Arsenal: Mikel Arteta’s principal weakness limiting output

Mikel Arteta will be in the headlines after Arsenal let a one goal lead slip to draw 1-1 in the dying embers of their Europa League quarter-final first leg tie with Slavia Prague.

The manager is a very tough man to judge. This is his 15th month as a head coach/manager and while the topsy-turvy nature of his spell in the dugout can breed all manner of criticisms, given the rookie nature of his career in this position it’s tough to pinpoint the precise reasons for why he does certain elements right and wrong.

The sample size for explanation grows but facets of his management have remained in tact throughout, some that appear directly inherited from the man he used to serve under.

Pep Guardiola is one of the greatest managers to grace the game. His ability to coach great players into excellent players, dominate matches in meticulous ways and master the brand of football he devotes his craft to are largely part of that. As for weaknesses, his approach to European competitions remains a smear on an otherwise squeaky clean CV.

Arsenal vs Slavia Prague: Mikel Arteta has inherited a weakness from Pep Guardiola

His time at Bayern Munich saw this issue spotlighted, and it has filtered into his Manchester City lineups.

Mikel Arteta appears to have inherited that trait.

There is a sense of over complicating; an insistence of maintaining structure and technical security over actual goal threat and incision. Why play Willian and Alexandre Lacazette, who will not exploit space in behind and stay deep, to leave Emile Smith Rowe with no connector to allow him to advance beyond the backline and Bukayo Saka isolated as the only body willing run beyond his man?

Chances will come in infrequent doses using this approach, but then you’re relying on a front four who are not productive finishers to take the few chances you create. It means that the misses Arsenal have are exacerbated and thrust further into limelight.

Arteta is not guilty of the players missing those chances, but for someone so persistent on opting for efficiency over genuine goal threat, he must come to terms with the idea that creating more chances with better finishers on the pitch will produce winning results more often than creating fewer better quality chances with less finishers in the team.

Slavia Prague were adopting a high line ineffectively and selecting a team that played into their hands, and perhaps worst of all, not remedying that when it’s painstakingly obvious adds layers to the mistakes.

His selections have no continuity in the Premier League, Europa League or otherwise, playing three connectors and a forward one week, then swapping it for three forwards and one connector the other. You’ve got a top drawer centre-forward who needs technical players around him. It worked before, why stop? For matches that have a gigantic say in moulding the short-term, mid-term and long-term future of his club, he has to be getting these decisions right.

As of yet, he isn’t consistently and the selections for these fixtures risk tarnishing what good he has done since his arrival. While there are mitigating factors that are impacting his impression, his own clarity of thought is muddled by certain unchangeable principles. This structural programming he actively pines for is doing him no favours.