Problems continue to plague Mikel Arteta as he attempts to turn Arsenal around.
Earlier today I did an article about five positives that Arsenal can take from the draw with Burnley on Sunday afternoon, well, there were also negatives and there is no point in ignoring them.
For the sake of balance, I am keeping the number of negatives to five as I did with the positives.
Lacazette lack of form
This is a significant worry, he has gone a whole year now without scoring an away goal in the Premier League. Any way you dress that up it is ingrained. It is becoming more and more difficult to understand any justification for him keeping a place on the team.
No creativity even with Mesut Ozil playing
The lack of creativity from Arsenal is startling, it really makes no difference if Ozil is playing or not these days. Whether it is tactics or personnel I do not know but it is clearly self-evident that it is far harder to score goals without creativity.
Mikel Arteta decision making
It is baffling that he persisted with Lacazette for so long yesterday when he was not an asset on the pitch, substituting him on the 85th minute with another attacker made no sense, not if you were trying to win the game. It was also strange why Lucas Torreira did not start. There is the height reasoning but that smacked of negativity from word go.
Nicolas Pepe
He was not started yesterday, he was not brought on as a sub and despite the odd glimpse of talent he has shown very little. A huge sum was paid for him and once you spend that sort of money you expect a team to be built around that player. The fact he did not feature at all yesterday is a reason for concern.
Over-reliance on Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang
Auba did not score and the game finished 0-0. Too many times the Gabonese hit-man has rescued Arsenal and when he is not firing on all cylinders the team pays a price. There has to be an alternative to the former Dortmund star. It could be Gabriel Martinelli but not when you are playing him so far out wide.