Why Arsenal's Title Hopes are Slipping Away: A Must-Watch Analysis!

The boys in the building. Deaf, Taxes and Fulham Football Club taking points off Arsenal in the Premier League. Who knows what's to blame? Maybe it was the rain. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was the fact that we wore our third kit. Who knows? But on a serious note, let's break it down. As a result of drawing to Fulham, we sit third in the Premier League table behind Liverpool and Chelsea. It means so far in our opening 15 games, we've dropped seven points already this season. And I don't think we can complain, people. You know, the first half wasn't great by our own standards. The second half, we obviously got something out of the game, but we were much better. And like Odegaard has said, we were lacking in many departments. So we can't complain, in my opinion. Since the start of the 2022-23 season, we have scored 36 goals, people from corners. I love that. Let's keep doing that. The set-piece coaching staff or the set-piece aspects, they're working. Unfortunately, we don't seem to be cutting people open or teams open via open play. And what we can't do is sit here and act like we haven't regressed in that regard. Everything's a trade-off. Of course, us being more defensively switched on has correlated with us probably fighting for a league title, quote-unquote, a lot more. But we're Arsenal Football Club. We need to create a lot more. I'm a football romantic. You guys know me. or thinking about the quotes from Arsene Wenger, from Pep Guardiola, from Johan Cruyff, in which Mikel Arteta knows all about him more than me, having progressed through the La Masia Academy. At the end of the day, all that matters is the result. Yes, when you look at the chances, the vast majority of the game, the possession, all of those things across 90 minutes, they're in our favour. I mean, when you look at Fulham, the opening goal, which I actually think we started all right in the first 10 minutes. Unfortunately, in the 11th minute, Raul Jimenez and Fulham, you know, put about 20 passes together in their own half. And with their only attempt on target for the game, they made it count, people. Again, that was just, his shot was just the second Fulham touch in our half. We dominated possession at about 67%. Even though I think the first half was poor, we had more possession and opportunities. We had seven shots after halftime, including set-piece FC. But fundamentally, we didn't control the game for 90 minutes. We didn't dominate where we needed to, specifically in the final third, and have that cutting edge to score goals. It seems like we struggle against low blocks. And when you look at our passing networks, yes, I like the result of repetition on the training field, but it can be predictable. I'm not trying to criticise anyone. I think when you watch the game again, Declan Rice probably had the most freedom on that pitch and was probably our man of the match. But respectfully to Declan Rice, if he has more key passes across 90 minutes, then Zorzinho and Odegaard, then we're in issues. I do think Timber inverted was kind of useless, whether he just had a bad first half in comparison to his second, or Mikel Arteta is not telling him to play with the ball. That leaves him redundant. Of course, we're playing a high line. We don't have our first choice defence. You know, Kivuil's first priority is to deal with Jimenez, but I don't think Kivuil is brave enough on the ball as well. And I'm not criticising players. It's just almost like you're playing with nine men. You factor in the fact that if we're not doing the business down the right-hand side and our left-hand side is disjointed and we struggle to break down low blocks, all of these ingredients add to a negative cocktail that is a tough tonic for us to drink because it feels like two points dropped. Now, I like the structure and the rhythm that Arteta plays with, but sometimes against low blocks and well-coached units, we're not good enough. Obviously, we know Partey inverts. We know Jorginho's the deepest of the midfield three. We know there's a high line, but you have to give credit to Fulham, you know, with Smith-Browne, Jimenez, Adama, Traore. And I think Iwobi deserves a lot of credit. They simply put cancelled us out for large periods. You couple in the fact that we're not moving the ball fast enough and it just looks like square pegs in round holes. I don't think Timber and Kivuil are bringing anything to the table. I think Rice has a lot to do on that football field. I feel Saka and Odegaard heavily are being marked on that right-hand side. I have to give credit to Fulham, in my opinion, because they went into a five at times with Tete, Diop, Bassi, Robertson and actually Iwobi. Iwobi put in a big shift and the two men in the middle simply put cancelled our passing lane. So naturally, we couldn't really do anything on top of the obvious issues we know we already have in this regard as a football team. You have to be gracious. Marco Silva and Fulham's men are one of the best in form and well-coached sides. Not only did they stifle our attack, not only were they fantastic off the ball, which we're going to get onto, they managed their box effectively. We know we love box crashes and late runners. They made sure they outnumbered us nine times out of 10 throughout the game. So big them up for that, unfortunately, as an Arsenal fan. But I have a duty to mention that, people. Now for us, where do we start? As I was saying, with Fulham, we know Thomas Partey is going to invert. You're going to have Odegaard in the pockets and all of those kind of things. They, you know, at times went man for man. It was like a front two of Smithrow and Jimenez pressing, cutting out the passing lanes. Then they had Berg, I believe, and Lukic. Adama Traore was switched on. Robertson was obviously with Saka. You had Calvin, Bassi and Diop creating double ups against several attackers. And at times they would go into a back three or five, which, as I said earlier, you have to give credit to Iwobi. And it just meant we were going through the motions. We're going forward. We're going backwards. The question now, I guess, would be for Arsenal is that, you know, all praise to Fulham and whatnot. But this isn't something new under the sun for Arsenal. So the question would be, how do we go against it? How do we go for a plan B when plan A isn't working? What does Mikel Arteta specifically do? What did the players do? I'm not a coach, but I can offer my thoughts. Now, disclaimer, people, what I'm about to show you, obviously, if you gamble in life, sometimes you could lose and we could have dropped points. And specifically where Jorginho and Partey are concerned, they don't necessarily have the legs to implement what I'm about to say. But in theory, option one could be simply put, stretch the team, gamble a bit, hope that our players are competent and stretch their defensive unit. You know, nine times out of ten, any team that's compact against us has half a chance. So start to get overloads. I know we like inverted fullbacks. But, you know, let's start to get some overloads all over the pitch and let the Kai Havertz's, the Odegaard's, the Declan Rice's, the Trossart's pick up little intricate pieces of space and pockets. And specifically with our midfield three, let them stay as high and wide at times and create duos and trios and overload and simply put, stretch that unit of Fulham. All we needed is one lapse in concentration. And we're in, which you could say that via a set piece, but obviously we wanted to win people. We need to make Fulham second guess. And we didn't. Obviously, when you move the ball slowly, when you're quite a compact and narrow side, you're playing into their hands. Credit to Marco Silva once again, because them and they did their homework and implemented the game plan well. I know we want to be smart and have an intricate system and things of that ilk, and I'm not knocking it. I do like the build up play. I do like the inverted fullbacks. I do like elements of what we do. But sometimes you have to, quote unquote, throw the kitchen sink at it and get players playing in their organic systems. And for the simpletons like myself, strikers try to score goals. Midfielders try to create fullbacks overlap and create double ups and trios and overloads and stretch the space and really throw a kitchen sink at it. As I said, we're kind of crippled in a sense of, I don't feel we necessarily have the dynamic personnel either available because of injuries or what we did or didn't do in the market. But this is an element we have to do. Whether you brought on Chiarantini, whether Rice, I know he was playing as an eight, goes into the six. Whether we just gamble and think, you know what? We're quite switched on generally defensively. We're not the slowest of team, bar a couple of players. Players are competent. You know, if you go forward, you have to defend and kind of gamble a bit and play with a certain intensity. We don't have a significant plan B. And it's like we have a great plan going into games. We think about the opposition, et cetera, et cetera. But when there is a spanner in the works, there's not too many times this football club that I like has a solution. As we know, going into this game or going into this season, it's about fine margins. Did we have possession, the most shots, all of that jazz? Once again, 100 percent. But football is decided at both ends. And the one time we needed to be a bit switched on, we switched off, as we've spoken about earlier, for their goal. And actually, when Leno was going long, uncharacteristically to us, we kind of struggled. Apologies. And we created a bunch of chances. Ultimately, we have to count our blessings because we did equalise. It could have been better. It could have been worse. But it's not good enough to be good for 10 minutes and then concede against a run of playing the 11th. It's not good enough to have a great second half, and in particular 10 minutes of that second half. Again, I don't want to exaggerate because, yes, we've kind of turned our form around. And in typical Arsenal fan fashion, we've drawn that and it feels like a defeat, almost said defeat there to Fulham. But we all know about the fine margins. Liverpool didn't play, City dropped points, Chelsea are quietly going about their business, and we keep dropping silly points. This is what I mean. Before I look at the opposition, I think we shoot ourselves in the foot. I think Odegaard was banging on the money with his comments. It is what it is. We've dropped points. We can only look forward. I have to say, what's going on away from home though, man? Against Fulham, we only had four shots on target. Fair enough. You know, we scored a lot of goals against West Ham, but we only had seven shots on target. Against Spurs, boy, we won the game. I'm not complaining, but we only had four shots on target. The same goes for the Aston Villa game as well, people. So you're wondering what's going on with Arsenal away from home? You could add the City game to it. Now, of course, every game presents some different contexts. I'm kind of paraphrasing, but we haven't exactly been a great defensive side, in particular away from home. We haven't quite exactly in this part of the season been turning over teams at their place and making their fans exit. So we're not defending as well as we can. There's question marks in the midfield, whether we win, lose or draw. And again, we're not that efficient. And as effective as we need to be in the final third, football's decided in both boxes. The players and Mikel Arteta know that more than me. Ultimately, it hasn't worked. So we can count our blessings in that we could find ourselves in a worse situation and we hope that it could get better. All we can do now is move forward towards Monaco and actually Everton. We've got two games at home and we need to win.