Arsenal: 4 vital transfers to complete before deadline

Here we are again. Welcome aboard the Arsenal express. On your travels you will notice how the train is heading in circles, journeying past the same attractions, on repeat. Forever. After a 2-0 defeat to Brentford in the opening Premier League match of the season, it doesn’t matter what year your clock reads, it’s all the same.

Is that gloomy enough? Well, that was being positive. Even though this was only the first of 38 matches in a campaign where everything else is a distraction, trying to unearth something positive from Friday’s display will send you down a rabbit hole.

Mikel Arteta hardly had the most ideal preparations heading into this game, but there can be no excuses. Yes, no Thomas Partey is a gigantic blow and not having a single senior striker available isn’t especially beneficial either.

Certain scenarios should, however, be prepared for.

Arsenal: 4 vital transfers to complete before deadline as Mikel Arteta watches woeful Gunners lose 2-0 to Brentford in the Premier League

Spending £75m so far this window, if you’re looking for improvement you will be bitterly disappointed. There were new faces on show, in fact there were four Premier League debuts for men in the snazzy third strip, yet the names on the back of the shirts didn’t change the outcome. It was still Arsenal.

Losing to Brentford is the worst possible way to start the season. Whatever happens come the end of the 2021/22 won’t be defined by the results accrued against Chelsea and Manchester City. That’s where this team and this club are. Beating the so-called lesser teams is what will give the Gunners any advantage over their fellow ‘top 8’ rivals.

If indeed such an ‘achievement’ is plausible this term.

Investment won’t solve anything if the mantra remains giving the ball to Emile Smith Rowe and hoping for the best with a sprinkling of feeding Kieran Tierney down the left to let him whip in a delivery for the aerially inefficient forwards.

However, they simply must occur. Four of them need to. They have to or else the train will circle again.

1. Bernd Leno Competition

Competition may be not be what most believe to be adequate. Bernd Leno looked hapless on Friday, devoid of any accuracy in distribution and doing his upmost to put Arsenal under as much pressure as feasibly possible.

Building out from the back is supposed to be progressive. It heightens your chances of getting more men forward in dangerous positions as those playing out from their own third have more options in front.

In this team, all it does it present the opposition with the chance to skip phases one and two and start their attacks from just outside the penalty box.

Leno allowed a shot to nestle in at his near post but that is not where the criticism lies. Every pass, decision and movement with the ball at this feet was an accident waiting to happen. Arsenal simply have to sign a new goalkeeper.

For competition or to replace him? While the latter would be preferable, it’s not going to happen. Aaron Ramsdale was with a view to taking over the number one slot but we’ve now been informed the Gunners are after a backup.

Will ‘competition’ genuinely make Leno kick better? No, it won’t. But either way, one must arrive.