weekend. It's nice to have this midweek game as an opportunity to cleanse the palate, right the ship and reset before a big competition on the weekend. Hopefully the Gunners take advantage and take care of their business in the Champions League and beyond.