More Missed Opportunities For Arsenal

As the Premier League season gets closer to it’s end it’s becoming abundantly obvious Arsenal’s only path to European football next season is through the Europa League. For the second game in a row they went 3-0 down, but they at least started to play against West Ham when that happened two weeks ago. They rescued a point from a game they had to win against West Ham in that game, but there was no turnaround against Liverpool on Saturday night when they lost 3-0 at home.

As performances go it was one of the worst ones I’ve seen from Arsenal this season and that’s a lot to say in a season where we have underperformed more often than not. Since Christmas things have definitely improved, but most of the first half against West Ham and all of Saturday night were a return to our very worst. The players were outplayed and outfought on both occasions and while everyone can have an off day there is no excuse for lack of commitment.

It’s easy to say that we would have been right back in the fight for the Champions League places if we had won both of those games, but it’s absolutely true. Full points in both of those games would have left us in eighth place and only four points behind fourth placed Chelsea, but it seems the players (and probably the manager too) have decided all of our eggs lie in the Europa League basket.

Our route to the final looks like it’s reasonably attainable, but all it will take is one performance like either of our last two games and we can kiss European football goodbye for next season. As bad as missing out on the Champions League for the last four seasons has been, it will be infinitely worse with absolutely no European football at all next season. The ability to attract new players to the club lessens without European football and we need to add to what we have if we’re going to improve next season.

I’ve heard plenty of people saying we need to give Mikel Arteta more time as we are improving and he’s building for the future. I really hope he can get things right and rekindle our glory days, but at the moment it looks like we’re sacrificing the present for an unknown future. When we improved after Christmas it was as a result of changing our attacking formation, but he reversed that formation against Liverpool.

Injuries and sheer desperation made Arteta switch to three attacking midfielders and one striker against Chelsea with the young players he so rarely showed faith in (in the Premier League at least) coming into the team. Performances and results improved immediately and despite some setbacks we climbed the table. We showed ambition and looked far more capable of scoring goals and winning games, but Saturday night was the opposite yet again as he switched back to one attacking midfielder and three forwards.

My biggest problem is his lack of faith in Gabriel Martinelli whose opportunities are few and far between and when he gets them they tend to be last minute cameos. As others who are far more experienced and with impressive careers strolled around against Liverpool he left Martinelli on the bench until the last 13 minutes of the game. I honestly think Arteta either doesn’t rate him or doesn’t trust him and it must be even more frustrating for Martinelli than it is for us fans.

We play Slavia Prague on Thursday night in a game that now becomes our most important one of the season as every Europa League game will be from here on in. After that it’s a trip to Sheffield United on Sunday night and since that time slot was introduced into a Covid infected football world we have lost every single game we have played in it. Sheffield United are on the verge of relegation and despite the numerous experts telling us they rarely lose by more than a goal it’s a game in which nothing other than a win is acceptable.

It’s been a very tough season to be an Arsenal fan and the upturn since Christmas was at least making it bearable, but any more performances like Saturday night and I think questions have to be asked of the manager. He’s sending his players out to play with his tactics and instructions and he has to be accountable when it goes so badly wrong. He managed to change things against West Ham, but he couldn’t find any solutions in terms of personnel or tactics to make any difference at all against Liverpool.

As I’ve said on numerous occasions before I really want him to succeed and I hope he does, but I’m far from confident that he will. The recent signs from some of the players would seem to suggest some of them might not be so sure either and he has to weed out the players who just aren’t giving enough and replace them with players who want to play for him and the club.

That’s it for today.

See you next time.