Mikel Arteta Given Tactical Lesson At The Lane

 

Tottenham 2 Arsenal 0

Premier League

Sunday 6th December 2020, 4.30pm

No-one on the red side of North London expected much from this game. We could clutch straws with the idea that the law of averages meant Arsenal were due a result, or that form goes out of the window on derby day, but this match went to form. And in summary, Jose Mourinho got his tactics right, demonstrating his far greater experience of winning football matches, a talent that has worrying implications for Gooners that have been singing about Spurs not winning the title since 1961 for decades. 

The story of this match was very simple. Spurs were ruthless on the counter attack twice (albeit assisted by Thomas Partey’s lack of nous which left his team a man short for the second), and were able to defend their lead relatively comfortably, in spite of allowing Arsenal the ball for the majority of the match. In Kane and Son, they have a pair of in-form strikers. Arteta’s forwards cannot buy a goal, a dearth that has seen a promising start to the campaign nosedive. HMS Arsenal is a ship sinking fast, although one feels it will be stuck in the mud rather than disappear completely into the murky waters of the Championship, as they will garner at least 40 points this season. The players available are at least good enough to achieve that, and have only played against four of the other clubs in the bottom half of the table so far. 

They will recover. This has been a wretched run, but the goals will return eventually. Because the club are in a difficult financial position, Mikel Arteta’s job is not under threat. Yet. If things have not picked up by the end of January, it may be a different story, but Arsenal should be able to pick up 18 points from their next ten matches given the level of opposition. That would give them 31 points, enough of a platform to ensure there is no danger of relegation. The focus after that will be the Europa League campaign – which could become very significant – and the FA Cup as an insurance policy in the likely event they fail to win a third European trophy in the club’s history. At present, thoughts of European qualification through the league, although possible on paper, don’t feel worthy of discussion.

On the pitch, we have currently something of a shambles. Conceding goals on the counter attack is becoming a habit. Arteta did try to improve Arsenal defensively with three at the back, and it seemed to be working. However as the goals dried up, he removed one of his centre backs (although Xhaka did fill in there at times yesterday) and what tends to happen is that they get exposed when they lose possession. So it’s a mixture of tactics and personnel. And changing tactics is certainly easier, because the back-up options are generally no better than the current first choicers. 

Up front, the lack of ability to create chances is alarming, the confidence of the strikers visibly low. Nothing is coming off, with the captain’s disappearance of form particularly damaging. There are no solutions to this other than playing their way out of it. There have been calls, given the season feels like a write-off already, to play more of the younger members of the squad. I’d certainly like to see Emile Smith Rowe given his head, and what harm is there giving Folarin Balogun half an hour as a sub instead of the willing, but limited Eddie Nketiah. It may also be worth considering Ainsley Maitland-Niles in a fixed position for a while. Hector Bellerin is having a wretched run, and I could live with taking another look at AMN at right back. Arteta has to make some difficult decisions with regard to established, but out of form players. Defensively, Bellerin has struggled badly and going forward things rarely seem to come off these days. 

The injury to Thomas Partey has hurt, and hindsight tells us that he should not have started this game. Given he played under Diego Simeone, I am surprised he didn’t simply sit down on the floor at a dead ball to get the substitution done before his lack of mobility cost the team. It’s possible he only felt the tweak in the passage of play before Spurs scored, but even then he would have been better simply being a body in the centre of the pitch rather than walking to the touchline. He could have prevented the second goal with a different action. Things like that a manager cannot legislate for. Arsenal need a spark from somewhere – sure, European form is fine, but these are second stringers overturning poor teams. Thursday evenings are an exercise in match fitness, because they sure aren’t having any positive knock-on effect at the weekend.

Dani Ceballos did provide some creativity in the second half, although Spurs sat deep, so he was given plenty of space to do so. But he and his colleagues did not have the wit to fashion a goal against a well-drilled unit. Spurs could win the title playing Mournho football, which would be hugely ironic, but their fans won’t care a jot. Aesthetic principles become low priority when winning trophies is the aim, unless of course you are Arsene Wenger, who felt the 2005 FA Cup win to be tainted and a blueprint of how his teams would never play again. The consequences of that became apparent as the club incrementally slipped out of contention and now sit 15^th in the table, Arteta’s season so far worse than Unai Emery’s a year ago, and it was around this time in 2019 that he managed his final Arsenal game. Of course, Arteta has won the FA Cup, it hasn't been a complete disaster. But four points from seven matches is a dire run by anyone’s standards. 

In a strange kind of way, the years of underachievement, the repeated failures, the gradual slide have, in this supporter, led to a state of almost numbness about defeats now. It doesn’t seem to matter as much – the pain is almost minimal. I think it really began when it was clear that Arsene had to go (years before he did) and I just took defeats as confirmation of a personal belief, with the feeling that at least they would enforce the necessary change. But because the club are no longer in contention for honours most of the time they take to the pitch, the defeats don’t really matter that much here. There’s nothing at stake. And sometimes I wonder if this is how the players feel. They will raise their game to beat big teams when there is a Cup and a medal for the mantelpiece to be had, but the bread and butter fixtures do not see the same level of performance. 

Football moves in cycles. Arsenal were top dogs in North London from the mid-1980s for a glorious period that lasted 30 years, saw a lot of trophies and – in terms of the local derby – was still hugely enjoyable even when the trophy drought between 2005 and 2014 was going on. Those days are gone. It is now Spurs’ fans turn to crow, although there is some slim comfort in the fact that they have only won two League Cups in almost 30 years. We haven’t had it so bad as Gooners, but now it is our turn to suffer. Let’s hope that it doesn’t last too long, but this club is not coming back to its previous status in the pecking order any time soon. Liverpool cost Spurs a Champions League trophy in 2019. Jurgen Klopp’s team could be all that stands between them and the Premier League next May, going on recent form. 

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