Where do we go from here?

Turns out there was nothing much funny about Saturday’s visit of Everton.

I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t expected to win the game – and win it comfortably – and I didn’t expect anything of substance from Sean Dyche’s side, who are languishing in the lower reaches of the Premier League.

And I was correct, at least in part, about the visitors. They really didn’t have anything about them; no ambition, no guile, no threat. All they brought was a grim, bone-headed determination not to concede a goal but that was enough.

I think it’s fair to criticise Arsenal and Mikel Arteta for not being aggressive or adventurous enough. Perhaps they thought patience would win the day against a side that is, after all, not particularly good but it was obvious to most who were watching that slow, steady football was not going to win the day.

Everything happened in front of Everton and that is the way they wanted it. Anything they didn’t manage to deal with in the first instance was mopped up by Jordan Pickford in goal. That is the way they would have planned it and trained for it and it worked perfectly. There were some troublesome moments for them, and a few bits and pieces of good fortune, but you would struggle to say they were unduly troubled.

This season, that has been problem number one for Arteta’s men. In matches where they score an early goal or get ahead, they, more often than not, go on to win it handsomely. We saw it at West Ham, at Sporting, and against Monaco. In all three games they were free-flowing and, at times, unplayable for their opponents.

However, if the opponent is able to get a foothold or simply frustrate the Gunners for long enough, they look rudderless and unable to respond. We’ve needed a proper striker for 18 months but goals and good football elsewhere have largely papered over the cracks. This season, however, the cracks are bursting through again and we haven’t been able to mask it.

We rely too heavily on the brilliance of Bukayo Saka. I think we all knew that anyway but it was against Everton and against Fulham a week or so ago that that reliance was laid bare. If he can’t find a way, nobody can. There is nobody else capable of stepping up, of the sort of individual brilliance to change a game or make a goal out of a half-chance. There are too many nearly men.

That failure to recruit in the attacking areas of the pitch is on Arteta and Edu. They have prioritised the defence side of the squad and, while their is nothing wrong in that per se, it has been at the expense of the attacking side. Throw into the mix the decision to sell Emile Smith Rowe and loan out Fabio Vieira, without either player being replaced and you have a squad that is arguably weaker than it was at this point last year. Our results to date bear that out.

So where do we go from here?

In the Premier League, I think our race is run. Yes, Liverpool also dropped points at home but it is in those weeks that, as a title-chasing side, you absolutely must make hay. Our failure to close the gaps two weeks in a row, against sides we really should be beating, leaves us adrift.

Should we abandon the pursuit and refocus on the cup competitions? Perhaps we’ll have a better idea of that early in the new year when we’ve cleared through the fixtures that are piling up but it does look increasingly like the title is drifting away while we remain stranded.

The only positive we have at the moment is the sheer frequency of fixtures coming down the line. We’re back in action against on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup and that gives us a chance at least to progress into the latter stages of a cup competition.

As for the league, we’ll simply have to wait and see but, as of this morning, the joke is on us.