The Arsenal senior players who are damaging a youthful team

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang Looks a Shadow of His Former Self

Last season when the results were inexcusable and the fervent calls for Arteta to be sacked were echoing around the empty Emirates Stadium, there was still a degree of pointlessness to it all.

Arsenal were never going to sack the manager despite large contingents of the fanbase demanding it, and there are parallels to draw with Aubameyang. Will he ever be dropped?

It seriously needs to get to the stage where his inclusion in the team is questioned. He’s offering nothing off the ball, and even less on it.

Taking five shots against United, on not one occasion did he look like scoring. That is what is most concerning of all. It always used to be that if he was getting into scoring positions he was still doing something reassuring. Even now when doing so the faith in him to tuck any one of those chances away is evaporating at an alarming rate.

It’s not for a lack of trying; not for a lack of caring. He is still working hard for the team in and out of possession. All of which counts for nothing in the grand scheme of things when you’ve got a centre-forward whose once superpower of being lethal in the 18-yard box is being reduced to the occasional nice flick into a Emile Smith Rowe making a third man run. That’s about it.

How does Arteta go about fixing that? It’s almost as if he can’t. It’s on Aubameyang to put these chances away, not the manager whose job it is to make Arsenal create the chances in the first place.

He’s caught between a rock and a hard place: take the captain out of the team and squad harmony is rattled while Aubameyang’s already dwindling confidence is disintegrated, or keep him in and let this persist.

This team has been overly reliant on its youth for months and months too many, and now they’re the ones carrying the burden of trying to battle through 90 minutes with players who are either passengers or disrupting their flow.

It’s serious. The most handsomely paid players in this team are dragging the collective down: Nicolas Pepe does not escape free from scorn.

Give them a dressing down, take them out of the side and make them work for their place. They sure as anything aren’t at the moment.