3 areas where Arsenal’s team mentality is worryingly weak

Arsenal did an immaculate job of making supporters forget about the bitter frustration of losing to Manchester United by handing everyone an even worse 98-minute performance to stew over.

Losing 2-1 to Everton makes it three Premier League defeats in their last four, with the only reprieve in that spell coming in the form of a 2-0 home win over the second bottom in the table.

There was nothing to be cheerful about on Monday. Martin Odegaard was the pick of a dreadful bunch, and not much more, yet even he spurned a glorious chance by refusing to use his right foot.

From having the opportunity to sneak into the top four two matches ago, Arsenal find themselves down in seventh with a near enough every fixture on the list imprinted with the words ‘must win’. Keep on dropping points and the calendars will be out to double check it isn’t 2020/21.

Arsenal: 3 areas where the team’s mentality is worryingly weak after another Premier League defeat at the hands of Everton

So many aspects of the team performance were dispiriting. It’s another match Arsenal have taken the lead in and allowed to squander, and another easily avoidable defeat against painfully average opposition.

There is much wrong with this team, from structure, to the setup, to game management and to attacking principles. 18 goals in 15 matches is another shocking return. Last season doesn’t feel like an anomaly.

But there are other deep-rooted issues that need tackling: this team is mentally weak and the manner of defeats and nuances of performances make that abundantly clear.

Fragility in the players’ minds has to be eradicated. No one player or one person in the playing and coaching staff is less culpable than the rest, with three standout areas indicating a weak mentality across this side.

1. The Intention to Play Seems Lost

What is alluring about playing for Arsenal? Down the years it’s been the brand of football and desire to attack teams. It looked fun under Arsene Wenger, was chaotic with Unai Emery in charge and, while primarily defensive under Mikel Arteta, is still considered part of the fabric of this team ever since Wenger took charge.

That burning desire to attack, overload, take players on and hurt teams is missing. Something inside the players’ heads is shackling attacking principles.

Against Everton the team seemed held back. Only a few of the players on that pitch came across as wanting to impact the game in a positive sense. Others looked happy to play their part and shift the responsibility elsewhere.

The likes of Emile Smith Rowe want to play. They want to attack. They want to enjoy themselves on the pitch. In large part it looks like playing for Arsenal of late is a chore, not an enjoyment.

Confidence is notoriously tough to build up in football and so easy to lose. What drives confidence in this team appears to be entirely contingent on getting results as opposed to playing to win. The intention to step onto that pitch and drive to victory alongside ten of your fellow warriors isn’t there.

It’s a Wenger classic of ‘playing with the handbrake on’. Lay that on the team’s mentality, but before doing so put that on the manager’s desk for instilling that as a belief system.

Continued on next page…

2. Poor Technical Quality in a Team of Technical Players

The sloppiness that keeps seeping into performances is in contrast to the profile of players on show.

Spells of wastefulness in possession can only be linked to a set of players utterly bereft of confidence, none of which explains why it even happens in matches Arsenal are either leading in, comfortable in, or both.

Are the demands placed upon them too high? Whatever the manager is saying to them on the training pitch or in the team meetings has to be affecting them on matchdays.

What other explanation is there for Thomas Partey being unable to control a moderately fizzed path into his feet? Loose passes in simple situations result in inviting transitions for the opposition to pounce upon, all coming from players who’ve rarely exhibited such a low standard of technical quality over their careers.

Young players will make these errors, albeit not at this frequency. Senior players shouldn’t be. In defence, why is Benjamin White stepping off attackers instead? These are uncharacteristic errors.

With Arsenal releasing their weekly training videos of everyone smiling and laughing while they perform rondo sessions at London Colney, what plays out on the weekend is something entirely different. Yes, it’s just training and nowhere near the level of a competitive Premier League fixture, but something happens between the team getting on that bus and crossing the white line that is holding them back mentally.

Professional footballers make mistakes, just not this often for large spells of matches. The players have to look at themselves. Equally, it’s also hard to imagine they’re not on that pitch with a voice echoing through their heads listing off meticulous instructions.

Continued on next page…

3. Negative Football Until it’s Too Late

The outstanding criticism directed at Arsenal across this season has been their inability to capitalise on positive game states. When taking the lead the natural response is to shrink into their shells and protect whatever faint lead they may have, no matter what minute of the game it is.

Against Everton there was less of that. The natural response was to fall back onto that fallacy as clarification for the performance. In all honesty, Arsenal were just bad. They didn’t stop playing when they took the lead, they just played dreadfully.

Their mental fragility still came through, though.

Arsenal played their best football when the score was 1-1. In some ways, it showed a degree of resilience like had been seen against Old Trafford when falling behind, as they actually moved the ball around with purpose, poise and with a previously unseen degree of threat.

The question is why did it take until then to occur. Why wait until the game is in its manic final few minutes where transitions needs to be managed with tired legs on yellow cards to step up the intensity, play on the front foot and look to go through a poor Everton side?

It’s evident that the players have the talent to play with an intent and with a threat, they are just unable to overcome this giant mental hurdle that sees that conviction locked away for 80% of matches.