In the first 16 matches of the season, Arsenal had conceded just three goals across all competitions. Ten of those games were in the Premier League, with all three goals coming in that competition. Such defensive solidity sparked plenty of online discussion about the possibility of breaking Chelsea’s famous goals conceded record. Having shipped three goals at home to United last time out, that 15 goal benchmark is now officially out of reach, an astonishing record regardless. In truth, few expected Arsenal to get anywhere near it. However, given how strong we were defensively early on, it is hard not to feel that there has been a noticeable regression.
A worrying shift in defensive output
Our defence has been Arsenal’s saving grace on countless occasions this season. How often have the Gunners played poorly and still emerged with all three points? How often has that defensive security settled nerves during underwhelming attacking displays? It has not been immediately obvious, but Mikel Arteta’s side are becoming less effective at what they arguably do best.
In the 20 matches following that initial run, Arsenal have conceded 20 goals in all competitions, while managing just five clean sheets. Compare that to the first 16 games, where we kept an incredible 13 clean sheets. Arsenal are now allowing significantly more shots on goal and a higher number of big chances than before, which points to a clear drop in defensive control.
Errors, injuries and contributing factors
When analysing what has gone wrong, individual mistakes have played a part. Every goal can be avoided in one way or another, yet Arsenal have made life harder for themselves. Gabriel’s error against Bournemouth and Zubimendi’s mistakes against both Spurs and United stand out.
Injuries must also be considered. Gabriel missed two months of action, Saliba has sat out several matches, and Timber, Calafiori and others have all been forced to miss time. Fatigue, fixture congestion and the calibre of opposition have further contributed to the decline.
Regardless of the reasons, Arteta’s men must rediscover their defensive solidity, particularly at a time when the attack is not consistently cutting teams open.
What do you think? Should we be genuinely concerned, or am I overreacting?
Benjamin Kenneth
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It’s only becoming a problem because out attack has barely contributed this season thus we were getting by on the best defense in the league by a long way combined with a big input from set pieces/own goals.
Now that our defense is not as stellar our attack really needs to improve drastically.
When this point was raised quite a few months ago that this day was coming we were shot down about how we should be happy we are “winning” ugly and always finding a way.
Being great at set pieces is supposed to be an added benefit to a solid functioning attack, not a substitute for a dysfunctional attack.
Thank you @ PJ-SA
As long as we don’t openly admit the ineffectiveness of our attack, we may not sufficiently work on improving this part of our game and we may as well go on to make wrong decisions in the coming summer.
Doesn’t make sense that the best defense in the league is the same that is our best and feared attack by our opponents. And then fans are blamed for being negative??!!
The defense is in decline lately indeed and the attack has not been really good this season.
Every department need to improve at this crucial point especially the attack.
The midfield is looking lightweight too as Rice is the only midfielder that can mark and dispossess the opponents.
Odegaard and Zubimendi need to step up and close down players and spaces better.
Rice can’t do it all alone.
Fair point SJ.It seems to me that both Odegaard and Zubimendi find it difficult to cope defensively ,particularly on heavy ground when their lack of physical presence and power is shown up.They are both more suited to harder surfaces , and while it would be wrong to classify them as “fair weather players” , their best displays seem to occur with the Sun on their backs.For this reason i am surprised we have not seen more of Norgaard who was a mainstay in central midfield for Brentford for years and is certainly more defensively adept when bround conditions get really tough.Personally i think there is a case for deploying Norgaard and Havertz, along with Rice in midfield against a very combative Leeds side this weekend but i suspect Arteta may be reluctant leave out our Captain and Zubimendi despite their indifferent form of late.As to our back four they all need to knuckle down with real determination to keep a clean sheet against Leeds for whom Aarosson can be highly creative and dangerous.
Thank you @ Grandad!!
Well said @Grandad. Arteta needs to learn how to rotate effectively against certain opponents.
A midfield 3 of Rice, Norgaard and Havertz will be pretty solid.
I really doubt Arteta would want to make such wholesome changes. He will say that Havertz is not fully fit yet and he won’t want to dent Odegaard the Captain’s confidence even more by benching him and he will say Norgaard has become old for the EPL at 31 years.
I guess that’s why he is not playing him.
Where do you get….” indifferent form of late “….for Zubi….
He made a mistake…..a bad one….and it changed the tempo of the game…..
But….he has been brilliant for the Arsenal….
One word ….favourites…..with the novice, you can be playing poorly but if you’re on his list, you’ re in. Case in point …Odegaard, what has happened to him, he had a blinder 1st game maybe due to forgetting the micro management efict of only allowed to score after walking the ball into the net after a mimimum of 10 passes. Notice that 90% of our dropped points was when he played? Maybe bring him on when we are 3 nil up as even at 2nil, yhe jitters EASILY get to the players as he actually is poor captain material.
Arsenals defence has been brilliant….two silly “gimme’s” in CL game. The 2nd and 3rd against MU whilst excellent from their point of view where poor from ours. Zubi should have intercepted the pass from Fernandes for their second…our two defensive midfielders went gung ho for the same exchange leaving a lot of space for Cunha to exploit which he duly did for their third…. we were unlucky. Im not even going to talk about the H Mag peno 😡
Why this panic mode? I am greatly disappointed by the articles and responses on this platform! For goodness sake, we are still top.of the table with a 4 point gap. Even if we lost and our rivals won we would still be one point above them which we can increase as the competition becomes for stiff. I am very optimistic that our team will recover from this blip because of the quality of our squad. Our main rivals this season also have tricky ties ahead. So, it is not all doom and gloom. Let us keep the faith and support our team until victory is achieved.
Since the return of odegard played 10 games, 10 goals concede, 8 points dropped higher shoot conceded why nobody sees that it is plain has daylight at villa Park the best thing that happened to this team this season is Eze in the middle compact organized list shoot concede better team
Since the return of odegard
Ah…..same comments again from the fanboy. Remember the 22/23 season whrre some here were already asking for the novice to be crowned greatest manager ever? We in fact were 8 pts clear then so i sm not holding my breath as we usually collapse April but looks like we are starting early
We needed AND need a stonger captain, who can galvanise the team when heads drop AND i dont see odegaard doing that, too nice a guy. We need a viera now…gabriel m? We were 3-1 up against the CL bottom club who only played 3 competitive since Oct yet when odegaard came on, we slowed down and conceded a goal!!! If it wasnt the last few mins, it would have been a draw
Imo it’s a little of everything. The system is basically to move the field. But there’s only so much space in the box so teams can still cheat one or two players toward midfield without affecting defense too much. And when we lose the ball and there’s literally one or even zero players more than 30 yards from the other goal, a decently fast player is going to get a decent chance for a clear break. If we’re creating more chances and scoring more from open play, teams will sit deeper and not risk the counters as often.
The lack of a true dm is a problem at times. Rice and zubi are great and the 2 way threat they both provide makes it difficult for any team, but it also leaves us vulnerable at times because there’s just too many times where everyone goes forward. All the midfielders, both fbs, and often times even one of the cbs. That’s not really ok for me. Even in more open games, there are times when the rotation is a bit off and both rice and zubi and up forward.
The other thing for me is fit. Gyok and eze looked pretty good together. They were on the same page for movement and spacing. Odegaard comes deep to get the ball and help control the midfield. Too often imo, and with gyokeres it just doesn’t fit as well. Havertz and merino are midfielders and in those situations they tend to come deeper to fill the space, even if it leaves no one in the center, which is a different problem. With no one filling that space, the opposing midfield can press a bit higher and will have an extra player if they do win the ball back.
I feel like some of these issues stem from the fbs. In the past few years we’ve usually had one of the fbs tuck into the midfield rather than stay wide and bomb forward. This provided a lot of stability on counters and have an extra player to win back the ball quickly, but it also left us narrow in attack. The rotations also felt needlessly complicated and the play was slow and ponderous at times.
I think I’d prefer somewhere in the middle. Start with this current system against most teams but after scoring a couple goals or in more open games switch to the other and tuck one of the fbs in to give better stability in midfield and protection for the back line.