Arsenal's new permanent recruit Martin Odegaard had a second full Premier League debut to forget after a dismal 5-0 defeat to Man City.
Odegaard, 22, re-signed for Mikel Arteta's side in a £30million move away from La Liga heavyweights Real Madrid last week and despite playing well in his Carabao Cup debut midweek against West Brom, his second Premier League debut didn't go to plan.
Granit Xhaka's red card at the tail end of the first half resulted in the Norwegian's impact being limited as he was involved in a second-half team that only had damage limitation on the agenda.
His expected assists (xA) ranked at a low of 0.01 on Saturday afternoon but this would have been a similar pattern among the other Arsenal attackers in this contest with the limited ball they were being given by a dominant Pep Guardiola side.
It was a theme that was reflected in Martin Keown's post-match verdict on this current Arsenal side.
Keown told BT Sport: "I feel numb. I wouldn’t say embarrassed but it’s becoming a little bit embarrassing. I think after you lose the first game against Brentford, you know you’ve got Chelsea and Manchester City to follow.
"The game against Norwich is a huge game. Norwich play Leicester and they will want to win that to get out of the bottom three, but you could be looking at the two bottom sides.
"It’ll be a massive game and tactically every time they set up, they seem very naive."
Players did show some heart after the final whistle to go and applaud the despondent and confused fanbase, who looked resigned to more mediocrity in this new season.
Among the players was Odegaard, who looked upset and dejected, but could be seen by the BT Sport cameras holding his hands up to the Arsenal fans as if to say sorry for the performance.
His facial expression summed up the feeling that is universal all across the club at this moment with Arteta's side languishing at the bottom of the Premier League table.
Here is how a few fans on Twitter reacted to seeing the Norwegian ace show bravery to confront the fans on this specific occasion.
@carldelarae tweeted: 'feel sorry for Odegaard he looks totally heart broken.'
@TheVillain07 similarly put: 'Feel sorry of Odegaard... man been hoed out by Real Madrid, final signed with a club to really get his foot in, only to be on the wrong end of a 3 game losing streak...
@Hale_End_Era was brutal in his verdict of the 11 players who fell to such a heavy defeat on Saturday afternoon.
He expressed his feelings: 'Feel sorry for Odegaard tbh. Came from Real Madrid, PL debut against City, down 4 goals and a man down as well.'
The international break has given everyone at the club some much-needed respite as they now plan a way to end this nightmare start to the new campaign.
Maybe against Norwich, we could see the best of the 22-year-old who will certainly have more of the ball against last season's Championship winners.
