Relative Failure

How bad are things at Arsenal? To judge by the Premier League table, where we sit 15th, they're pretty bad. To judge by recent form, they're calamitous. Over the last 5 league games, Arsenal have recorded 4 defeats and a solitary draw. This is the same as Sheffield United in 20th and is worse than every other team in between. That said, there are good reasons to believe that this marks the nadir of our season and that results will start to pick up. As is my habit, I'm going to look at points per season-third, a period long enough to remove the noise of short-term fluctuations but short enough to establish intra-season trends. Unai Emery was very consistent in his first season at Arsenal, recording 24, 23 & 23 points. Unfortunately for him, you need to average 25 per third to make top-4. He started his 2nd season with 17, was sacked, and the interim/changeover saw a slump to 14 in the middle third. Mikel Arteta oversaw a recovery in last season's final third to 25 points (finishing 8th), which coincided with a winning run in the FA Cup. The first third of this season (games 1-12) saw a slump to 13 points. One way of reading this is that Arsenal benefited from an Arteta bounce that has now dissipated. But it should also be noted that based on the final third of last season the squad is capable of a top-four finish (though that obviously won't happen in 2021). 

The second third has begun with a home draw against Southampton and an away defeat to Everton. Being charitable, the first saw a fightback and then some determination to hang on after Gabriel, one of the season's better performers, picked up a second yellow card, while the visit to Merseyside might have produced a point but for an own goal. Less charitably, neither game suggested an improvement in the team's ability to dominate games, and the EFL Cup exit to Manchester City this week showed how far we are off the pace of the "elite". But I think we need to give it to game 25 and the end of the second third before drawing any firm conclusions (and before panicking about relegation). Looking on the plus side again, we scored a goal in all three matches, which should not be under-valued given that scoring goals was fingered by many as our chief problem (in the league, we managed 10 over the first 12 games). To add to our woes, we have, not for the first time in the club's history, the problem of self-inflicted wounds in the form of unnecessary red cards for indiscipline. That's clearly an epiphenomenon that reflects anxiety within the squad.

The obvious, fundamental problem is a lack of a creative fulcrum in midfield. Fans who demand the return of Mesut Ozil have a point. He would undoubtedly provide that capability and I did myself advocate his better use during the final days of Emery. But I think this ignores the extent to which he thrived because of other players in a complementary system, notably those who could both break the first line to find him in space, either by intelligent passing (Wilshere) or clever running (Ramsay), and who were capable of then getting on the end of Ozil's through balls to bypass the second line of defence. The current squad simply isn't built for a number 10 of the willowly Ozil type, reflecting a wider disappearance of that role in elite football, and his declining effectiveness since 2018 simply reinforces that. Restoring him now might produce a short-term sugar rush, if only because it would stop Arsenal being so predictable, but it is no long-term solution and even his staunchest supporters would not expect the club to offer him another contract extension. I wouldn't rule out Arteta turning to him in desperation, but I suspect it would be the last throw of the dice.

As the fans have become fractious, what has most been called into question is Arteta's judgment, not just in sidelining Ozil (which may be a decision mandated by others in the club hierarchy anyway) but in persisting with Granit Xhaka, who hasn't discovered another gear and remains a disciplinary liability, and Willian, who is fast shaping up to be the worst premium buy the club has ever made. Of course, you have to ask what are the alternatives. I doubt there was a long-term plan to pair Xhaka with Partey, so you have to assume the acquisition of the latter points to the overdue departure of the former next summer. Despite the Ghanaian's frustrating injury, this still looks likely. The missing piece in the jigsaw cannot be a single player such as the much-heralded (or over-hyped) Houssem Aouar, as the club clearly needs depth, so I wouldn't be surprised to see investment in both the January and summer transfer windows. The Kroenke's would be mad not to pony up funds at this time, despite having their fingers burned over the fee paid for the largely disappointing Nicolas Pepé. Missing out on the Champions' Legaue largesse is one thing, but relegation would be a financial disaster for a club committed to a self-sustaining model and dependent on high ticket prices and matchday corporate entertaining.

Arteta's judgement has not only been questioned in terms of selection but in terms of game management, though I doubt the team's now traditional slow start is something he actively coaches. Decisions on substitutions have come under intense scrutiny: not only whether he waits too long to hook under-performers like Willian but whether he waits to long to replace injured players and risks aggravation. To be fair, this is the sort of chuntering that evaporates when the results are going your way, so I'm not inclined the support the idea that the manager simply doesn't know what he's doing. If there is a substantive criticism to make it is that Arsenal are too one-dimensional, being overly-reliant on attacks down the flanks. The poor return on crosses is not simply the result of technical deficiencies by the wide players or attackers, but that the opposition are usually in place to defend them. We occasionally manage to build quickly enough to prevent this happening, for example in the season opener against Fulham, but too often our build-ups are laboured. This is partly down to Xhaka's slowness and the cautious passing of Ceballos and Elneny, but it's also a result of opponents closing down our wide players in the initial move to force them to turn back or pass square. Some of the relative ineffectiveness of Aubameyang and Pepé is attibutable to this. 

Arsenal were famously criticised for not having a plan B during Wenger's later years, but that simply reflected the fact that the team had become predictable, despite his attempts to vary the approach to goal by mixing the very different styles of improvisational players such as Sanchez, Ramsay and Giroud. Ultimately, this boiled down to the Frenchman's reluctance to play either a counter-attacking game or high press, which were en vogue. Both Emery and Arteta have attempted to add those dimensions to Arsenal's play, but the squad isn't overly-blessed with technically confident defenders who can play out from the back (see Mustafi, Sokratis and Kolasinic) or aggressive forwards who can execute a concerted press (see Aubameyang, Pepé and Lacazette). What has remained common is that Arsenal often end up with high possession stats, but whereas under Wenger that often reflected games in which the opposition defended deep and looked to nick a goal on the break, under Arteta it is because they seek to nick a goal (or two) early through pressing and then sit back confident that they can contain Arsenal's attacks.

As a team, the Gunners have spent too long chasing games since Emery's arrival. The ability to come back and even win from losing positions is admirable, but it's not a viable approach over the long term as it leaves too much to chance. Arteta clearly prioritised not going behind in his early months, and despite the hiccoughs this season, the team have often kept the scores level for long periods of the game before succumbing to a sucker punch, such as against Leceister and Burnley. The greater worry though is that when we go behind early, such as in the away games against Man City in October and Spurs in December, we struggle to come back. Arsenal have drifted towards the bottom of the table because they have been playing like a bottom of the table team: hoping to hang on and lacking the ability (or, perhaps more accurately, the confidence) to force their way back into the game when they go behind. In that respect, the first two games of the second third are a little more encouraging. Up next we have a Boxing Day tie against Chelsea, which on paper looks tough but strikes me as unpredictable. After that, the league games against Brighton, West Brom, Crystal Palace and Newcastle look season-defining.

When Wenger stepped down, he was widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches of his generation and Arsenal were seen as an "elite club" that should expect to challenge for the Premier League and Champions League. What was odd was the decision of the club's owners to then hire Unai Emery, a second-tier manager who had made his name in the Europa League. In this light, hiring Arteta looks like a further display of caution, even a pessimistic lack of ambition, however "promising" he might have appeared as Guardiola's assistant. But it also suggests that Arteta's position is safe and the Kroenkes had always anticipated a few lean years while the squad was replenished. That the Spaniard has been promoted from head coach to manager, and is clearly having greater input on squad acquisitions and sales, reinforces this, even if some of those buys (Mari, Cedric, Willian) lack strategic coherence and the failure to replace Emi Martinez with a proven 'keeper now looks foolish. If Arsenal are in the relegation zone by game 25, that could change, but at the moment it looks like the club have priced-in relative failure. The worry for Arsenal fans is this might prove to be more that just a short-term strategy.