Arsenal & Arteta’s recovery has no time to spare

Arsenal did not start out flying high this season, by any stretch of the imagination. They lost to Brentford 2-0, then they lost to Chelsea by the same score. While they took their frustrations out on West Brom in the second round of the Carabao Cup, they were exposed as bullies when they were walloped by City on the subsequent weekend.

And here we are. The first international break is nearly over and Arsenal have no points, no Premier League goals even, and little hope left according to most pundits not named Arsene Wenger. What can be done? Can this thing be salvaged? Is Mikel Arteta the gentleman to accomplish this? Surely, the Gunners will correct the ship enough to not finish in the bottom three?

Duh. A least to the last part.

Arsenal will get this thing turned around enough to obviously avoid relegation, but other than that, all bets are off. This team looks disconnected, and of course injuries, youth, and lack of time together will do that to you, yet that is no excuse. The team must do better, it must succeed and it must play a more fluid, attractive, and competent style of football – and it must do it all really quickly. Like, now.

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Arsenal and Mikel Arteta will have to recover extremely quickly in order to salvage the season and that starts against Norwich in the Premier League

There is no time to waste and no more points to drop, at least for the foreseeable future. This team needs all the points it can get and if Arsenal cannot start beating whoever is next up on the fixture list they will have no hope in becoming competitive in the league table at all this season, and it’s only September.

While the young players are always going to play inconsistently at times, it is up to the older, more expensive, and talented names such as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Nicolas Pepe and Bernd Leno to set the stage and create the example. They have been absent save the demolition of a vastly weaker side that was starting teenagers and 20-year-olds across the pitch.

If all Arsenal can be depended on this year is to beat the snot out of every lower-tier club that we face, then Mikel Arteta will not remain the boss for the entire season. This club has too much history to play at such a rate and Arteta himself knows this having worn the shirt before. I think that he can do this, and I still believe in him for this purpose; Antonio Conte does wait in the wings, however, and while he has signed no pre-contract, it is difficult to imagine there being a Premier League job he won’t hunger for.

Losing is difficult to stop, as is winning. Arsenal must find a way to put a stop to the former so as to begin upon the latter. These things are easier to say than to accomplish of course, yet it will take a better all-around team play than has been witnessed so far.

What can be expected from the upcoming fixtures?

Continued…

Emile Smith Rowe Needs Help to Propel Arsenal Up the Table

Far from looking scared or inconsistent, Emile Smith Rowe has been awesome at times this season. He must be accentuated by the rest of his teammates, from the ones previously mentioned, to those like Granit Xhaka and Thomas Partey.

The backline, without William Saliba thanks to another loan, and Konstantinos Mavropanos thanks to a loan-buy deal, has gotten another shot in the arm on deadline day with the signature of Bologna’s Japanese defender Takehiro Tomiyasu. With his addition, alongside that of Ben White‘s so recently and Gabriel Magalhaes’s last season, the entire backline of Arsenal has been revamped.

The team still has Kieren Tierney and Ainsley Maitland-Niles, capable of playing either corner or more advanced in the midfield, and with some lucky breaks the entire team could really get into a groove between this first and second international break. It’s a strong team. Stronger than the table dictates.

While no points were able to be taken from the first matches, nine to 12 points should be expected from this second run of games. A match against AFC Wimbledon in the third round of the Carabao Cup will likely be another match where this high-priced Gunners squad takes out their frustrations on far inferior opposition, but they will have to take care of Tottenham Hotspur at the Emirates only days later.

Games against Norwich City, Burnley, and Brighton should be victories, although not easy ones at all. All three clubs, especially the Seagulls, are determined outfits that will put up a real fight. Yet Arsenal have not left themselves in a scenario early on in which they can afford to just slide by winning some games here and some there; they will have to win those they are expected to, as well as those they are not expected to at this time. Nothing else will suffice.

If they do not, it could mean, whether fairly or not, the end of Arteta as the boss of Arsenal. They likely moved on from Unai Emery too late and likely will move on from Arteta too quickly; such is life in this post-Wenger Arsenal era. I hope they do not, and I hope they can get this ship sailing straight again so that this ‘Arteta Revolution’ can take shape the way many of us envisioned when he was hired by the club.

For Arsenal to stop this fate, they will have to win some matches, and win them quickly and in succession. Only time will tell, but it will tell us sooner than later.