Arsenal: 4 tactical errors Arteta made vs Manchester United

4. Bringing Eddie Nketiah on the Pitch

What kind of signal does that send? Purely for the optics, bringing a player on who just 24 hours earlier had rejected a contract extension comes across as one rather pathetic attempt to convince him a final time to stay.

Arteta obviously felt it was the best substitution to make to turn the game. That’s why he did it. And in among the group Nketiah is a liked character who won’t have any bad blood in the dressing room as he merely seeks regular football at his age.

But how does it look? Bad, is the answer.

He came on and you’d have been forgiven for thinking Aubameyang was still on the pitch, such was his ineffectiveness. Nketiah tried to come short and facilitate as much as get into the six-yard area, all of which looked relatively clunky, something you’d expect from a player without a single minute of Premier League football all season long.

The captain was having a stinker and need to be hauled off, but why not opt for the only genuine, albeit imperfect, goal threat on the bench in Nicolas Pepe? It’s clear that Arteta wants him gone, so why tank his value even further by never playing him?

It was more than just a bizarre substitution.