Arsenal: 3 improvements still to make under Arteta

3. Find a Plan B

What happens if Arsenal don’t score the perfect goal at the 20th attempt? What if the opponent is shutting the team down so effectively that whatever is thrown at them comes straight back?

Do you just….bring on Alexandre Lacazette? That isn’t a Plan B. There wasn’t a way through at Brighon

What Arsenal do have is different profiles of forwards for each position. If Emile Smith Rowe comes off then Gabriel Martinelli offers an entirely more chaotic and direct approach, with the same going to Nicolas Pepe on the right. These are options, but not Plan B’s as such.

Tactically there doesn’t appear to be such an avenue. It’s plain to see in the way Arsenal are yet to win a fixture under Arteta in which they’ve been trailing at half-time, as the emphasis on ‘walking it in the net’ has never rang truer.

Whether it’s ugly or not, and that doesn’t include Tierney whipping crosses in for nobody to header, this is one part of Arteta’s reign he’s yet to nail down.

It’s worked in a defensive sense, as switching to a back three won silverware, yet from an attacking point of view there are still holes to pick once the one-way attacking philosophy runs dry. Either getting back into games or seeking a late winner, it can’t always be in the pretty, choreographed manner and as saw against Brighton, when something isn’t working Arsenal struggle to navigate around it.