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Arsenal: The perpetual nightmare?

By on March 1, 2015

Arsenal’s recent loss to Monaco was just one of many poor performances. Once again Arsenal seemed stretched, without structure and without bite. This is just one of the many losses to add to Wenger’s list of woes. In the same week in which we heard Mourinho say Wenger had the “dream job”, Wenger lost again to a well-organised, structured and Portuguese-managed team. Dare I say, Arsenal lost to Mourinho again.

After the loss Wenger said: “On the second and third goals we were suicidal.” These words reflect a huge change in Arsene Wenger’s outlook and faith in his players; and we saw that after Arsenal’s loss to Dortmund in December as well: “It’s still difficult to understand how we concede the goal.” Roll to clock back to last year and Arsenal were losing 6-3, 5-1, 6-0 to City, Liverpool and Chelsea respectively. Take it back further and Arsenal have lost 8-2 to Manchester United in 2011, the same season they lost to Birmingham in the League Cup final. How is it Arsenal have gone from a team built on the legendary back four — the Invincibles of Kolo Toure and Sol Campbell –- to a situation in which their team is built around their attack instead? Where is the will to win and to win for Arsenal? Look at Henry, a champion in every sense of the word, (woollen ties and all!).

First of all, let’s give Monaco some credit. Monaco are a side who have only lost twice since December 2nd. They were also without key players such as Roberto Caravalho, Raggi, Bakayoko and Jeremy Toulalan. Furthermore, Monaco are fourth in Ligue 1, albeit competing against a standard below the average of the Barclays Premier League. The one thing Monaco had was a plan and they stuck to it, and we watched Kondogbia and Abdennour play with the discipline and bite we rarely see with Arsenal players nowadays. Outside of Coquelin, Arsenal do not have a player who can boss their opposite number. In the return leg, Arsenal are going to have to be aggressive and risk conceding goals, but that is Arsenal’s way – they just might play their best football in this context and have a chance at an historic Champions League comeback.

Yet when putting all this together it seems the Arsenal players get away with too much. Wenger has never been one to throw his proverbial toys out the pram or, in Sir Alex Ferguson’s case, boots. “Arsene’s biggest strength is his trust in his players, but it can also be a weakness,” Patrick Viera noted astutely. Arsene needs to light a fire under his players. If a loss to Monaco isn’t the time to wake the players up, nothing is. There might be Arsenal players with steel and drive, but until Arsene takes away the cotton wrap, we will never know. Unfortunately the cycle of Arsenal ‘s life is to show promise, not quite deliver, lose to teams that they shouldn’t be losing to, finish fourth in the league and then repeat the cycle next season.

The horrible truth is that without Wenger there would be no Alexis Sanchez, no Mesut Ozil, no Santi Cazorla and Arsenal might not be the club they are today. On the other hand, without Arsene, Arsenal might possibly have won a Premier League title in the past decade. The rub is, that with Wenger, Arsenal will always play great attractive football, but often at the risk of losing big games and occasionally losing them badly. The point is coming when the fans, the Board and Wenger himself have to decide if they want to continue to favor style over substance.

…..so what did we see against Everton at the weekend? We saw a team that set out to avoid failure rather than to win. There were individual moments of Arsenal bravery, namely Francis Coquelin and his nose (should’ve he been playing against Ireland?) and Giroud scoring from Ozil’s corner. The match also showed the beginning of a new centre back partnership for Arsenal, that of Gabriel and Laurent Koscielny. That being said Arsenal were pitted against an opposing team, clearly tired from their exploits in Europe, giving away more chances to Everton than polite. Notable among these was Romelu Lukaku’s run on goal from a Gabriel mistake. The first 25 minutes saw an Arsenal team clearly scarred from their midweek loss, but lessons had been learned: Arsenal played it safe. It seemed that not conceding was more important than scoring, but in doing so Arsenal lacked confidence.

This game is hard one to draw conclusions from. This was a typical Sunday afternoon game, through which both teams were carrying the effects of their midweek games. Arsene’s comment was that, “we had a united team response. The defensive concentration was at a much higher level”. Kirean Gibbs’ takes was that “we’re starting to pick up form”. Good to hear, but possibly too late to rejuvenate their season, though, admittedly, fourth place has become an average finish.  The coming are weeks are crucial Arsenal face QPR, Man U, West Ham and Monaco again. For once Arsenal need to be good just to get by.

Photo credit: Ronnie MacDonald on Flickr

About Bill McCoughlin