The knives have been out for Arsenal since Sunday’s 2-2 draw with Sp*rs with many sections of the media questioning our ability to keep pace with Manchester City.
While the Gunners remain unbeaten in the Premier League, the fact the reigning champions have already opened up a four-point advantage has led to a lot of teeth-gnashing and a fair bit of finger-pointing.
Depending on where you get your football fix, Arsenal aren’t creating enough chances, aren’t scoring enough goals, can’t cope with the rigours of balancing Champions League football with domestic matters, the manager doesn’t know how to manage his squad and we need to buy a clinical striker.
While Mikel Arteta admits his side can improve, he also made clear that it’s not been a disastrous start to the new campaign.
“It’s the expectations that we created and it’s the culture that we created,” he told his pre-Brentford press conference.
“We want to win every single match. So yeah, we have won six matches, drawn two, won a title (the Community Shield) and it’s not enough.
“We have six players injured; top, top, top players injured. It is what it is. We want to get better, that’s for sure.”
He added: “On Wednesday night [against PSV Eindhoven], we were incredible, it was a joy to watch, we were incredible. Then three days later you draw a match in the conditions that we draw and you have to improve. But certainly, it’s about consistency and hitting the level that we want every day. We have to improve that’s for sure. We want to be better.”
While Arteta knows his players need to stop making the individual errors that blemished the end of last season and have influenced results since August – substitute Jorginho was the latest to cost the Gunners on Sunday – he also made clear that error-free football is the stuff of fantasy.
“Mistakes and errors are a part of football, it’s inevitable and it happens,” he said.
“Sometimes you have to be lucky when you make one and the opponent doesn’t punish you. It wasn’t the case. Obviously when the ball falls to [James] Maddison and they have Son in front of the ball, it cannot get any worse than that. They proved the quality that they have to finish those actions off.
“It’s a shame because that was the moment, the turning point in the game, to be on top of it. It was probably the best moment that we had in the game, but we have to accept that as well. When that happens, there are other factors as well that contribute to it and move on.”
We suspect behind closed doors, Arteta’s attitude to such mistakes isn’t so polite, however, admonishing players in public isn’t his style nor is it particularly helpful when you know you have to rely on them again.
On a lack of clinical finishing, he added: “Eddie [Nketiah] had a huge chance, one against one, before 1-0, then Gabby [Jesus] had another one, but again, those are defining moments in big matches.
“You have to be there in the box and make the difference. We talked about, after PSV, that we were exceptional, and three days later we lacked that as well to win the game, but this is football.
“It’s the hardest thing in football to put the ball in the net at the right moment with the right time. It changes and every striker misses chances. You see it all across the league. It’s efficiency that we have, but at the weekend we didn’t have the efficiency we needed because the game would’ve changed in a really positive way for us.”
lets hope that by the time we play ESR ahead of Kai, we’ve have not given up on a top 4
Arteta seems to have difficulty in learning from his mistakes. We struggled defensively last season and we’re still struggling this season.
We have three urgent problems now.
1. HE HAS TO MAKE THE TEAM MORE DIFFICULT TO SCORE AGAINST
2. WE NEED A QUALITY STRIKER
3. WE NEED TO SORT OUT THE HAVERTZ DEBACLE AND PRODUCE AN EFFECTIVE MIDFIELD
If he doesn’t sort this out then we will continue to go nowhere.
We need to get our injured players back. Similar to our season falling off once Saliba and Tomi were missing, we have been very unlucky to lose both our left wingers and both our CDMs.
If we had a full squad we would have beaten Sp*rs.
Spurs’s first goal came from an error by Saka, a first teamer
Right … and your contention is that nothing involving the rest of the team happened at any point before or after that mistake to influence the outcome of the game?
We had Jesus back for this game and Arteta stick him out wide and played an ineffective Eddie down the middle. No matter the injuries that was a bad decision.
Playing Raya over Ramsdale was again nothing to do with injuries. Another bad decision.
Playing Havertz right now, no matter the injury situation is a bad decision.
We have four LW. ESR, Nelson too. The crazy decisions in this game for mine are (1) to push Jesus outwide when we are so deadly with him up top, (2) not to play ESR on the wing, just nuts. The kid saved Arteta’s bacon and is now not even trusted to play more than injury time. (3) Bringing on Jorgs to play as a lone #6 vs a team pressing and salivating at playing direct football on the break. (4) that decision was further compounded by playing Jorgs in midfield with Havertz, who was fecking useless in this game.… Read more »
Xhaka out and Havertz in has definitely made us a worse team.
Not sure how anyone can disagree with this. I was never much of a Xhaka fan, but he earned my respect at the end, but without question we’d be a better team right now with him instead of Havertz as #8. Sure it’s early days for Havertz, but warning bells are sounding very loudly. He’s so easily bullied off the ball (for a 190cm, 85kg guy that is bloody pathetic), he’s adding little to our attack, his workrate isn’t up to the standards of those around him, and he just plain looks like he doesn’t care.
The entire team is in transition. The anti Havertz chorus may ultimately be correct but that won’t change the fact that, at this point, they don’t have enough data to definitively come to that conclusion (in fact most of that chorus held the opinion before he even signed). Also, how you think he looks is completely irrelevant.
Actually – if this continues and we draw 2 of every 6 games we’ll finish with 88 points – 2 more than last season. And if Manc$ win every game they’ll win the league I’d bet…
CAPITALS the choice of emphasis for all rational and reasonable people.
Against psv we had Jesus up front saka and trossard wide and odegarrd linking behind and jeez it was beautiful to watch. Lots of games last season were similar. I think the scum game draw is on Arteta this time. He got the line up wrong and we just never linked up offensively.
midfield was a shamble as well.
The ball definitely did not just “fall” to Maddison…
Very interesting choice of words there from Arteta.
And PSV is not Sprs. Do you agree?
Absolutely they are much better. 21 games unbeaten, top of league scored 13 against 1. They are definitely not the scum and we dismantled them by playing Jesus centre forward and very skilful technically gifted players around him.
Given the injury list, this is the team that should start:
Ramsdale
Tomiyasu
Saliba
Gabriel
Kiwior
Jorginho
Havertz
ESR
Odegard
Nelson
Jesus
1-0 to the Arsenal.
Rammers
Cedric-Walters-Kiwior-Tomi
Elneny
Jorgs-Havertz
ESR-Eddie-Nelson
Possibly even bring in a youngster(s) for Jorgs and/or Havertz.
Shouldn’t be shocked by the media reaction but the way they’re talking, you’d have thought we were in a relegation scrap. Especially annoying considering that City have played two poor promoted sides, one of which they barely scraped by and who were subsequently trounced 8-0 at home.
Agreed, we want to be better.
Start with bringing back an award winning keeper who hasn’t really put a glove wrong.
Give Eddie a test when it’s clear he’s not firing a play Jesus central.
Stop thinking Havertz is the answer no matter where you play him.
Stop tinkering when there’s no need. Yes rotate but don’t overthink.
Thank you
Play your best players in their best position
Kai, ESR, Trossard, Vieira, Nketiah, and Nelson are back up to
Saka, Martin, Nelli With Jesus up front
Had Eddie missed Jesus’s chance he would of been slaughtered, Eddie’s one was a tight angle but he still got it on target, yeh agree not Eddie’s best game this season but there was others who failed to reach their high standards also, it is disappointing not to win against sp*rs but its not like the wheels have come off, this blame culture be it Miki’s/Eddie’s/Jorginhos is too much, lets not forget we are unbeaten and we move on..
There’s something called passing and ball carrying in football. Eddie can’t do any of those. He won’t get fed for tab ins all the time if he doesn’t do the same for his teammates. One of the reasons why Trossard and Saka and Jesus are elite is their ability to spot a teammate in better position. Martinelli is developing on that front as well. But he’s far better finisher than Saka ad Jesus and hence gets a little lease. At this point I’d rather play ESR as CF than Eddie. He reminds me of Auba minus Auba’s killer direct shots.… Read more »
Think Arteta is missing a beat with Ramsdale. The personality and the energy counts too
It was a disappointing affair for Arsenal. I’m sure Spurs were surprised by getting something from the game. Arteta keeps saying Arsenal don’t need a striker, I’d argue that.