Infuriating Arsenal weakness will kill season under Arteta

If the plan is to seek solace in the misery then it’s that the root of the issues at Arsenal are staring this team in the face.

Mikel Arteta noted after the full-time whistle that Arsenal threw the game away having drawn level at 2-2. Gabriel Martinelli’s wonderfully weighted cutback found Martin Odegaard, who used the speed of the pass to delicately guide the ball into the far corner.

Arsenal were in the ascendancy. Cutting through Manchester United was the easiest task of the night. Scott McTominay and Fred can get lost in the occasion and the gaps that opened up between the central box United employed required but two passes to play through. Odegaard’s inexcusable foul nipped that in the bud.

But that wasn’t where Arsenal lost this game. It was lost after 15 minutes when they were still leading 1-0. We’ve been down this road before and despite stepping into the trap door, this team keeps falling though and repeating its route.

Infuriating Arsenal weakness will kill the Premier League season under Mikel Arteta as the Gunners’ mental fragility is costing them crucial points

This has to be rectified. Solve this issue and everything that was so well prepared and resolute about that opening spell can be the lasting memory. Instead, Arsenal are left to rue their mistakes again, and again, and again.

Going in front in matches has become a poisoned chalice. Last season Manchester United earned the title of comeback kings, having won 21 points from losing positions. Ask them if they’d rather have gone in front first and, of course, they’d have accepted.

It feels as if that’s what Arsenal need. But, then again, the side have never won a match under Arteta where they’ve been trailing at half-time, so forget that.

No, what Arsenal are doing is right. They’re starting well and getting their noses in front. That’s what you want. That’s what every team wants. What they do after that is the primary source of all their failings, and it’s derailing this team.

Unsolved, it will kill the whole season.

Leading 1-0 after 12 minutes, Arsenal had prepared brilliantly for Old Trafford: shape, structure, positional play and counter-pressing were all mapped out and being executed superbly. But then the trigger happens. The subconscious mental frailty to abandon a positive game state and retreat into their shells.

Why? It’s a recurring trend in the Premier League that has endless reasonings. Yet having seen it happen with such frequency, the finger needs to start being pointed elsewhere.

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Is Arteta to Blame for Arsenal’s Huge Weakness?

Looking for reasons to explain this, the most obvious candidate is the general lack of experience. Fans have informally accepted that this young team is going to have to learn as a group and the bumps in the road they face will be ones that collectively they have to tackle together.

Players like Smith Rowe, Tomiyasu and Gabriel are key functions of the team. These three are not the sole contributors, far from it, yet their lack of experience in leading matches of this magnitude can set off internal doubts over their positioning and approach.

A lot stems from the defensive line, and Gabriel and White, despite how brilliant they’ve been, are still adapting to the changes. Perhaps it’s their natural instincts to drop a few yards deeper. The entire side suffers from an inferiority complex, a lack of conviction in how they play, which is remarkable to think considering how confidently they will start matches and take the game to the opposition. Just as they did on Thursday.

Arteta sounds like a broken record after matches. Each passing post-match press conference echoes variations of the words spoken in prior explanations, stating how the team has to be more aggressive in positive game states. Even on the touchline he frantically waves at his team to push up into a higher block. He obviously doesn’t want it, so why aren’t they?

For a team that follows its manager’s instructions down to very fine detail, the reasons as to why they seem to gloss over this particular demand can only rest on their shoulders for so long. The fact that this has been ongoing means the manager can no longer be infallible.

Focussing so heavily on positional play, his yearning for occupying the right spaces at all times has to be feeding doubt into the players. Such emphasis on zones and space limitation has manifested itself in an obstructive way. It’s the only plausible explanation. Otherwise, why does a team that lives by Arteta’s every word go against his clearest mandate?

Manchester United were there. Everyone watching on could smell the blood. Defensively average, rattled from the start and with the Old Trafford crowd quieting, Arsenal lost the game at that moment. It’s infuriating, as they could so easily have also put the game to bed.

Where inexperience previously stood front and centre, something in the manager’s coaching methods is rooted in the problem. Why does Aaron Ramsdale get told to go long, when the ball invariably comes straight back to him 20 seconds later?

It has to end. And quickly. The season depends on it as the moment that gets eradicated, 3-2 defeats like the one on Thursday don’t happen. Everything else is taking shape while this trait is making it all fall apart.