Despite a promising start to the season, Arsenal is on the verge of missing out on winning the Premier League title.
Liverpool has been unstoppable, but Mikel Arteta has made some mistakes which have cost them the title. Here are just a few of them.:
Not signing a striker
Everyone except the board believed Arsenal needed to bring in a striker to make the difference between finishing second and winning the league. Despite this, the club chose not to strengthen the attacking department, and that decision has now proven costly. Arsenal has struggled to convert chances, and a prolific goal scorer could have made a significant impact on their title challenge.
Over-reliance on Bukayo Saka
His injury exposed just how much Arsenal depends on the attacker, which is concerning for a club of their size. A team of Arsenal’s stature should not be so heavily reliant on a single player. The lack of adequate alternatives has affected their attacking efficiency when Saka has been unavailable or not at his best.
Relying too much on set-piece success
The team’s celebrations when they win set-pieces have made them easy for rivals to mock. Relying too much on dead-ball situations has affected their overall play, making them less effective in open play. They have struggled to create clear-cut chances in crucial games, which has resulted in dropped points at key moments in the season.
A lack of solution against low-block
Manchester United’s low-block approach was so effective that Arsenal will feel fortunate not to have lost the match. The same issue arose last season when teams set up defensively against them, yet no effective solution has been found. This has been a recurring problem that Arteta has failed to address, and it remains a significant tactical weakness.
Not taking advantage of the January transfer window
Fans accepted that the club did not sign a striker in the summer, but making the same error in January has been harder to justify. Not bringing in a striker, regardless of the cost, is a key reason Arsenal may finish the season without a trophy.
ADMIN COMMENT
So here are some simple rules which I must insist commenters follow….
You agree not to give any personal abuse to other Arsenal fans. Everyone is allowed to hold their own opinions even if you disagree with them. It COSTS NOTHING TO BE POLITE TO OTHER ARSENAL FANS.
Everyone is prone to making a mistake, but not learning from them and repeating them is not right. Arrogance leads to downfall. Will Mikel realize his ideas have failed? Will he be humble and accept them as mistakes and learn/grow or will he persist on blaming the refs, the matchday ball, the climate, the travel ……Everyone knows the answer.
Well said. The other mistakes are not carrying the maximum senior players allowed and overusing his best players.
Signing Sterling, Not playing Tierney, playing Partey RB, wrong tactics, rigid tactics, no plan B, relying on Haverz, buying Haverz, making Odergaard captain, not having an alternative to Odergaard, signing too many defenders, boring slow football, playing HIS chosen few, playing Vierra, not addressing glaring errors week after week, his fixation on left footed players and 5′ 10″ players, that finally seems to have gone, not having a proper no2 goalkeeper, not keeping Martinez, dropping Ramsdale like a stone, playing 433 whatever the personell. Ive got writers cramp so stopping. 5 mistakes isn’t touching the surface.
You are speaking facts, my friend.
I’m with you on Arteta’s weaknesses.
You’re so on point. Why buy Sterling and Merino(when Jorginho and Partey is still in the team )? Selling Smith Rowe when Osegaard has no replacement . Insisting on using Havertz as our main striker when we know we need a very prolific scorer. Not buying a replacement for Saka with lots of chances to do that yet no business was done. Not trusting the younglings and over using our top players . We are far off from winning the league and infact holding on to second is a miracle. Hopefully all these gets addressed in the next transfer window.
The number one mistake was the club giving Arteta a ridiculous pay hike and contract extension.
That he is yet to beat Unai Emery at the Emirates doesn’t sit well with me for what he’s earning.
Well Emery was forth last season and with reinforcement and spending this season top four not looking likely.
Nothing against AV or Emery but – Bang Munster, good job.
@Munster
And yet, Unai has taken a relegation threatened team up into the last 16 of the CL and in the FA Cup quarter finals in less than 3 season. Yeah, he got in some reinforcements, which goes with rebuilding a team. And yes they are struggling in the league at the moment. I don’t think they have the capacity to fight on all fronts as they have been doing and not sacrifice something. Unai deserves some respect for what he’s done with a mid to lower table team so far. And doesn’t deserve to be dumped on, simply because someone brought up a fact you felt uncomfortable with. Just sayin….
Relegation threatening Villa with good players. Arteta took over a diminishing team with wack players winning the FA cup and going toe to toe with the best City team around. Emery with huge investment is languishing mid table, I know what I wish position I will prefer.
@Munster
If those players were so good, Villa wouldn’t have been teetering on the drop. While Arteta had world class players, who he couldn’t control. £800+ mil spent and going”toe to toe” with City, but still came up short. Bragging about coming second a couple years in a row, ain’t the flex you think it is…😂
Think it’s some flex as Villa and Emery will kill for it.. I can remember also Emery with the so called world class players and bottled top 4 while still here same as the following season with the world class players we were languishing mid table.. on regards money spent you will realize we have to build an entire new squad as I believe the board and majority of Arsenal fan wanted at the time. Mins you Villa was so good but remember Gerard was so bald hence languishing bottom of the table. I will also argue Villa has more robust squad and continues signings.
@Munster
Yeah, Villa would kill to have made it up to “second” 2years in a row, while battling against a supreme City squad. Being the mid/lower table they’ve been for so many years. While Arteta got to second and bottled it 3 years in a row, with close a billion spent. That, is not the flex anyone would kill for…
And Villa also had to overhaul its whole squad. Since those “so called” good players were not good enough.
@NY_Gunner
It’s a good thing you agreed Villa will kill for what we have as that translate to success no matter what. It will also be educative to know Emery is on the cusp of spending to the tune of half a billion pounds just to be languishing in mid table this season and load of incoming transfers in the summer as the Villa board continue to back him.
Now talking of flex anyone will kill for I think Chelsea, United and at a length Castle wll kill for it too even if after spending more than Mikel and nowhere near.
Didn’t one of the world class players that Arteta ‘failed to control’, make life so difficult for the very manager that you are championing, that it cost him his job?
Someone likes to make excuses for Emery. Of course, anything negative said about Arteta, however outlandish, is real talk.
@David
Not making any excuses for Unai. No need to. His trophy haul speaks for itself…RealTalk 😁
NY-Gunner,
David just can’t help himself can he. Wrong type of ball anyone.🤣😂👍
@Sue P
So, that’s why he was fired? I thought it was because, as you stated a few times before, “that he just wasn’t the right fit for AFC”…🤔
Is this about Emery or Arsenal, let’s stick to the core which is Arsenal I’m assuming we’re Arsenal supporters not Emery or Aston Villa supporters.
At Arsenal – he wasn’t the right fit imo. Are you suggesting that he was the right fit NYG? His grasp of English, unfortunately and disgracefully caused horrible name calling. The Ozil issue was a factor that also seeped into the Arteta story as well. It was well reported that the Emery/Ozil relationship had its difficulties. I presume the toxicity that encompassed the start of his second season had nothing to do with his inability at the time to control his senior players- hence he lost the dressing room. I’ve nothing against him at all but to use his trophy haul to suit your point of view isn’t relevant in this instance. He didn’t add to it with us and that ultimately is what mattered
But just think SueP,
Had he stayed to the end of that season, the club may well have won the cup under him. 🤦♂️
Just think Derek, we could’ve been relegated if he had stayed.
Not dumbing on Emery in any stace as we been there done it and moved on.
Tyndale, yet Mikel has beaten Emery twice at Villa Park.
Herr Drier,
Yes and Arteta has lost and drawn at home against Emery to. Keep it balanced now. TUT, TUT, TUT.😂👍🙄
Derek, what’s worse, losing 2 games or losing 1 and drawing 1 ?
I take it math isn’t your strong point. TUT, TUT, TUT. 🙄
Herr Drier,
What you fail to highlight in your point scoring response is that the defeat and draw at home both played there part in stopping Arsenal winning the title. Well certainly the home defeat did anyway. But we shall gloss over that one shall we. Remember, keep it balanced. TUT, TUT, TUT.🙄🤦♂️
Derek, so losing to Fulham, West Ham, Newcastle never played a part, just the points dropped to Villa 🙄.
Remember to balance things out. TUT, TUT, TUT.
@ Here Drier
Some people can b slow with comprehension and logical reasoning..
Munster, so very true 👍.
Btw, are you from the city of your name ?
Munster,
You talk about comprehension, and then spell Herr, Here. And you then spell the word be, b.🙄🤦♂️🤷♂️😂👍
There you go again Herr Drier, point scoring.
I agree with the other teams you mention. But we were talking about Emery at Villa.
And just for the record the Villa defeat came late enough in the season to have a bad effect on the team at that point of the season.
Stop trying to be a point scorer. Tut, Tut, Tut. 🙄🤦♂️🤷♂️
No point scoring from me Derek, just pointing out facts 😁.
Now for another fact, after losing to Villa at home we then won all our remaining league games, so it hardly a “bad effect on the team”.
TUT, TUT, TUT, David smfh.
Well Herr Drier,
The Villa result did have a bad effect. It proved to be the final nail in Arsenal’s coffin.
And who’s this David smfh by the way. 🤷♂️
So Derek, the loses I mentioned had no effect on our points total at the end of the season then ?
As for “who’s this David smfh”, I don’t know, as I’ve never seen a post by a David smfh on here.
Perhaps the only one too.
Well written article Gooner K.
I concur with all the points you raised.
Sadly, if these issues are not addressed, our beloved club may remain trophy less for a long time to come.
It’s not the board’s fault that we don’t have a striker. MA decided to bring in Merino and Calafiori for +70 million so that’s where the budget was spent. Also the Raya’s loan was made permanent. Not even mentioning the 2023 summer spending.
Seriously, these two signings were unnecessary, when it was obvious what we need were attackers.
How’s it not the board fault ?
They own the club
I do wonder a bit if the board left all the decisions to the football people and finally said that is enough?
Doesn’t let anyone off the hook but I wonder if the decision not to spend in January was as much about what had or hadn’t been done before?
I totally agree with the piece and also the five comments from other posters on here.
Everyone makes mistakes, anyone who says they don’t I will show you a liar. But to keep repeating the mistakes or not acknowledging the said mistake and carry on down the same route is arrogance of the highest kind.
The glaring error is his failure to put together a balanced squad despite the considerable financial support afforded to him by the Owners during his time at the helm.At the end of the day, he will be judged on results, and if we fail to qualify for the Champions League next season, the Board may regret their decision to grant Arteta a huge pay rise which simply cannot be justified.The fact that most Arsenal fans are not enjoying the brand of football being served up week in week out, is another issue, and I dare say we would all tolerate being bored if we were sitting on top of the League.
Putting together a balanced squad is relatively straightforward. Most managers can do this. The issue is whether you can have sufficient quality across the squad at the same time. Unless you can outspend everyone else this is a huge challenge for any club and even more so for a team that is being almost completely rebuilt whilst competing in one of the toughest leagues in the world.
what about the effects of those 5 cards? due to illdiscipline, recklessness or refs inconsistent decisions?
Failing to get reliable options for our best players ie. Saka and Odegaard, failing to address the left wing, and relying on Gabriel Jesus and Kai Havertz to win us games, and releasing the Ram.
It’s very,clear that if we got the basics right ,we would still be in 4 competitions with every chance of winning. But look at us now.?
For me,the theme of this season would have been squad depth and squad balance. We already had a team that finished second, we only needed to add some quality in depth by way of upgrading in some positions and quality cover for specific positions that were very clear.
But what did we do?
1.Sign Calafiori when we had,Zinchenko, Kiwior,Tierney&Tomiyasu. Keep all of them on the wage bill,bench all of them and play Lewis-Skelly from the academy.
2.Sell all the attacking options we had on the bench in (Smith Rowe,Nelson,Vieira,Nketiah,Bierech&Maquinos)thus depleting the entire forward line then replace them with Merino to stay on the bench.
3.Then play only specific players week in week out until they get worn out and injured because you have no substitutes for them.
This is just utter incompetence from Arteta and however much we try to support him,he must either shape up or ship out.
The main thing was the fact that the Frontline was so streamlined. I think 🤔 the Calafiori signing was not a bad one at least he offers much better than Injured Tommy and Kiwior. Rotating with Skelly gave the team variety. Merino was bought because of his aerial ability which most of his goals this season is from that angle.
Charles Calafiori is a good player no doubt, but was signing him a priority?
I wouldnt mind signing him if we had some extra cash to spare after signing a striker, a winger and an attacking midfielder.
Further more, prudent spending would dictate that we dispense some players e.g Kiwior and Zinchenko before Signing Calafiori.
The same applies to Merino.Why didn’t we go for a towering C.f if we wanted that aerial ability instead of adding to an otherwise well stocked department?
Some of these arguments are being parroted by various people and really don’t make sense. Kiwior is mainly a rotational option for CB and was really used as an emergency option at LB last season because we had so many injuries amongst our main LB options.
Zinchenko has had injuries and his form has been somewhat patchy during the past season. Still, with Tomi also out with injuries it would have make little sense to have got rid of him. MLS’s form has been a bonus and would have been difficult to predict at the beginning of the season.
Failing to get reliable options for our best players ie. Saka and Odegaard, relying on Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus to win games, and failure to address the left wing.
Perhaps his biggest mistake is not reading comments on Just Arsenal on how to manage Arsenal football club🤔.
A very valid point you raise. A huge majority of people on JA are clear on our needs from time-to-time than those sitting in the Board Rooms
We certainly are the authorities on everything Arsenal. 🤣
I don’t understand the bit on “relying too much on set-piece success”.
I don’t think Arsenal deliberately go out to create set-piece situations to “rely” on; these situations occur in the normal course of the game.
Maybe they occur more for Arsenal because of the low-block tactics that most teams adopt against Arsenal.
Every team has set-piece opportunities. That Arsenal have made reasonably successful use of theirs does not make the team reliant on them.
I think we should be commending the team for this instead of classifying it as “mistake”. Apart from scoring from set-pieces, Arsenal have also been comparatively good at defending them.
COYG!!!
Agree CorporateMan. What a twisted narrative imo. Effective use of set-piece situations has a negative effect on open play results? I guess we should scr…up these opportunities more often instead of setting the standard for scoring more goals.
Set pieces are part of the game and i like it when we make the most out of them.
However,we need a dead ball specialist, somebody who can hit those free kicks and score.It seems non of our players has that ability which is a shame.
As you can see lately we have been caught out.The monotonous overhead crosses to our tall players are no longer working.
Yes Cliff, it would be great if we could have a regular starter who could place more of those free kicks perfectly or discover a regular starter who could do the same (like we did with Rice and his corner ability). Of course, we might be relying on the goals too much, lol.
Dear editor, where are my several un posted comments? Do you have a Bermuda of your own? That is one of the reasons why Arsenal and Arteta failed to win the epl title this season!
To be fair we actually dealt really well with Saka absence up until all our attacking options got injured. 8W 2 D until the West Ham games is actually really good considering how important Saka is to our play.
Not getting a top striker is a big mistake.
Relying on £65 million Havertz (2023) and getting Sterling in summer wasn’t the greatest business
Playing Partey at RB several times wasn’t a great idea either
Not playing Tierney
So which striker should we have got? Would playing Tierney more really make us a better team?
There were loads of attacking options we could have got in January better then what we have or at least a different option
Dan, could you name the loads of attacking options that were available and better than what we had in the January window?
Just a reminder of our attacking options at the time :
Saka – Martinelli – Havertz – Trossard – Jesus with an untried Nwaneri breaking through and the loan of Sterling completing the perceived attack.
Asencio
I replied to a post of yours which you probably missed. Partly in jest, I asked the hypothetical question that in our quest to find an attacking solution would you have asked Palace to loan us Nketiah for the remainder of the season? Nketiah doesn’t regularly start. He knows the set up here so wouldn’t need to bed in and is a body up front to aim at
Not getting a striker last summer and then again in January is inexcusable. Selling ESR was another big mistake. Arteta needs to be replaced. PERIOD.
I agree with Cliff above when he said that we needed to reinforce a team that finished 2nd twice.
It’s not just Arteta or Edu unbalancing the squad, but where is the executive or board asking why another LB in Calafiori before a striker or winger?
Why another DM type in Merino and zero options for a backup to Odegaard?
Why was the squad allowed to get unbalanced in the first place during the rebuild?
Too simplistic to just blame Arteta, or ownership, or the board. The burden of responsibility lies with all the above, we need some sort of checks and balances system in our club, hopefully something a new SD will bring.
Well said Durand.
To be honest, I am not sure how the Arsenal protocol works.I assume M.A being the manager calls shots on which players he needs through the S.D and they try to get them.
If in any case the board has a hand in players recruitment besides availing funds then this is a shared failure.
One thing for sure is that there is a mess somewhere which needs to be sorted.
The squad was just too thin and not good enough to compete for 4/5 separate titles in one season.
It’s no wonder the entire forward line – Saka, Martinelli, Jesus, even our press leader and hardest working player Odegaard – struggled so much with injuries.
Burnout, courtesy of Mikel Arteta!
We will struggle to make top four next season without adding at least a striker, a wide player and attacking midfielder. And this does not include new players to replace Partey and Jorginho.
So here we are looking at five new quality players before the start of the season.
Will Kroenke be willing to spend 300/400M on this rebuild?
Great to see the Liverpool bubble burst. If only!
Interesting to see how they couldn’t cope with the two injuries either Joe. S.
What a pity they didn’t concur with ours, as that would have given a much better idea as to how they would have coped.
That’s now down to Slot to find a solution 😄
Now, now SueP, no excuses allowed, lol.
The Carabao cup might be a closer tie if the injured don’t recover in time BB
“… Not bringing in a striker, regardless of the cost, is a key reason Arsenal MAY finish the season without a trophy”
Replace “May” with “Will”
We will lose to R.madrid and finish 4th in EPL