The Arsenal senior players who are damaging a youthful team

Mikel Arteta called upon his senior players before the season began to be the foundation that allows the emerging and exciting young crop of Arsenal stars to flourish.

He is not getting his wish.

In case it was already abundantly clear, Arsenal have the youngest squad in the Premier League. They are regularly fielding the most youthful starting lineups in the division, a coin that very clearly has two sides.

On the one hand the benefits are a combined ceiling ready to be aimed for. This group has the exuberance wanted to play a possession-based style of football and each lesson learned is one they will absorb together and collectively improve upon.

The senior players at Arsenal are ruining a youthful team with Partey, Aubameyang and Nicolas Pepe among the main culprits

But they need help. They lack the experiences, the hardships and the guidance to know how to react in certain game states. Arteta plays a huge role in that, but on the pitch the commanding senior figures who can lead by example, shout and organise their teammates is paramount to success.

Arsenal have a few of them, with only two, perhaps three, on the pitch at any given time: Thomas Partey and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are the pair this fledgling flock of talent needs to rally around and stabalise.

They’ve both been dreadful. The Manchester United defeat was the claggy icing on a stale cake.

Starting with Partey, some of the criticism he’s faced over recent weeks stems from other factors beyond his control. He’s been handed a more reserved role, being asked to act as the foil to Sambi who is given the creative license in the team. That, coupled with such lofty expectations on his shoulders, has contributed to the heat he’s faced.

Against United he was plain terrible. Everything he did was laboured, his actions were tentative and in possession he gave away some painfully sloppy passes that the Partey of old could have executed standing on one leg.

The collection of strong performances he’s put in are growing fewer and farther apart. Where previously it might have been one in every two, it’s not more like one in every four or five. The commanding, combative and controlling outings he’s produced in an Arsenal shirt may as well have come from Abou Diaby given how long ago they were.

On the whole it is growing increasingly difficult to justify the £45m paid for him, which at the time it already was given Arsenal knew they were never going to make any serious resale value on him. The days of him looking utterly world class drift further away, which is an inexplicable event for someone who is undoubtedly bursting with talent.

He has to find a new gear. Performances like the ones he’s producing are ruining a youthful team. Sadly, in the case of Arsenal, he’s not even the worst of the bunch.

Continued on next page…

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.