Arsenal: 3 negatives from 3-2 win over Watford

Into the top four without having to rely on the games in hand? That screams nothing but positives for Arsenal. They’ve shown consistency when others haven’t and are well in the hunt for Champions League football.

Far from the most assured all-round performance against Watford, Arsenal nonetheless turned on the style in an attacking sense with three goals of the highest quality. Dennis Bergkamp’s hat-trick against Leicester was arguably the last time the Gunners netted a trio of strikes of this acclaim.

Martin Odegaard got the ball rolling at the end of a flowing move with Bukayo Saka, a partnership to rival most of its kind in the Premier League. The composure on show was entrancing.

Saka then turned scorer with a sumptuous finish – a goal that drew scary similarities to Lionel Messi’s against Manchester City in the Champions League group stages – before Gabriel Martinelli decided to get in on the act at the end of another sweeping passage of play, this time stuck in the back of the net with his own thumping strike.

Arsenal: 3 negatives from 3-2 win over Watford as Gunners move into Premier League top four with goals from Saka, Odegaard & Martinelli

It’s a win that leave Arsenal one point clear of Manchester United with no less than three fewer matches played, three clear of West Ham in the same circumstances, and six ahead of Tottenham prior to their visit of Everton.

On the long and winding road to the top four, Arsenal are heading in the right direction.

Mikel Arteta, as made clear from his touchline antics, wasn’t in quite as jubilant mood. Seeing his side score three excellent goals and produce some dazzling attacking football doesn’t cut the mustard.

For a victory that produced the desired result and boasted some exceptional individual quality, there were negatives to draw. Three, to be precise.

1. Defensive Shape & Left-Sided Weakness

This wasn’t a complete performance. Far from it. Arsenal made this much tougher than it needed to be, especially since they controlled the game for such long periods, and the joy Watford found going down the left side was cause for some concern.

It was the first half where this was particularly noticeable. Passing the ball around slickly in the final third, out of possession was instead rather messy.

Kieran Tierney and Gabriel Martinelli were not working in tandem, with runners not being tracked down that side and some slack moments of concentration granting Kiko Femenia too many wall pass options to go on the overlap. The first goal, for example, sees the trio of Martinell, Tierney and Xhaka stood statically in the box, marking all the wrong spaces collectively.

But it was the shape overall that was found lacking. At Vicarage Road the vulnerabilities on the break were exposed more than usual, with the same bite and aggression shown in the attacking third found lacking defensively.

Exactly why that was can come down to a few reasons, one perhaps being the calibre of opposition. There were too many off days from individual players, which may have sprung from taking their Premier League opponents too lightly. Losing two of their three first choice forwards, there was a chance that Arsenal didn’t show them enough respect on account of their league position.

Given how well the team have defended for most of the season, putting this down to a not entirely focused off-day seems apt. So long as it is learned from, that is.

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