What was telling about last weekends games was just how poor all the teams that played in Europe looked.
Man City drew against West Ham whilst Liverpool laboured to victory against Sheffield United.
Chelsea against Manchester United was the dullest game of the season and Arsenal v Leicester City was not much better. Tottenham also struggles to victory against Burnley.
Teams struggling after midweek European ties is not a new thing, but in this condensed season those clubs in Europe will put even more strain on their squads.
Mikel Arteta needs to rotate in Europe, keeping one eye on the weekend games.
At home to Dundalk is an easier fixture than Manchester United away, on paper at least.
To combat Arsenal running out of steam in the last 30 minutes like they did against Leicester, Arteta should consider not playing as few players that he expects to use on Sunday tonight.
That means Cedric ahead of Hector Bellerin, Sead Kolasinac ahead of Kieran Tierney.
Centre back is a little more awkward as despite Arsenal having about 49 defenders, we only have two fully fit in Shkodran Mustafi and Gabriel.
With David Luiz picking up a knock at the weekend, William Saliba not in the European squad and Rob Holding only just back in training, it’ll be Gabriel and Mustafi in defence.
Moving forward, Granit Xhaka, Dani Ceballos & Thomas Partey should all be saved for Sunday. That opens the door to Mo Elneny, Joe Willock and Ainsley Maitland-Niles in central midfield.
The front 3 should be Reiss Nelson (if fit?) and Eddie Nketiah, and whichever of Nicholas Pepe, Willian or Bukayo Saka won’t start on Sunday.
Rest, rotate, do enough to win the game and then move on to Sunday.
It is clear and obvious to all, including Mikel Arteta, that Arsenal are not creating and therefore not scoring enough.
The problem is Arteta is yet to work out what his front 3 is.
Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was deadly on the left hand side last season, finishing 2nd top scorer in the league. But he creates very little from out wide.
If you play Aubameyang on the left, you need to have a striker in the middle that can be the creative outlet.
When Aubameyang is outwide, Alexandre Lacazette is in the middle. But he is more of an Ian Wright or Jermaine Defoe than a Dennis Bergkamp or Gianfranco Zola.
Lacazette is a goal scorer. Not a creator.
When Arsenal play Lacazette and Aubameyang together, they are sacrificing creativity for goals. But the problem is for them to score they need to get the ball in dangerous places.
In all 3 of Arsenal’s defeats this season, both Aubameyang and Lacazette have missed clear chances to score – Lacazette against Leicester and Liverpool; Aubameyang against Man City.
So as it stands, the strikers are not getting enough chances, and when they do they are fluffing their lines.
With Lacazette down the middle and Aubameyang on one of the flanks, it leaves either Bukayo Saka, Nicolas Pepe or Willian on the opposite side.
It leaves us with just one naturally creative player in the front 3 for the final third.
In the short term, Arteta should move Aubameyang into the middle and play 2 of Willian, Pepe and Saka.
Aubameyang then focuses on what he does best – scoring goals; whilst the onus is then on the two wide men to drop inside and feed up. The full backs then provide the width.
It is similar to how Manchester City attack – with Raheem Sterling on the left and either Bernardo Silva or Riyad Mahrez on the flanks.
The widemen cut in giving the full backs the space to get to the byeline and play cut backs to Sergio Aguero.
The other option is to look at Liverpool.
Liverpool’s goals come from their widemen – Sadio Mane and Mo Salah – rather than Firminho up front.
Firminho is their creative outlet in the final 3rd.
Like City, Liverpool also rely on their full backs for creativity in the wide positions.
The problem is for Arsenal is we do not have a Firminho type striker who can drop a little deeper.
If we wish to go down the Liverpool route, we need to find a Dennis Bergkamp – a striker who is a better creator than he is a scorer.
Arteta could then play his Bergkamp type down the middle, looking forward, feeding Aubameyang wide left and either Pepe or Saka wide right.
Chelsea sign Kai Harvetz this summer. He would have been ideal to play the “false 9” position.
The final option is to take inspiration from Arsenal under Arsene Wenger.
Wenger played Olivier Giroud down the middle.
Giroud is not a naturally goal scorer, but he is fantastic with his back to goal and bringing others into play.
Arsenal at their best with Giroud in the team had Alexis Sanchez and Theo Walcott on the flanks, scoring the goals.
2016/17 saw Arsenal score 77 league goals – the highest since 2009/10.
Alexis Sanchez scores 30 goals in all competitions and Theo Walcott 19. Giroud was 3rd top scorer with 16.
Giroud does a similar job for France as well – bringing Antoine Griezmann and Kylian Mbappe into play, letting them take the glory.
Instead of a Bergkamp type who will drop deeper to create, Arsenal could go for a Giroud type who plays with his back to goal and brings the wide forwards into play that way.
Arteta needs to make a decision on a long term plan:
Aubameyang down the middle with creativity out wide
Bergkamp type down the middle, with the goals out wide
Giroud type down the middle with the goals out wide
Whatever route he goes down, one thing is clear.
Lacazette down the middle with a Aubameyang out wide doesn’t work.
He did not recognise Manchester City’s vulnerability, we failed to attack them and lost. Likewise Sunday night was a tough performance to take.
Arteta actually got the line up right on Sunday – with the only debate being whether Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang should be playing down the middle, and if the midfield 3 were in the right positions.
2-nil at half time
We looked good in the first half, creating more chances and attacking at will. We should have gone into half time 2-0 up.
The Lacazette goal that was ruled out was not offside. The linesman clearly thought Aubameyang had touched it in on the fair post when in fact it had hit the post and gone in.
Lacazette then missed an absolute sitter.
Football is a game of margin’s.
Had Lacazette’s first been allowed, I am sure he would have buried the second and there would be no discussion about him getting dropped. Instead, one was disallowed and he fluffed his lines for the second chance.
Lacazette looks like a man playing with the weight of the world on his shoulders. His trademark sharpness within the box is missing.
Arteta now needs to make a tough decision.
He needs to drop the Frenchman and play Aubameyang down the middle.
Aubameyang was fantastic last season on that left hand side, scoring goals for fun. But he creates very little.
When you have him out wide and Lacazette in the middle, you are sacrificing creativity for goals. The problem is when neither are scoring, something has to give.
Arteta needs to get more creativity on the field, and that is done through sacrificing one of his strikers for either Nicolas Pepe or Willian on the left.
Conceding from opponents first chance
Leicester City’s game plan was simple.
10-men behind the ball, stay in the game and bring Jamie Vardy on with 20 minutes to go to against a tired defence. And it worked.
It would not have worked if Arsenal were 2-0 up. But they were not.
When Vardy came on, the dynamic of the game changed.
Leicester started attacking more, balls over the top, into the channels.
Whereas Lacazette missed his chance in the first half, Vardy scored his.
Fine margins again.
Substitutes
Arsenal’s substitutions failed to affect the game.
It would be easy to say “Arteta got them wrong”, but his first 2 changes we driven by injury – firstly to David Luiz and then Bukayo Saka.
Lacazette should really have been taken off with 30 minutes to go, but with Saka hobbling, Arteta was unable to make the change.
Instead the young Englishman went off for Pepe, with Arsenal keeping the formation.
Arteta was also hampered by Willian’s injury.
The Brazilian would surely have come on for one of the midfielders to make us more attacking. Without him on the bench we had a 4 / 2 split for defensive / attacking players on the bench.
It did not give Arteta many options when looking to chase the game.
Questions do have to be asked why Reiss Nelson was not on the bench. Would he have not been a better option than Eddie Nketiah?
Instead we ended up with 3 strikers on the pitch, but did not have the capability of getting the ball to them.
European hangover?
Sunday’s game was awful. Both teams played Thursday night in the Europa League.
Manchester City v Chelsea was equally as dull.
Manchester City could only draw with West Ham and Liverpool barely scrapped past Sheffield United at home.
With games more congested than ever, I think we will see more tired performances after mid-week European games; more surprise results.
Arteta put out a strong side against Rapid Wien on Thursday.
With our hardest away out the way and 3 points on the board, maybe it is time to rethink that and rest his planned weekend starting XI against Dundalk this Thursday.
Got to think we can beat the Irish side with a second XI. 6 points from 6 will be one foot in the next round.
Moving forward
When we lose a game like Sunday, it is very easy to quickly get into a negative mind set. Especially taking into account we have seen that sort of performance countless times in the last 5 years.
But there were positives to take.
Arsenal looked more attacking in the first half. We just ran out of ideas in the second half and did not have the personnel on the bench to change it up.
Arteta needs to stick to 433, but with a few tweaks.
Granit Xhaka needs to play in the middle of the 3. This allows Thomas Partey and Dani Ceballos to drive forward and offer assistance in the final 3rd.
Pepe needs to start ahead of Lacazette, with Aubameyang down the middle.
Then that gives Arteta an attacking option on the bench in Lacazette.
Lacazette needs to be joined on the bench by Reiss Nelson and one other attacking player. Ideally someone that creates (Willian if fit?).
There is not point having LAcazette, Aubameyang and Nketiah on the pitch if we do not have a plan how to get them the ball.
Sunday was a disappointing result, we are 10th in the table, but this is going to be a roller coaster season.
It is going to be tight as every side can drop points to each other.
After 6 games last season, Arsenal were in 4th place, but already 7 points off top.
This season we are 10th, we 2 points less. But just 4 points off top.
Had we won yesterday, we would have been 4th and Leicester 10th.
It really is going to be a season of fine margins.
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon 