Arsenal: Is poor defense a concession of a beautiful attack?

Arsenal’s attack is starting to find its footing, but their defense is a mess. Is this just a byproduct of what Unai Emery is trying to do though?

Arsenal‘s attack was always going to be the gun show. After being blanked against Manchester City in a bit of a feeble effort, the Gunners have since scored eight goals in three games, that’s second best in the league behind just City.

However, in that same span, they have given up six goals. Which is third worst in the league. Overall, this club has surrendered eight goals in just four matches, which is similarly third worst in the league.

When no goals were scored against Manchester City, no one panicked. We knew how good this attack was and we knew that, in time, they would start pelting them home. That has proven to be the case and it can only get better.

The defense is a different story though. A much different one. For a couple reasons. First of all, the personnel on defense is nowhere near the quality of the personnel of the attack. So when you start asking questions about who can make a difference, you probably won’t come up with many answers.

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But that isn’t solely a personnel problem. The two centerbacks we have are more than adequate and it’s not where the problem stems from. Which is the second part of what the overall problem is – that it really isn’t the centerbacks that are the problem. I’ve actually been very impressed with Shkodran Mustafi, and Sokratis has been steady, which is a nice thing to have.

Some believe the problem comes from the fullbacks and the lack of a defensive midfielder, and that may be too, but let me again ask – where do we expect the changes to come from?

A better question would be if we’re even expecting any changes. With an attack that is overpowered and capable of scoring handfuls, is Unai Emery overloading the attack to compensate for a defensive predicament that he plans to solve later on down the road?

That sounds like a potentially realistic scenario, if you ask me. With the limited budget and the long-term commitment, it would make sense if Emery’s goal for the defense was for it to simply not be terrible and to hang on while we search for long-term solutions.

Of course, the defense is terrible, so I don’t know what else needs to be said there.