Ups and Downs

A rollercoaster ride is an overworked metaphor when it comes to describing a football season, but for once it's justified when reviewing Arsenal's performance over 2020-21. It started with silverware, the victory over Liverpool in the Community Shield, though this came so soon after the delayed FA Cup Final that most people mentally bracketed it with the preceding season. After opening brightly in the league, we were then beaten by Liverpool, Manchester City and Leicester in quick succession, which suggested we were still someway off being realistic challengers for a top position. We perked up with an away win at Old Trafford, and then promptly imploded at home to first Aston Villa and then Wolves. The run-up to Christmas saw us manage only a single point out of a possible 15, the lowlight being a home defeat to Burnley due to an Aubameyang own-goal. This was the only match at which spectators were allowed in before the second lockdown. I was lucky in the ticket ballot, which meant I got drenched in the rain as the club put us all in a section most exposed to the weather, presumably because it was well-ventilated. After such depressing calamity, it was surely inevitable that we would then beat Chelsea 3-1 on Boxing Day. 

January saw a marked improvement in both form and results, marred only by an unfortunate exit in the FA Cup to Southampton (another game lost to an own goal). February saw us revert to incompetence against Wolves (2 red cards after dominating the first half made this a rollercoaster in miniature) and Villa once more, before recovering with a fine away win at Leicester. March saw us stop losing and produced an energising win at home against Spurs that no doubt hammered one of the nails into the coffin of José Mourinho's Tottenham tenure. April saw home defeats against Liverpool and Everton, the latter featuring a Leno own-goal, and points dropped against Fulham. May saw 5 straight wins in the league, including an away win at Chelsea, which proved enough to haul us from 9th position at the beginning of the month to the giddy heights of 8th place at season end. In most years, that run would have seen us leapfrog two or three teams, but the gap to the top six had simply been too big after the disastrous run from early November to the middle of December. The silver-lining to this particular cloud was that we now don't have to worry about Thursday night football, while Spurs have the dubious honour of qualifying for the Europa Conference League.

Broken down into thirds, we secured only 13 points from the first 12 games, easily our worst return in a decade and definitely relegation-flirting. The middle third saw 21 points from 13 and the final third 27 points from the same number of games. 75 points would have been enough to finish in second place, ahead of Manchester United, so it's fair to say our recent form has been of the desired level. But while the overall trajectory was upwards, it's hard to interpret this as steady improvement. The final points tally is only up 5 on the previous season and it remains the second worst over the last 10 years. Had we managed to win the four games we lost home and away to Aston Villa and Wolves (teams that finished 11th and 13th respectively), we would have finished in third place, a point behind Manchester United and now have the Champions League to look forward to. Even if we'd only managed 8 points from that possible 12, we'd have finished ahead of Chelsea in fourth. All teams drop points, but we appear to have lost the knack of playing poorly but still picking them up.

Looking at the glass half-full, the 39 goals conceded was the best performance for 5 years. Arteta's aim to tighten up our leaky defence has borne fruit. Indeed, the chief problem has not been conceding goals but scoring them. 55 is the lowest total product for over a decade and 1 less than last season. The disastrous opening third of the campaign saw us score only 10, which is less than a goal a game. Some of this was down to poor individual form - notably Aubameyang and Willian - but the chief cause was a lack of imagination and enterprise from the midfield until the pivotal home victory against Chelsea. What was encouraging about the final third, and in particular the last 5 games, was that we appeared to have discovered how to play against a low block, at least in the league. We appeared to have temporarily mislaid this ability in the Europa League semi-final against Villareal, though that loss was ultimately down to conceding two poor goals and picking up another unnecessary red card in the first leg. That latter moment pretty much marked the end of Dani Ceballos's stay at the club. Despite some flourishes along the way, he has proved incompatible, unlike his fellow Madrista, Martin Ødegaard.

The team changed for the better with the full emergence of Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith-Rowe and Gabriel Martinelli after Christmas. The temporary addition of Ødegaard also suggested an evolution towards a pacier, more incisive style of play, though whether he will return from Real Madrid is moot now that Zidane has left the Bernabeu (let's hope they want Ceballos more). However, too many familiar failings were still evident, from the slow build-ups at the back and self-inflicted wounds in defence and goal. Injuries to key players at inconvenient times also played a part in the season's ups and downs, though this simply highlighted the shallow options for certain positions, notably left back and goalkeeper. Kieran Tierney has emerged as a key player, but one prone to injuries; Thomas Partey has flattered to deceive, but probably should be allowed a season of adjustment; while Nicolas Pepé has managed to be both frustrating and decisive, across the season, within games and even within a single move. It's hard to believe that some of the loanees will ever don the jersey again, notably Torreira, Guendouzi and Kolasinac, but there are promising signs in the development of Joe Willock and Ainsley Maitland-Niles.

Despite his rehabilitation and flexibility, Granit Xhaka's days appear numbered. He isn't going to play any faster so a move to a more sedate league looks likely. One of Aubameyang and Lacazette will probably depart and there are strong rumours about Hector Bellerin and Bernd Leno. With David Luiz already out the door, you'd expect William Saliba to finally be brought "home". He may still be raw in Arteta's eyes, but it's obvious we have to invest now in youth and pace, rather than providing a safe haven for the tired and bewildered (hopefully Willian is on his way too). There's a real sense of a changing of the guard at the moment, though how feasible it will be for the club to enact the sort of squad overhaul Arteta needs is uncertain, given constraints on money, the continuing disruption of the pandemic and the complication of the European Championship. It's clear that Stan Kroenke has no intention of selling the club, but this doesn't mean he plans to invest further. The whole point of the European Super League, at least from the perspective of those not funded by petrodollars, was to guarantee income so the bigger clubs could rein-in their spending and so generate profits. I suspect Edu and Arteta are going to have to be imaginative to get any business done this summer.