Arsenal: 4 negatives from 4-1 win over Leeds United

Arsenal are giving the supporters plenty to cheer about this Christmas with their third win in a week consolidating their place in the top four after a blip earlier in December.

Back-to-back defeats against Manchester United and Everton were poor examples of Mikel Arteta’s managerial credentials. Mistakes from him and the players contributed to those disappointing results, making the improvement since all the more enjoyable.

Three straight Premier League wins has seen Arsenal not concede from open play and find the back of the net themselves on nine occasions.

Outstanding individual displays have melded together to form equally impressive collective performances, with each aspect of the team looking at its best in some of the more complete outings seen under Arteta’s guidance.

4 negatives as Arsenal beat Leeds United 4-1 in the Premier League to make it three straight wins and keep their Champions League goals on track

There are reasons to be positive galore.

A young quartet of Emile Smith Rowe, Bukayo Saka, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli continue taking gigantic strides in their development with goals, assists and commitment in abundance.

Martinelli is stealing all the headlines at the moment but each one of these stars are being mentioned for all the right reasons. Competing with one another for a starting berth, rarely has there been such an aggressive battle for minutes among players of this age group.

But, as ever, not all went as swimmingly has it could have against Leeds. It may seem strange to think so after scoring four goals on the road but some aspects of the match left a little to be desired, while other elements provide some concerns.

1. Arsenal Only Scored Four

How dare they!

It will come across as very ‘First World Problems’, but heading into half-time with only three goals was actually somewhat disappointing.

Oh how things can change in football so quickly, eh?

Left puzzled as to why Arsenal couldn’t create enough chances or score goals, now the situation is turned on its head where the team are carving open too many opportunities for them to score.

Breaking a Premier League record for shots on target in that first half, while a large portion of them were efforts straight down Illan Meslier’s throat, when a team is hitting the target that often they should be finding the net more than they did. One of the goals was a deflected strike as well. Couldn’t that one have been saved for another day?

Having only moved into a positive goal difference for the first time this season in the previous win over West Ham, the incredible volume of high turnovers Arsenal were forcing was giving them all the invitations they could want to start putting space between themselves and that dreaded zero goal difference.

Is it nitpicking? Would anyone have taken 4-1 before kick-off? Yes on both points. But having peppered the Leeds goal and mustered so many goalscoring opportunities, a few more wouldn’t go amiss.

However, Martinelli’s immense finishing is going to continue helping in that regard.

Continued on next page…