The unravelling of our Premier League season was slow at first but then accelerated until it hit the buffers at breakneck speed.
The only real surprise was that we limped on for as long as we did as we relied on makeshift formations and individual brilliance to keep our ship afloat.
At Nottingham Forest, though, the grim reality of our situation could be concealed no more. There Gunners are worryingly toothless up top, to the extent that teams feel they can push extra bodies into midfield and take a risk with their numbers in defence.
That should set alarm bells ringing.
If we’re to salvage anything from this season, it’s going to have to come in the knock-out football of the Champions League, where you don’t necessarily need to be in top form at all times to progress. You can be much savvier than that.
Ultimately, though, we will need to score goals at some point to give ourselves something to defend, something to believe in and fight for. Tonight, against PSV, we have to show we can offer a meaningful threat.
Good defending and smart midfield play is one thing, progressing the ball into the final third is great, but you have to be able to do something with it when you arrive. For weeks now, we simply haven’t been able to take that final step. Tonight we simply have to.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating for frenzied, heedless, all-out attack. This is a two-legged tie and throwing it away before we’ve even reached half-way would be downright foolish. But I don’t want to see us pinning all our hopes on the home leg because that can only end in disaster. Showing some ambition, some intent and some end product in the Netherlands is essential.
It’s not the end of the world if we come away with a goalless draw but it feels like that would simply kick the can down the road while we attempt to huff and puff our way out of this attacking malaise.
Mikel Arteta is trying, we can all see that. He’s tinkering with positioning, with personnel, with combinations but the reality is, at the moment, it’s all ending with the same result. We could do with a much bigger slice of luck, for sure, but we can’t trust to that this season because we’ve had next to none.
Until we get some bodies back, that is to say Gabriel Martinelli and Bukayo Saka, we’ve got to be more incisive and we have to see more from our midfield. There are capable players in there but they’re trying to pick locks with a chisel. We don’t have the luxury of our best tools and we need to adapt.
Of course, for the moment, just getting the job done is all we truly need but there is a lot of football left to play this season and it’s clear we’re going to be short of options across the attacking third even with the aforementioned pair returning to contention, if indeed they do.
Our league season may have buffers but this European campaign chugs on. Now we need to build some momentum behind it.
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