To say things are not going well at Arsenal at the moment would probably be the understatement of the year, with the club languishing in 14th place, having gained just 4 points from our last six games.
But in between those six games, our fringe players have played 4 games in the Europa League, winning all 4 and scoring 12 goals, while our Premier League team has managed just two goals in those 6 League games, one from a penalty and one from a corner.
Us simple Arsenal fans would have thought that the midweek wins would give us a boost in contrast to our miserable weekends, but Mikel Arteta thinks that the crowded fixture list is not helping at all.
Last week the trip to Molde took nearly 4 days to complete, and Arteta says this is hindering him working with his squad. He told Tribalfootball: “When we can train, that means that we have time, because we are playing every three days and that makes it really difficult to do that. We just try to improve this situation,”
“More than the situations we create or not is the final ball that we deliver when we are in this situation and the amount of times that we hit the target with the situations that we create, which is not enough.
“It’s down to me to find this solution, to put the players in the right positions and do it better.”
Another downside to the Europa League games is that the first team, who can’t score to save their lives, are seeing the backup players knocking in an average of 3 goals a game in midweek. This must also be a frustration for our first team, as well as the disruption to training.
Do you think we would be doing better in the League if we didn’t have the distraction of the Europa?
Admin Pat