Arsenal Vs Crystal Palace: Old habits die hard

Arsenal squandered a dominant 30-minute start to draw with Crystal Palace. As Mikel Arteta is most aware, their old habits really do die hard.

Well, it was never going to be easy for Mikel Arteta. While the new Arsenal head coach showed brief signs of genius in his first few matches in charge, the team unrecognisable from the lost, confused and muddled mess that Unai Emery left it in, the problems that Emery also encountered when he arrived 18 months prior persist.

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As has been said of this squad, team and players for many years, seemingly irrespective of who is actually a part of the squad, such is the deep-rooted nature of the cultural problem, the Gunners have some troublesome mental issues that repeatedly undermine their good play.

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In Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Crystal Palace, it was their tendency to switch off at crucial moments, especially at set-pieces. As Arteta himself conceded in his post-match press conference, it was extremely frustrating and disappointing to concede in such a manner:

"Then we switched off for the goal. We completely switched off and allowed them to put the cross in. We turned and conceded the deflection, and I was very disappointed with that <…> At this level in the Premier League, if you switch off for two seconds, five seconds, you will concede a goal straight away. I’m going to have to find a way to try to avoid those situations. It happened today and it cost us two points.”"

On this occasion, the attentiveness of David Luiz, pressure of Granit Xhaka, and all-round concentration of the team were to blame. But Jordan Ayew’s deflected equaliser was not the only mental shortcoming from Saturday’s deflating draw.

Arsenal were dominant in the opening half-hour. A more clinical, ruthless team with that winning edge would have scored more than once. Liverpool are the masters of exploiting their periods of control. As was the case in the first half against Chelsea, and for which the opposite is true against Manchester United when Sokratis smashed a second into the roof of the net, putting the opposition to bed when you have the chance is vital.

Similarly, late in the game, Arsenal had chances to nick the three points. Alexandre Lacazette missed a great opportunity after Nicolas Pepe cracked the foot of the post. Gabriel Martinelli found a couple of openings that he could not quite take full advantage of. Perhaps a team more able to snatching victories would have found a way to nick a late goal.

Game management has been a problem of this team in the past, including building and protecting leads. Questions regarding their character and commitment always abound, while there is an everpresent sense that they are close to capitulation at any moment. This is an inherently fragile team. And underpinning all this is the defending, which is deplorable, to say the least.

Arsenal have some disastrous old habits that have consistently undermined their play and progress. Arteta came face to face with them on Saturday. And they will not die easily.