Arsenal are at a defining moment in their season and the choices before them are stark.
They can invest in the squad, reinvigorate the season and go full-throttle at the Premier League and Champions League or they can stagger on as they are until the reach breaking point. It’s as simple as that.
The Newcastle match in midweek laid bare for everyone to see the glaring shortcomings of this squad, the Manchester United game made them worse.
I didn’t think it was possible for us to be as wasteful, as frustrating, and as inept as we were in midweek but, inexplicably, we managed it. If anything, we were worse.
Again, we dominated the ball, the territory, the chances and, again, we conceded to the opponent’s first attack. Again, we laid siege to the visitor’s goal, creating outstanding chances, and, again, we failed to take them. This time, though, the advantage was even greater. United were reduced to 10 men for almost an hour and we were even gifted a (soft) penalty to make things simpler. Still, we came away with nothing.
There’s no doubting our luck has been especially bad this season, with injuries the worst they have been for a while and refereeing continuing to amaze and baffle in equal measure. Despite that, though, there is simply no excusing the finishing we are seeing. I titled the last blog ‘high, wide and not very handsome’ and this was higher, wider and uglier, some of the worst finishing you will see from a Premier League side.
Right across our attack, or what remains of it, it seems to have spread like a disease; the inability to put away simple chances, to find the killer pass, to take advantage of the spaces and opportunities we have created. Things are so bad that it seems our centre backs are the most likely to score a goal at any given moment while our forwards continue to look on in bemusement. Our over-reliance on Bukayo Saka has finally been exposed. A player hitherto seemingly bullet proof has finally been broken and the facade of our attacking efficiency has gone with him.
Worse still is the sense of fatigue that is creeping over this squad with every match. From game to game, we seem to lose another player to serious injury and our options, already constrained, get worse. We’re at the point now where we have more first choice players out through injury than we have available and this is a crisis of the manager’s making.
The seemingly serious injury to Gabriel Jesus last night means Mikel must now act to address the gaping holes in this squad. A failure to do so would be negligence, if it isn’t already.
There’s been a lot from the manager about only moving for a player ‘who improves us’ as if this is sufficient justification for our constipation in the market but the truth is we’re at a point where there are literally hundreds of players who would fit the bill and who are available. Deals absolutely need to be done and can be done. The only thing preventing them, it seems to me, is the manager.
Nobody could have watched us over the last year and come to the conclusion that we have sufficient options available to us in attack. The club even admitted as such after we crashed out of the Champions League to Bayern Munich last March. And yet, despite that, we are a weaker squad now than we were then, further bereft of options and form. It cannot go on.
The only silver lining to the last week is that we now have fewer fixtures to play and our league season remains undented by back-to-back defeats. But, if we don’t see change, it’s a matter of time before what remains of our title challenge turns to ashes too.
As United and Newcastle showed, if you sit deep, throw bodies in the way and ride your luck a little, you can get the better of this Arsenal side. You don’t need to be spectacular, you just need to put your chances away because we are so toothless in the final action.
Spurs come to town on Wednesday night and this is one game in which defeat cannot be countenanced. This run of amateurish finishing, of comical misfortune, must end because this entire campaign is hurtling towards the precipice and a continuation of the status quo will send it hurtling into the abyss.
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