Arsenal grabbed the headlines over the weekend with a 6-0 drubbing of West Ham at the London Stadium. It was Arsenal’s biggest away win in the premier league since December 1935 when they beat Aston Villa 7-1.The West Ham fans could barely believe it. Many of them trudged off the stadium at halftime. On the other hand, the Arsenal fans were beside themselves with ecstasy. A day in which everything came together for the Gunners. So has Mikel Arteta finally found the winning formula or were we just too slow to see it?
Arsenal, like any other big club, gets scrutinized a lot. And this season hasn’t been any different. The celebration police led by Jamie Carragher and his deputy, Garry Neville, were up in arms after Arsenal’s celebrations after the win over Liverpool. It’s a pointless debate and one for another time. I want to focus on another reproval of Arsenal this season. That Arsenal are not as good as last season. They are not as entertaining as last season. The general perception has been Arsenal have not lived up to the hype of last season.
It’s an opinion that has been prevalent this season among the fans and pundits. I, at times, have also subscribed to this notion, especially in the early part of the season. “Why would you change a system that worked? , ” many asked. I believe Mikel took last season’s capitulation much harder than we think. The games against Liverpool away, Man United, Bournemouth and Southampton at home come to mind. They were thrilling games, entertaining games. Games that kept you on the edge of your seat. But they also took a lot of energy from the players and staff, both physically and emotionally. In the end, Arsenal huffed and puffed but the damage was already done.
After the win against Liverpool, Mikel Arteta was asked whether his team needs chaos after all the talk about control. “Yeah, control is not really a word I like. I like dominance and not allowing teams to breathe more than control…” he replied. DOMINANCE is the word. It’s a word that Arsenal fans have become accustomed to. Mikel repeats it after every few weeks. It is what this Arsenal team is set out to do; dominate and against West Ham we saw what is possible when the team executes their game plan to perfection.
The domination has,however,come at a cost. Arsenal are slowing down the pace of their attack for a much more favoured slow build up game. Mikel wants to avoid the end-to-end games we saw last season. The challenge with that is you give the opposition more time to set up defensively and more often than not they set up in a low block. Hence Arsenal’s struggles early on in the season against deep blocks. Whether they have finally mastered the art of unlocking these low-blocks no one knows for sure but they have found a loophole which they are exploiting to great effect; set-pieces.
When speaking about the lack of a 30, 40 goal player, Mikel Arteta talked of the need to score in different ways. “Especially when you are attacking low blocks, to score in this certain way, everything has to be nailed absolutely perfectly. Sometimes when you generate things that are a bit more chaotic it opens teams up and it’s more difficult to do that,” Arteta said after the 5-0 win against Palace. Arsenal are now the highest scoring team from set-pieces. A useful weapon to have especially in tight games.
Defensively, the numbers suggest that they are the best team in the land. 22 goals conceded is a league low this season. David Raya’s distribution was his selling point for many fans when Arsenal were linked with him. But it is his ability to claim crosses and start attacks that has been most impressive.
Manchester City and Liverpool both went to the Emirates and could barely create anything meaningful in attack while poor West Ham were left to bear the brunt of Arsenal’s new-found dominance. Mikel Arteta’s idea for this season is coming out clearly and just in time for the title race. Can Arsenal go one better than last season and end a 20-year title drought?
