The Gunners are staring down the barrel of another trophy-less season unless they quickly get their act together, starting with the North London Derby
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The last seven days ought to have been the defining week of Arsenal's season. And, in a way, they were. The Gunners were beaten 2-0 at home by Newcastle in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final, before 10-man Manchester United rocked up at the Emirates Stadium and dumped the hosts out of the FA Cup on penalties.
Mikel Arteta's men are in a tailspin and in desperate need of reversing their trajectory. Just a month ago, they looked primed to take advantage of Manchester City's off-year and had strong hopes of going far in all four competitions. Good value they were at that too, even with captain and talisman Martin Odegaard missing an extended period to open the campaign.
But now, Arsenal are being torn apart at the seam. The injuries are piling up, the performances are in-turn declining and the mood in N5 has particularly soured. With arch rivals Tottenham next to visit the Emirates on Wednesday, Arteta needs to find a cure to his team's ailment rather than wallow in pity.
The siege mentality that the Spaniard has built is threatening to turn into arrogance as Arsenal can no longer be viewed as the plucky underdog in their fight for major honours. When things don't go their way, it cannot possibly be a matter for self-improvement; it isn't helping their cause.
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The raw stats from the Newcastle and United defeats would make you think Arsenal's performances were better than they actually were in reality, tallying a combined 6.44 expected goals and 49 shots across 210 minutes of football last week, though only finding the back of the net once with an average of 70 percent possession.
Ultimately, football is about results, and finishing is the key skill to determine that. Sure, you could spin it that Arsenal were a tad unlucky this glut of chances didn't turn into goals, but that goes beyond their injuries and into the problem of their squad building.
The best attacker at Arteta's disposal came from the academy in Bukayo Saka, and they are now without him to shoulder the heavy burden in a final third that has become stale on the eye. Arsenal don't play with the same intensity or freeness as when they first emerged as serious title contenders, but this is nonetheless constructed in Arteta's image and he must bear responsibility for the way it looks now.
Had Arsenal beaten Newcastle or United, had Kai Havertz not fluffed his lines again and again and again, their victory would have gone down as one of grit and grind rather than typical beauty, even in spite of what the other stats may suggest. Whatever graceful flow they had as an advantage over their rivals is dissipating quickly.
Then there's the habit they need to kick – doubling down on woe. It's rare that this iteration of Arteta's Arsenal respond quickly to setbacks, rather they dig themselves into holes which are difficult to climb out of. They already endured one such period earlier this season when embarking on a run of two wins in seven games, and you can find such extended slumps at every point of the last few years. Ultimately, this has stopped them in their search for silverware and Premier League glory. That strive for perfection is still not perfect enough.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportScoring troubles
The finger of blame for Arsenal's wicked week has been pointed in the direction of Havertz. Having missed three glorious chances across the two matches at crucial junctures and missed in the shootout defeat, that's at least an understandable conclusion to come to. It's been said many times before – done to death, actually – that Havertz is not the elite striker Arsenal need if they're to end their trophy drought and 21-year wait for a major title.
When asked how he would lift Havertz up again, Arteta replied: "To him and to all of them, [I would say] that I love them, individually and as a team, they are a joy. I'm not going to lose sight of that because of our results, because we didn't deserve those results. We miss from various ways, various players. It [scoring] is an emotional part, it's something related to confidence as well."
That fails to recognise two key factors. The first is that strikers be judged on goals and finishing, as they are the difference-makers by job description. The second is that Havertz wasn't even signed as a striker in the first place.
After Granit Xhaka's emotional departure, Arsenal made a big song and dance that Havertz was his heir. "He will bring a huge amount of extra strength to our midfield and variety to our play," Arteta said upon the German's arrival. That he turned out to be a decent No.9 with semi-respectable numbers only after that misguided experiment failed was a bonus.
What Arsenal do with Havertz is clouding and blocking their transfer strategy. He was signed for £65 million and is believed to be on wages in excess of £250,000 a week, putting him in the very top bracket of the club's highest earners. To sign another striker now cold threaten dressing room harmony should it see a player on such a salary relegated to the bench, not to mention tank Havertz's confidence to the point of no return.
Gabriel Jesus had started coming back into some form before suffering a potentially season-ending injury on Sunday, while Leandro Trossard, Gabriel Martinelli and loanee Raheem Sterling have all failed to perform at the required standard for extended periods this term. Teenage sensation Ethan Nwaneri is still a couple of weeks away from full fitness in addition to Saka's recovery from hamstring surgery.
The frontline is a bit flat, and that's a problem of Arteta's making. He's been in the Emirates dugout for over five years now, and this is the army he's decided to go to war with.
Getty Images Sport'One in a thousand'
For Arsenal's sake, you'd hope that their training ground and dressing room discussions about performances and results is not as bitter and self-wallowing as Arteta portrays to the rest of the world.
Speaking to after Sunday's defeat, he said: "It's unbelievable. Obviously, you measure the performance and what we did in relation to the position, you know, you deserve to win the game by a mile. But the reality is we are out, and the only thing that's going to be judged is that, but internally, I can't.
"I love my players. I love our team and I love how good they are and what they do because in a thousand games, you should lose one, and probably it was this one. You have to understand this as well, it's part of our industry, our game and move on because you don't have time to do that, because on Wednesday we have a massive one."
At his press conference, he added: "Incredible how we didn't win the game, that's basically to sum up, the dominance, the superiority in relation to the opposition and everything we did to try to win the game and that's it. We didn't get what we deserve clearly, but there is an element about putting the ball in the back of the net, we did it once, with the amount of situations, chances, penalties that we had, we didn't.
"Obviously relying on not performing like this and waiting for one shot to go on target and score a goal. I don't want to bet on that. I bet on that team to try. Are we going to win big trophies? I don't know. But playing like this there are very few teams in the world that can play at that level."
But the 'situations, chances, penalties' that Arsenal did have were largely a result of game state. Arteta's side only started performing when already two down against Newcastle, only when United had Diogo Dalot sent off and were a goal to the good.
The matches changed. Newcastle had no need to try and risk throwing men forward for a third with a second leg to come, while United's best chance of victory came on the counter or via a shootout. Not even Arsenal's famed set-pieces could save them. If these were one-in-a-thousand situations, why did they occur twice in the same week?
Getty Images SportSeason on the brink
So, Arsenal are out of the FA Cup, face almost certain elimination in the Carabao Cup and are outside bets at this stage for both the Premier League and Champions League, despite ranking highly in both tables.
Add to that, this rut has allowed apathy to creep back into a relentless day-to-day and week-to-week schedule on every level. The cycle can seem never-ending when nothing seems to be going your way. Saka, now at this point unquestionably the team's best player, is still a couple of months away from a return, at which point he will still likely need a few more weeks to get up to speed again.
Arteta has insisted Arsenal won't dip into the market for reinforcements just for the sake of it, preferring to "focus very much on the ones that we have". In the long term they may benefit, but there's no denying they need some short-term respite to ease this pain.