Mark your calendars people, the annual Arsenal meltdown is here. It hasn’t come as early as last season’s Unai Emery disaster but its a lot sooner compared to the usual February capitulation that coincided with the yearly Champions League exit in the late Wenger years. Following Arsenal’s 2-0 thrashing by rivals Tottenham Hotspur, they sit 15th in the league and have lost 6 of their last 9 games in the Premier League. This is the worst start to an Arsenal season in 45 years, and rock bottom just keeps on getting deeper and deeper. The quiet optimism of the summer has dwindled away, replaced by the eventual resignation and acceptance of Arsenal’s mediocrity. Mikel Arteta was declared a genius in August post his fantastic FA Cup success, but just 4 months later there are already some doubting his credibility.
And if the losses aren’t bad enough, the football being played is even more worrisome. Tottenham were comfortable winners on Sunday night as Arsenal failed to register more than 2 shots on Target despite attempting 44 crosses throughout the game. The week before that Wolves dominated Arsenal in their 2-1 victory at the Emirates and were comfortably the better side, as were Leeds United and Aston Villa in their respective meetings with Arsenal in November. When Arteta first took charge of the squad in December 2019 there seemed to be a revitalised hunger amongst the squad which was evident from their pressing and intensity on the pitch. Cut to today, the pressing is a shadow of what it was and the body language of most players stink. Arsenal is approaching games as relegation contenders, happy to nick a 1-0 but just content with defending. It feels like creative expression has been outlawed on the pitch and it does not look like it is getting any better.
The numbers are bad. Arsenal has scored only 10 goals this season, and only one from open play in the last 7 games. Forget scoring, even a shot on target is a rare occurrence at Arsenal matches these days with the Gunners averaging just 3 shots on target in the league this season (ranked 17th amongst PL clubs). With no Mesut Ozil in the side, Arsenal is also struggling on the creative front. The Gunners average only 15 Shot Creating Actions Per 90 (ranked 16th amongst PL clubs) and 6 Key Passes per 90 which are both indicators of relegation form. Arsenal is also laboured in possession and they struggle to get the ball up the pitch. This is indicated by the fact that Arsenal has the 2nd most touches in the league in their own defensive penalty area but rank 11th in the league for touches in the attacking third. This shows that Arsenal is happy to keep the ball in their own half but struggle to convert their possession into chances. These indicators show that Arsenal’s league position is no fluke or temporary problem, the numbers are bad, and Arsenal are bad.
So who is to blame for this catastrophic disaster. The answer to that is unfortunately not as simple as it should be. This has been a 10-year gradual slide towards mediocrity. The guilty parties include the owners the Kroenke’s, Arsene Wenger, Unai Emery, Mikel Arteta, Ivan Gazidis (Ex-CEO), Raul Sanllehi (Ex-Director of Football), Vinai Venkateshem (Current CEO) and Edu Gaspar (Current Technical Director). It’s a collective cataclysmic failure from each of these individuals that lead to where Arsenal are today, a shadow of their former self. The final dagger was Tottenham Hotspur, a team they finished ahead of in the league for 21 seasons between 1995 and 2016 beating Arsenal to go 11 points clear of them within 11 games of the season.
There have been many mistakes made by Arsenal over the years but the more you look at it this summer was a complete failure for the club. Arsenal failed to offload any of the excess weight in the squad and was hamstrung by the mistakes made in previous windows. They desperately needed to sell some of the underperforming players and free up funds but the only significant sale made was Emiliano Martinez. They failed to find suitors for wantaway midfielders Torreira and Guendouzi and were forced to loan them out on deadline day. Mesut Ozil was completely omitted from the squad and has been earning 350k a week to send shots to Piers Morgan on Twitter. They failed to orchestrate a loan move for William Saliba who was signed for 30 million in 2019 and he has been stuck playing with the under-23’s. On top of that despite struggling to create chances last season the only attacking signing brought to the club was a 32-year-old Willian on a free transfer. Yes, the pandemic has affected all European clubs but Chelsea and Tottenham were able to significantly improve their squad in the off-season but the same can’t be said about Arsenal. The reality is that for the time being Arsenal possess a squad of overpaid players that are mid-table at best.
So where do Arsenal go from here? Hitting the reset button and sacking the manager is not going to change anything. There are deeper issues at the club currently that Arteta simply walked into. A new manager will be left with the same set of players (Lacazette, Xhaka, Bellerin, Holding, Mustafi, Luiz) who struggled under Wenger’s reign, down tooled under Emery in 2019 and are doing the same now under Arteta. This is the toughest period arguably in the clubs 135-year history and changing the manager solves none of the problems at hand. Yes, Arteta picks the team and the tactics and does deserve the blame for recent results. But he needs time to develop his philosophy and actually buy the players that he believes can carry out his vision. The scars of the mistakes made by previous managers and executives are still very much prevalent and it will take time for them to heal and be corrected. Unfortunately for Arsenal and Arteta, he needs to apply the bandages soon because the clock is already ticking and the time may well run out.