Tony Cascarino has branded the whole club as ‘soft’ following their defeat at Watford.

The former Ireland international was echoing Troy Deeney’s comments following Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat at Watford. Arsenal lost a game of football, which meant it was prime time for all old cliches to come out.

“I look at it and I see a soft club from the very top of the club, where I think big brutal decisions have to be made – and that doesn’t happen,” Cascarino said, reports the Daily Star.

“I see it from the management and Arsene Wenger. Look, it wasn’t a penalty yesterday – that was never a pen for me – but that wasn’t the reason why the outcome was 2-1.

“I totally agree with Troy Deeney [who said Arsenal lacked the ‘cojones’ needed to win]. That goal at the end typified Arsenal, how vulnerable they were, and Watford seized on that.”

Deeney spoke to BT Sport via Sky Sports after the match and claimed Arsenal lost because they “lacked cojones”.

It was a very typical English response to an Arsenal defeat. Rather than examine the strategic reasons for Arsenal’s defeat, everyone jumped on the tried and tested sound bites. Unfortunately, Arsenal were far from their best against Watford.

Their first-half performance was decent enough to earn them a half-time lead, but they simply didn’t come out for the second half. Having failed to produce the quality in the final third to kill the game, they then lost their concentration and conceded a late winner.

I’ve felt such performances have become commonplace at Arsenal. There was an opportunity in the summer for significant change to occur, but Arsenal opted for more of the same.

Unsurprisingly, not a great deal has changed on the pitch, and such results will continue to happen I fear. Arsenal have a chance to get back to winning ways against Red Star Belgrade on Thursday in the Europa League.