Defeat in Paris on Wednesday night ultimately defined Arsenal’s season. The painful defeat to PSG did not really teach us anything we didn’t know about this team and this season. Arsenal are very well coached, have a strong tactical identity and, as a result of how they are coached, they have a very high floor.
However, at the sharp end, they just don’t have enough elite level talent when it comes to sticking the ball between the posts and under the cross bar. Naturally, people are hurting and there will be recriminations. The entire season rested on this game, essentially, but even if Arsenal had won it wouldn’t have erased their issues, losing doesn’t suddenly transform them into a bad team either.
We are talking about the difference between the team being really good and great and those edges are fine. However, I take heart from the fact that they are so obvious and identifiable. For all the other regular admin Arsenal have to do this summer, I really do think another elite goal scorer solves the vast majority of their issues. Arsenal went into the season with an attack that might have been enough to win one of the big trophies with a good wind behind it.
That was still a risk coming into the campaign and injuries to Saka, Havertz and Jesus have not just pulled at the seam but ripped the arse right out of the trousers over the season. I had some sympathy with Arsenal’s failure to address this last summer because I didn’t see good attackers moving around on the market.
That was less the case in January when good attackers did move. The club were also hamstrung by the fact they had taken their two allotted Premier League loan slots with Neto and Raheem Sterling, who have both probably had a similar impact on Arsenal’s attacking output this season.
The copium take from the failure to act in January is that the club is aware of the need to really push the ceiling of the attack and felt going to the full price for a ‘good’ option like Ollie Watkins might hinder them long-term. On the other hand, you can’t keep throwing away seasons in pursuit of jam tomorrow.
Ultimately there were presentable chances to challenge Liverpool and win the Champions League with a little more attacking punch and they have been passed up. That said, while defeat to PSG defines the season, it does not have to define Arteta’s Arsenal or be terminal.
The majority of the team is in its mid-20s and ought to be back on this stage again soon. Clearly, nothing can be taken for granted to that effect. If this season has shown us anything it is that strange things can happen in a football season and entire campaigns can get away from you.
But I look at Liverpool last season, who took 15 points from their last nine league games and lost a European semi-final as injuries took hold and it did not define them or impact how they were able to attack this season. Clearly, Arsenal have work to do this summer to raise the ceiling, but how this season has ended does not have to define next season or the future.
Last summer, Arsenal raised their floor in the market. It was a ‘PSR summer’ that most big clubs will have once every three years. I think that explains the ‘sell to buy’ policy we saw. I think it is absolutely reasonable to ask whether the money that Arsenal did spend might have been better directed on a goal scorer.
Eddie Nketiah and Emile Smith Rowe would have played a lot of minutes this season given injuries to other forwards and Odegaard’s post-injury drop in form. Arsenal have good PSR room this summer and I would be very surprised if they were in any doubt whatsoever about what needs to be done. I don’t think they would have bid for Ollie Watkins in January if they were.
Two summers ago, Arsenal raised their ceiling with the signings of Raya, Havertz, Timber and Rice. Last summer they raised their floor. It is time to raise the ceiling again and the bulk of that effort has to happen in attack, especially given Gabriel Jesus’ injury and Raheem Sterling’s loan spell being quietly filed away alongside other such stellar loan moves like Denis Suarez.
There definitely ought to be room for two attackers to arrive this summer and the players Arsenal are most credibly linked with give me heart in terms of their profiles. It is true that Arsenal attack too slowly and too cautiously. Zubimendi, whom Arsenal are supposed to add this summer, is a sharp, first time passer from midfield.
Assuming the interest in Nico Williams is accurate, that suggests that Arteta wants a fast, direct dribbler on the left. Gyokeres and Sesko are, in different ways, direct players who get to the point quickly. I think Arsenal need to do less pushing their food around the plate in the final third and the targets we are hearing about suggest the managers knows this.
Because as much as I think the fact that Arsenal have been playing with a central midfielder upfront for three months is missing from a lot of the external analysis, I can’t put my hand on my heart and say that the team has enough of that ‘x-factor’ even with everyone fit.
There were some intriguing comparisons for Arteta’s team (many made by me) with the task that faced the women’s team in their UWCL semi-final. Chasing a deficit away against formidable French opposition. Arsenal Women had an excellent tactical and strategic game plan in Lyon.
But ultimately, what put them ahead in the tie was their best player, Mariona Caldentey, curling a shot into the top corner from 25 yards. Every coach needs that, a player who can regularly do what Mariona managed in Lyon or what Declan Rice managed against Real Madrid. Arsenal need the sort of firepower to make that happen more often- and I think they know that.
