Arsenal Vs Bournemouth: More counter-attacking problems

Arsenal face Bournemouth on Sunday afternoon. Eddie Howe’s Cherries pose yet more counter-attacking danger to the Gunners. Can the Gunners overcome their biggest weakness?

If you were to ask me what Arsenal’s biggest weakness has been this season, under the new Unai Emery regime, it would not take me long to give you an answer. The counter-attack. Or, more specifically, defending against the counter-attack in transition and from turnovers.

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It first started against West Ham United in August, the Gunners’ first win of the season. Marco Arnautovic, Felipe Anderson and Michail Antonio were excellent, and they waited in the half-spaces, almost feigning their defensive effort, waiting for the moment to pounce and scamper forwards into the vacated spaces either side of the Arsenal centre-halves.

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Everton employed a similar tactic a few weeks later, with Richarlison and Theo Walcott causing great strife in the wide areas. And then, just prior to the international break, Wolves ripped an exposed Gunners’ defence to shreds time and time again on the counter-attack, Bernd Leno standing up strong, putting in a Man of the Match performance to protect his team’s 16-game unbeaten run.

And now, on Sunday, as the Premier League returns, Unai Emery takes his team to the south coast to face one of the best counter-attacking teams in the Premier League: Eddie Howe’s Bournemouth are no easy out. They will prove at least as much at the weekend. And it all stems from the speed and movement of an excellent front three: Ryan Fraser, Josh King and Callum Wilson.

These three attackers have been in excellent form this season. Wilson has six goals already this season, only three players in the Premier League have more. Wilson also has four assists and earned a call-up for England at the weekend with his form.

Fraser, meanwhile, has three goals and six assists — no other Premier League player has as many assists — and King has four goals and one assist and scored eight goals last season and 16 the year before. For all of the numbers, though, all three share one, frightening trait: speed, a whole lot of it.

Each is exceptionally quick, with and without the ball. Fraser particularly is as fast with the ball as he is without it, which makes him incredibly dangerous on the counter-attack, driving forwards from deep positions at a speed that does not allow defensive players the time to recover their position. The Bournemouth attack is ideally built to take advantage of Arsenal’s vulnerabilities from turnovers. It is a scary prospect indeed.

Emery has not been able to amend his system to deal with the counter-attacking problems that have repeatedly hurt his team so far this season. Can he and his players do any better on Sunday? They will for sure be tested.