Welcome to the Emirates – Just go ahead and fill yer boots

Arsenal 1 Manchester City 4

Carabao Cup 5th Round
Tuesday 22nd December 2020  8pm

Another game, another disappointing performance. The bookies had Arsenal at over 5-1 for a home win in a cup tie, which shows how far they have fallen. Remember the days of Fortress Emirates anybody? We can’t know what the owners of the club are privately thinking, but to this observer, my belief is that Mikel Arteta has another six matches to keep his job. One of those is less important in the greater scheme of things – the home FA Cup tie against Newcastle. Another is pretty much written off – the visit of Chelsea on Boxing Day. Anything there would be a bonus. But the four matches that will determine Mikel Arteta’s future is the quartet of Premier League games that follow Chelsea. Brighton and West Brom away, followed by Palace and Newcastle at home. My thought is that anything less than eight points from these matches will mean the manager is given his P45. Inexperienced as the team running the club is now, it would be remiss of them not to be sounding out potential replacements already. 

Although there is good will towards Arteta amongst the fanbase – because he is perceived as an Arsenal man who gets the club, unlike Unai Emery – it erodes more with every failure to win a football match. The cups have been kind to Arteta, at least since the Europa League elimination by Olympiakos a couple of months into his reign. However, that fortune ran out last night against Manchester City, and no-one could say they were surprised. 

It was a starting eleven that gave game time to players that simply aren’t good enough to be at the club. Mustafi and Kolasinac began in a back three. Alex Runarsson was given a start in goal. It’s difficult to see him getting another chance after the horrorshow that followed. He cost £1.5 million, and even at that price, looks like a waste of money. Yes, he made one very decent save, but there was so much more that he did wrong. He’s not very experienced, and it showed. 

It was a match littered with individual mistakes and a good deal of poor passing. One has to wonder how Pablo Mari was fit enough to be on the bench (presumably indicating he could have started) and yet Mustafi and Kolasinac were picked ahead of him. Arsenal moved to a back four during the game, but whatever the shape of the team, individual errors of the type seen last night cannot be legislated for.

There were some glimmers of light. The return to the starting line-up of Gabriel Martinelli brought some drive and desire and even a headed goal by captain for the night Alex Lacazette, thanks to the quality of the Brazilian attacker’s play. And yet, that Lacazette was the captain says so much. Where are the leaders in the current squad, let alone the team? There is a general perception that Granit Xhaka is the natural skipper, and we cannot forget the frequency with which Patrick Vieira received red cards in the earlier years of his nine seasons at the club. However, Vieira gave more on the field in his play, and once he became the captain, the red cards became a rarity. So if Xhaka is the best we’ve got, the club is in deep trouble. 

A cocktail of inexperience at higher levels, incompetence, poor use of financial resources and a general lack of commitment has brought us to the situation where the club are facing a relegation dogfight. Too good to go down? Points determine that, and the form the club are in does not offer cause for optimism. 

There are some building blocks for the future. Leno, Gabriel, Holding and Tierney can be part of a successful team. Maitland-Niles is a very useful utility player who would benefit many squads. Pablo Mari might come good, the jury is out. Dani Ceballos is not an Arsenal player long term but does offer something. Thomas Partey could be a huge influence, but there lies the suspicion the club have bought a crock. Bukayo Saka and Martinelli offer something going forward and you have to imagine that at some point Aubameyang will rediscover his form. Youngsters such as Smith Rowe and (if they can secure him) Balogun could be a part of the picture going forward. So 13 players that are either definites or possibles. As for the rest, I’ve seen enough now. Bellerin was great once, but no longer. Nice guy, but he needs an experienced head alongside him to teach him how to defend. And he’s lost his pace due to his injury. 

If everyone were fit, that leaves you with a starting eleven of

Leno

Holding – Gabriel – Mari

Maitland-Niles – Ceballos – Partey – Tierney

Saka – Aubameyang – Martinelli

And two subs worthy of a run-out as they develop further. Aside from that it's a mixture of deadwood and younger players who, much as we’d love them to make it, have had enough chances now. 

There’s no point in going through the minutiae of last night’s game. It was a mixture of poor play and ill fortune (no use of VAR cost the home side, although would it really have made any difference to the eventual outcome?). Runarsson’s inability played a big part in the first three goals, and Kolasinac played City onside for the fourth. Arsenal’s best chance always looked to be if they could prevent a City win in normal time and squeeze through via penalties. In the end, you were left wondering whether you should bother hanging on for full time, although at least those who did saw a bit of Smith Rowe demonstrate why he was worth a start in this game. 

Interesting to see how well Unai Emery is doing at Villarreal, suggesting that it is indeed the players at Arsenal that are the problem, and that any coach, let alone an inexperienced one, would struggle to get results with this bunch. The club need to decide who they are going to stick with on the playing side, irrelevant of who is picking the team, and just move on the dross. They shoot themselves in the foot by doing things like the deal for Willian, exposing the lack of knowhow amongst the decision makers. 

Arsenal need to rebuild, come back and actually re-establish the so-called values they keep harping on about. Stop selecting poor performers and get shot of them at the first available opportunity. Recruit the right blend of experience and potential and foster some genuine spirit amongst the collective. And if a player cannot get the basics right, keep them out on the training field doing drills until they do. The lack of discipline I see in the players these days feels alarming. 

I thought it was going to take a fair bit of time to turn this juggernaut around. It feels I underestimated quite how long. The record gap between Arsenal winning league titles is 18 seasons. 1953 until 1971. 1971 until 1989. 2004 until 2022? 

No chance. 

Spurs have been waiting 59 years, so there has to be some sense of perspective. There could be a handful of centurions in the north east that recall Newcastle United’s last (and fourth) Championship title in 1927. A bit of me wonders if I will ever see another Arsenal title in my lifetime. I was alive in 1971 but too young to have any awareness of football – my dad simply never watched it. Since then I have seen five successful title campaigns. Good, good memories, but they feel very distant now. What exactly was the point in leaving Highbury again? To ensure the club could remain competitive? That worked out well…

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