How has it all gone wrong? There were mitigating circumstances in Arsenal’s complicated defeat at Southampton on Saturday.
Nobody could fault them for their effort. In normal circumstances, the statistics – 76 per cent possession and 23 attempts on goal – would bring three points. Instead, Jan Bednarek’s smartly-taken goal just before half-time ended Southampton’s increasingly quixotic quest for their first league victory since February.
As Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta noted after his team’s gentle siege, “you have to win matches and that has to be defined in the boxes.”
Arsenal did neither, and from a position of power in the race to qualify for the top four, they have now fallen behind both Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United with just a handful of games remaining.
We look at why Arsenal’s Champions League qualification bid has come off the rails.
Chelsea demolition influenced Southampton’s style
Arsenal’s opponents were a different proposition from the one who had conceded six home goals to Chelsea seven days previously. Southampton manager Ralph Hasenhuttl had promised his men would be a different defensive proposition entirely and he was as good as his word. Hasenhuttl juggled personnel, deployed a defensive quintet who were supported by four tightly disciplined midfielders. And it worked.
Arsenal found themselves up against Fraser Forster, a goalkeeper who had an afternoon where everything stuck and but for one reckless Yan Valery pass early on, Southampton were unyielding and unruffled. The overwhelming bulk of those 23 attempts were speculative long rangers.
Yet, the facts remain. With fourth place Tottenham Hotspur losing at lunchtime, this was Arsenal’s golden ticket and three points would have taken Arsenal level with their neighbours. Instead, Cristiano Ronaldo intervened for Manchester United to bump them down to sixth.
Rough patch feels familiar
Arsenal couldn’t have chosen a worse moment to hit a wall similar to the beginning of the season when they lost their three opening games, conceded nine and scored none. Arsenal have once again lost three league matches in a row, scoring just one goal and that was Martin Odegaard’s deflected effort against Brighton & Hove Albion. Midfielder Albert Sambi Lokongo drew on that wretched start to insist all can be well. “We’re all on the same page. we’ve been through this at the start of the season, so we can do it again.”
Front three unable to bare their teeth
The problems are clear enough. On Saturday, their front three struggled to gel. Gabriel Martinelli was all too easily thwarted by Kyle Walker-Peters who resisted temptation to fly forwards as a wing-back. For all his enthusiasm, Eddie Nketiah was the kid who was starting his first league game of the season. Bukayo Saka was the pick of the three, but Romain Perraud and Valery blocked his access routes whenever the England international attempted to cut in and wreak havoc.
Alexandre Lacazette’s positive Covid test was a variable out of everyone’s control, but he has scored just four times in the league. Leaving leading scorer – just the nine league goals – Emile Smith Rowe on the bench was a tactical decision. And then there is Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. Over the Christmas transfer break, Arteta decided the Gabon enigma was a malign influence with disciplinary issues, without whom his club would flourish. A strike record of more than one goal every two games might have given others pause for thought, but Arteta pressed on regardless. Arsenal took a £56 million hit and Aubameyang fled to Catalonia where his 10 goals in 12 Barcelona starts include a hat-trick at Valencia’s Mestalla and a double at the Bernabeu. Less excusable still, is that for all the riches hurled at other areas of the team, Arsenal have not bought an established forward since Willian’s disastrous move in 2020. Before that? Aubameyang himself in January 2018.
Dearth of experience could hamper run-in
Lokonga held the centre and was instrumental in preventing the James Ward-Prowse-Oriol Romeu combination from clicking as it can, but Granit Xhaka lacks the creativity to function as part of an attack-servicing three and Southampton found it easy to stifle the creative hub of Odegaard and Saka, whose closeness on the pitch is mirrored in the similarity of their playing style.
Arteta cited further mitigation afterwards: at least partly by his design, Arsenal are a young team. Of the 11 starters, none were teenagers, but only Cedric Soares (30) and Granit Xhaka (29) were over 24. “Right now, we give all our support to them, because they need it.”
The Champions League remains in Arsenal’s reach. They must visit Chelsea, West Ham United, Tottenham and Newcastle, while the Emirates will host Manchester United, Leeds United and Everton, yet the team who have forgotten how to score need to tap in to the muscle memory of 14 goals in 12 December days.
