Arsenal Vs Newcastle: Players only part of defensive problem

Arsenal have again made simple defensive errors, gifting Newcastle United the victory. But the players are only a part of the problem. There is a bigger, more concerning, underlying reason.

And here we are again. Arsenal losing away from home thanks to a series of stupid defensive errors. It seems as if we are here every year with this team. For the past decade, I have bemoaned the defensive deficiencies of this team. And so, here we again.

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This time it was the turn of Shkodran Mustafi and Nacho Monreal. It wasn’t pretty. At all.

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The first goal came from a flashed DeAndre Yedlin cross. The ball was low and fast, directed into the penalty area. Mustafi was stood on his heels, square to the ball, unaware of the players around him. One of those players, Ayoze Perez, took the risk to dart across the face of Mustafi. He was more eager to win the ball, quicker to get his steered strike away, and sharper in both mind and body.

The second goal was the fault of both Mustafi and Monreal. Mustafi’s first clearing header was angled back infield, towards the danger. Monreal then compounded that mistake, heading the ball straight back to Islam Slimani, who duly teed up with Matt Ritchie via a lovely Perez flick, exploiting the space that Monreal vacated. It was ugly, to say the least. And it was silly. But these are not isolated incidents. Although in isolation they can be solely attributed to the player, these are not fleeting mistakes here and there. They are week-in-week-out.

It’s almost as if the player doesn’t matter. From memory, these are the players that I have seen make criminal defensive errors on more than one occasion this season, many of which have led to goals:

Petr Cech, David Ospina, Hector Bellerin, Shkodran Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny, Rob Holding, Calum Chambers, Per Mertesacker, Nacho Monreal, Sead Kolasinac, Granit Xhaka, Mohamed Elneny, Jack Wilshere, Mesut Ozil. And I’m fairly sure there are more. Perhaps Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Aaron Ramsey, Francis Coquelin and even the likes of Alex Iwobi and Alexis Sanchez have made silly, individual errors at key times in key matches.

The situation is not much better if you go back over a number of years. It is almost impossible to think of a reliable, consistent, dependable, if not spectacular, Arsenal defender in the past 10 years. These incidents do not occur in isolation; they are connected through the context of the club.

Next: Arsenal Vs Newcastle United: 5 things we learned

And that, sadly, rests on Arsene Wenger. He is the sole common denominator, and that is extremely concerning indeed.