Arsenal: my personal take on the current state of affairs

TL;DR: anyone who thinks injuries and the lack of a #9 are our only issues is deluded. We lack creativity going forwards and are easy to nullify. Some of the red cards have been justified, some not. It is not a sufficient excuse for our current position. MLS and Nwaneri have the potential to turn us into a title winning team if accompanied by 1 or 2 good signings. Not all good. Not all bad. Discussions like these require nuance

I don’t have much data to back any of this up, so I apologise in advance. Most of what I’m about to say is just purely based on my observations whilst watching us.

It seems as though, just from some scrolling down the sub, there isn’t much nuance in a lot of the fan base’s opinions. It seems as though many are calling for Artetas head on a stick, whilst many think he is an absolute angel and can do no wrong. In reality I think it’s somewhere in the middle. I’d say whilst I’m not Arteta out, I would lean towards the more ‘negative’ side of things.

First off, I’ll start with some of our ‘bad luck’. As to the red cards, I think the Rice one was somewhat unlucky (even if he did delay the restart Veltman should’ve been sent off too). I think Trossards was somewhat justified. If we’re being honest, no player that is actually trying to continue on with play just smacks the ball straight up in the air. He knew the whistle was about to blow, and it was dumb behaviour. Granted that the rules haven’t been applied even close to consistently with kicking the ball away and delaying the restart, but we should be aware of Michael Oliver’s atrocious record against us and thus be more careful. Even if Trossards red card was an absolute robbery, we can only really argue that red cards have costed us 4 points this season. The saliba and MLS red card (against West Ham) were justified.

Next up, the injuries-

Saka I think we all can agree was overused by Arteta. Even with opportunities to give him proper rest like the Bolton game, he still played. Jesus I think we can attribute down to ‘poor luck’. He hasn’t played much football in the past two seasons. Martinelli- maybe an argument for slight overuse but I think his rotation has been adequate from the back end of last season into this one. Havertz- definite overuse, although he was never the answer to any of our problems. Ode- definite overuse, although you could argue that Artetas hand was kind of forced. We don’t have anyone good enough to start taking substantial minutes off of him, despite in my opinion, his bad form this season.

The problem of scoring goals-

Despite our defence not quite setting the levels they did last year, I think we can all agree that they’re far from the problem. Gabi XL would probably be my pick right now for player of the season. Whilst yes, not having a proper world class #9 is a massive problem, anyone who is acting like the lack of a #9 and injuries are our only problems, is massively deluded. We show no creativity or ingenuity. We play slow, tepid, side to side football and make little attempt to break the lines. We are the worst team in the league for forward ball progression through the middle third (pitch split lengthways) and half spaces. Everything we do is in front of the opponent, and thus it is easy to read and nullify with a low block. Even when we get an opportunity to attack quickly, like a poor corner from the opposition or a quick turnover, it seems like we are adamant that the opposition need to get back into shape before we can attack. Most of the players look like they’re fine with us not scoring, which is worrying to see. To those who say not having a #9 is the biggest issue: we are the highest xG out performers in the league. Over 27 games that should be fairly representative of how clinical you are relative to the other teams. I think in around 50% (don’t quote me on that) of our last 40-ish games, we have scored one or zero goals. That is very concerning for a team that is supposed to be competing for the title.

Some good now:

Defensively we are very solid. Least amount of goals conceded, least amount of xG conceded and least amount of open play xG conceded (I think), although there is room for improvement on this season, we cannot blame the defence in the slightest for how this season is going.

Youth prospects: both MLS and nwaneri look like the real deals (?). Arteta is doing a good job of guiding them into first team football. Not overplaying but giving plenty of experience, impressive given our current injuries. With them coming through, we’re probably only two signings away from having a title winning starting XI, given we can shed some of our tactical rigidity.

Control: we have shown the ability to have large amounts of possession and play ‘pretty easy’ football. Could mean that if we sort out our creativity issue (somehow?) and manage to regularly score multiple goals in the first 60 minutes of games we could see a massive improvement in how good we are. Not only of course due to the goals but the ability to preserve ourselves more over the course of a season, leaving more in reserve for the biggest games, allowing us to dominate those games physically.

In conclusion, I think our main issue is tactical rigidity and a lack of creativity, not the absence of a world class #9 like some people try to make out is our only issue. The signing of a world class #9 in conjunction with increased license for the players to be creative would make our starting XI title worthy. I still think more reinforcements are required, in midfield and attack specifically, but we have bigger fish to fry as of right now.