Former Arsenal defender Martin Keown is worried about their squad depth after they failed to win two consecutive matches for the first time this season.
Mikel Arteta’s side picked up a point from their trip to Southampton at the weekend and lost to PSV in the Europa League yesterday.
It is their second competitive defeat of the season, but it shows a worrying drop in form over the past three matches.
Arteta has hardly rotated his team this term and even recently defended his decision to field his key men in all the matches.
However, after the defeat at the hands of the Dutchmen, Keown is worried they might not have the depth to deal with all their fixtures successfully.
He said via The Sun:
“I don’t want this to derail his team – five people missing and five subs on.
“Strength in depth not quite there but as long as they can learn from that, they’ll use this as fuel going into the Forest game.”
Just Arsenal Opinion
The key to success for the top clubs is squad depth and Arsenal seems to need more players to execute this season.
The Gunners have been outstanding this term, but their key contributors must get occasional breaks to keep them fresh.
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I think Arsenal has 2 problems:
1. Dealing with crowds away from home. This psychological problem needs a solution. There was improvement from the beginning of the year but not quite good enough as we now see.
2. Arteta’s inability to rotate effectively as Keown rightly points out. This caused us top 4 last season. Until Lacazette had an issue, no one knew Nketiah could do anything. If Nketiah had played in some of those games that we lost before Lacazette had fitness issues, we should have done better.
The rest of us were concerned about squad depth when we failed to sign a backup DM and striker during the last transfer window. Crap would hit the fan if we fail again in January to strengthen in the the right areas.
Arsenal do need reinforcements. They are starting to look a bit tired after a fast start. And it’s not just them by the way. The number of games seems to be affecting everyone.
Arsenal need another quality striker. Someone who is familiar with the league, but isn’t getting minutes. Iheanacho of Leceister comes to mind. Arsenal get into the box a lot now and Iheanacho is a box player. He’s not doing as well at Leceister because they are not a team that get into the box often enough. I also like the fact that he’s left footed. Loose balls that a Jesus would struggle to strike properly on that side of the box would come more naturally to him. Jesus should not be off the pitch though. Even when not scoring his industry and pace destabilises defences and would make someone coming behind him just inside the box, who can finish a good back up.