Arsenal's defensive frailties to blame for poor results, lack of creativity, midfield mediocrity and ostracism of top player

If it wasn’t slowly coming to an end, Arsenal’s timid capitulation to a far-from-exceptional West Ham United side on Saturday ( 0-1 ) went some way in signalling that the Unai Emery honeymoon is well and truly over. At least that’s the view held by a section of fans losing patience with the team, its head coach and the owner.

Exactly a month ago, the Gunners — aided by an Alexandre Lacazette goal — had seen off Qarabag FK in the last of the six Europa League group stage matches and were sitting pretty on a 22-match unbeaten streak. Arsenal’s last loss had come at Stamford Bridge on 18 August, 2018. Profiting from second-half surges, generous slabs of luck and a defence that — while far from impenetrable or convincing — got the job done in terms of conceding at least one less than the opposition, the North London club had been performing far better than could have been hoped.

And for a while, all was well. Emery and his team had millions marvelling at the smooth transition from the pre- and post-Arsène Wenger era, fans proclaimed loudly that they had ’their Arsenal back’, the cartoons on Arsenal Fan TV — for once in their lives — exuded positivity. The comprehensive defeat of Tottenham Hotspur had pundits reconsidering the notion of the North London ‘powershift’ and, with its favourite punching bag taken out of the equation, the media (most of the time) set their eyes on and sunk their teeth into their new object of ire: Jose Mourinho.

In the past 30-odd days, Arsenal have played eight games across all competitions, of which, they’ve lost four, drawn one and won three matches. On paper and as of itself, this isn’t all that alarming, but as always, a closer look is required.

First, the three wins have come in the Premier League against Fulham and Burnley (ranked 19th and 15th at the time of writing) and in a FA Cup third -round fixture against League One side Blackpool. Second, the losses have included an aukat-dikhaa-denewala thrashing at the hands of Liverpool, an absolutely unfathomable 2-3 defeat to then relegation favourites Southampton, a Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat to a somewhat weakened Spurs unit, and most recently, the limp surrender to Manuel Pellegrini’s Hammers on Saturday. Third, not one clean sheet has been maintained against Premier League opponents in that entire time.

So what’s gone wrong?

Have Emery’s wards collectively decided to down tools? Have all the other teams suddenly decided to play like vintage Barcelona? Are there deeper issues that had before 14 December only been papered over?

Dunno, most definitely not and yes, are the short answers. But let’s analyse these and a few other issues in an effort to arrive at some sort of understanding of what’s going on at London Colney and indeed, the Emirates.

Defensive woes

Since the start of the 2018-19 season, Arsenal have managed a combined nine clean sheets. Put into perspective, five of these came in the Europa League group stage (two against Sporting, two against Qarabag and one against Vorskla) and one against Blackpool in the FA Cup. In the Premier League, Watford (ranked seventh at the time of writing) were the highest-ranked team against whom the Gunners managed to go without conceding a goal, aside from Everton and Huddersfield. Put simply, every other team to have played against Arsenal this season have scored at least one goal in the fixture.

The enlisting of Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Stephan Lichtsteiner in the summer was aimed at bringing experience to a somewhat callow backline, lacking the wherewithal (including a knowledge of the dark arts or the cynicism, if you prefer) to blunt opposition attacks and attackers alike. Bernd Leno was brought in as an upgrade on an error-prone David Ospina (now plying his trade on loan at Napoli) and the aging Petr Čech (whose best days have been well and truly behind him for at least two years). The young and apparently untiring Lucas Torreira was signed with a view to shoring up the central midfield and shielding the backline.

And at first, this seemed to work… somewhat.

Defensive gaffes were almost as frequent as lung-busting runs from the likes of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, and it was sheer providence and profligacy on part of the opposition that saw a handful of those errors go unpunished. The long-term injury to defender Rob Holding — who, until the 6 December match against Manchester United, had been putting out solid performances at the heart of the defence — meant that Arsenal’s best centre-back thus far, was out for the season. With Lichtsteiner showing his age, Skhodran Mustafi showing little maturity or growth in his time at the club, and a returning Laurent Koscielny still finding his feet, an already-shaky defence had been further weakened.

For Emery’s aggressive and high-pressing game to truly flourish, the need for quick, mobile and decisive defenders goes without saying. Unfortunately, Sokratis (beginning to show evidence of growing into his role), who is probably the team’s best central defender at the moment, isn’t particularly quick and can only do so much. With wing-backs Hector Bellerin and Sead Kolašinac favouring the attacking side of things, this has tasked the centre-backs the job of cleaning up. And, for the large part, it hasn’t been a pretty sight, with Leno forced into evasive manouevres far more often than he’d probably like.

Much like the isolated Sokratis, Torreira appears to be cutting a lonely figure in central midfield as the only player who truly knows what he’s doing. Granit Xhaka, who has had a couple of matches as centre-back, sorely lacks defensive positioning and Mohamed Elneny has not been given much of a chance to show himself as being much better. If the status quo persists, it’s hard to tell just how many matches will be lost purely because of defensive brain-fades rather than the opposition’s brilliance.

Little creativity in midfield

One of those intangibles, that cannot really be quantified with stats (alright, so there’s passes completed, key passes and such, but they fail to truly encapsulate this phenomenon completely), that has become ever rarer as the season has worn on has been creativity in midfield. The season began with an inspired Mesut Özil eager to prove his homeland detractors wrong, a resurgent Aaron Ramsey keen to earn himself a top contract at the club, an Henrikh Mkhitaryan all set for his first full season at Arsenal after a disappointing spell at Manchester United, and a marauding Alex Iwobi who had turned stronger and hungrier over the break between seasons.

Flash-forward to the present day. Ramsey, while showing he’s a consummate professional even in his final days at the club, is off to Juventus in the summer and whether as a result of this development or not, has not been featuring prominently for Arsenal. Özil has virtually been relegated — by himself or the club — to the role of a tourist, popping up once in a while, but spending stretches of time away from the action. Mkhitaryan is out injured, but was fairly ineffective even before his leave of absence began. Iwobi’s energy and willingness to try things has seen him pushed up into a front three alongside Aubameyang and Lacazette.

With talented young upstart Emil Smith-Rowe yet to be reintroduced to the fold following injury, the midfield then comprises, for the most part, Torreira, Xhaka and 19-year-old Matteo Guendouzi. The former’s primary role is in the defensive scheme of things, so it is quite worrying in any case to see him as a major source of creative runs and incisive passes down field. Emery put a great deal of faith, ergo, a massive weight of expectation on young Guendouzi’s shoulder over the first half of the season and it is now beginning to show with he and Xhaka largely dealing in sideways or backward passes these days.

It is hard to imagine that it isn’t the need for defensive stability that has seen Özil left on the sidelines of most fixtures (ie the ones for which he is ostensibly fit). In his stead is a midfield — the odd instances apart — that would rather quell the potential danger than take risks and attack an opponent on the run. As a result, counter-attacking moves often fizzle out with the midfield opting not to risk being caught out, and choosing instead to gently kick it around amongst each other, then back to Mustafi, who hoofs it across to Sokratis, who will then roll it back to Leno (you’ve all seen this often enough). The result: Any momentum or openings gained are squandered and the play has to be built again from scratch.

The aforementioned defensive frailties, I contend, are to be blamed here, because the players and likely, the head coach (who is issuing the instructions) do not trust that the defence will be able to withstand an attack. It is this nervousness that has led to oodles of stale possession and an absence of creativity in midfield.

Tactically flexible, but strategically rigid? 

A criticism levelled, and often rightly so, at Wenger was that aside from being tactically set in his ways (unless in case of injury, no substitutions before the 60-minute mark, for instance), he was also very unyielding strategically. The Frenchman was often guilty of trying again and again, the same strategy and tactics against innumerable oppositions with little sign of success. Emery’s arrival in North London brought with it a fresh take on tactics, willing as the Spaniard was to hook his highest-paid player at half-time and shake up his tactics, if the game required it.

The results were evident, with Arsenal mounting a surprising number of second-half comebacks — something that was a bit of a rarity in the second half of the Wenger era.

With a fair sample size and the benefit of hindsight, what has emerged is that while Emery remains as tactically flexible as he ever was (in terms of members of personnel and the formation in which they are deployed), his strategy remains almost as rigid as that of his predecessor. Playing out from the back, pressing with a high backline, insisting on just playing one centre-forward and so on are aspects of the Emery strategy that appear to be set in stone. Teams and their managers appear to have sussed out his strategy and are countering it effectively.

And what’s the principal reason for this? Defensive frailty, exacerbated by an inability to play Emery’s system with the present personnel.

Players and contracts and managing both

It was assumed that the decentralisation of power — previously centralised in the hands of Le Professeur — would lead to more agile decision-making. It may be recalled that the former Arsenal gaffer reviled the notion of so much as a director of football being installed while he was in charge. The entry of erstwhile chief executive Ivan Gazidis, and later, head of recruitment Sven Mislintat, director of football Raul Sanllehi and managing director Vinai Venkatesham was meant to leave head coach Emery — as opposed to ‘manager’ — with a very streamlined job.

And for a while, it worked. The Aubameyang signing, the Torreira coup, the Mkhitaryan deal (instead of watching wantaway striker Alexis Sánchez leave on a Bosman transfer) and getting Özil to put pen to paper were seen as masterstrokes by the new regime. Somewhere down the line, things seem to have broken down drastically.

While Ramsey and his people have been classy and professional in handling the situation, withdrawing an offer of contract renewal (seemingly without explanation) and letting the midfielder leave for free is one of the most abominable moves by the present regime. Plenty of questions surround how the issue was managed, ranging from the obvious “Why?” to “Why could he not have been sold in the summer?” and “Why wasn’t a suitable replacement lined up?”

Elsewhere, Emery’s lack of emotional attachment to any player was seen as a positive early on, with the manager’s ruthlessness, more often than not, eliciting positive responses and improved performances from his players. Coupled with his laconic demeanour and tendency to ‘go missing’, the German midfielder’s massive wage bill has seen him turn into a liability in Emery’s book, or at least that’s the impression given. What appears to have been ignored by the Spaniard is the very first lesson from Management 101: Every player responds differently and needs to be managed differently. What might work on a Kolašinac may not work with an Özil and so on.  Leaving the Arsenal Number 10 out of the scheme of things has raised all sorts of questions — not all of which are legitimate — about the player’s future in the team.

It isn’t unfathomable for a club like Arsenal to be trying to make budgetary cuts where possible. But when a head coach issues a statement that he will only be looking at loan deals to fix up his squad in this ongoing transfer window, it isn’t hard to glance at Özil’s pay cheque and wonder if the money could be better spent, especially in the defence department.

In summation, no new transfers, top player at his peak leaving for free and the club’s top player not even in the squad anymore points to serious mismanagement issues at the Emirates.

Let’s not even get into the club owner’s (he doesn’t even deserve to be named) apparent refusal to improve the squad situation.

Where does this leave Arsenal?

It was always expected that Emery would need at least a couple of solid transfer windows to be able to start working his magic at Arsenal and so, the present set of results should not be taken to heart — whether a string of successes or a list of losses. The head coach, it should be recalled, was handed the reins after 22 years of the club being run a certain way. Change is inevitable, but will take time.

In the meantime, the bottom line for the club and its supporters is that everything can ostensibly be linked to Arsenal’s defensive woes: The lack of creativity in midfield, the lack of imagination in strategy, the lack of ability (or will) to sign up new players and the refusal to play a talented magician in the knowledge that the defence will suffer further. So, will the Arsenal defence relearn the basics of defending? Will the club splash out on a brand new defender or two? Or will the returning Konstantinos Mavropanos be like a new signing and reinvigorate the tired and jaded bodies around him? Who knows?

Should the present transfer window slam shut on 31 January with no defensive reinforcements, it’s looking increasingly likely that at the end of May, we’ll look back on this season as a write-off.

If it’s any consolation, Özil will still be around at that point.