Morning all.
Regression – not for the first time post Christmas I’ve read regression and Arsenal in the same sentence. Is it justified though, have Arsenal regressed this season?
The season before last, having been in a strong position to win the league, we sleepwalked through the final few weeks of the campaign to finish second. Fast forward twelve months and we were at it again. Arsenal had looked favourable to lift the big trophy half way through the season but then a couple of draws followed by a couple of defeats and Man City took advantage.
This season was meant to be third time lucky however, the only luck we’ve had is bad luck. Bad officiating, bad injuries and another bad spell of results. Not to mention the performances.
Unlike last season, the title race was over quite early as Liverpool took advantage of every other club in the league having a very mixed campaign.
Have Arsenal regressed? My honest answer is I’m not sure and I say that because had we not had so many injuries, I think we’d have been much better than we have in the league. To lose players like Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz, Ben White, Gabriel for large periods of time would be hard for any manager of Arsenal to cope with. It’s not just the time they’re out but when they return, they’re not the same player for a few weeks, if not months. On top of that, Gabriel Jesus, Riccardo Calafiori and Takehiro Tomiyasu have spent more time off the pitch this season than they have on it.
Has Mikel Arteta’s management regressed? Well, that’s a tough one to answer because I don’t think he’s ever been particularly good at managing his squad, nor do I think he’s been proactive from the sidelines as it seems to me he’d rather let a player struggle on through a game than to change him. I think the only time I recall him doing something positive was when he substituted Myles Lewis-Skelly who’d been booked and was heading for an early shower had he stayed on the pitch. I’m sure someone will soon point out other occasions when the manager has made tactical changes if there are any.
The Spaniard must be the only manager in the game to have never signed an out and out centre forward for the first team. I don’t mean a winger/forward, I mean a goal scorer. Even Arsene Wenger signed strikers. Not all were very good mind you, certainly during the final few years of his time at Arsenal. But that was Arsene, if he could save a penny or two he would.
This Arsenal is different as we’ve been spending big money since the arrival of Mikel Arteta. Probably the most the club has ever spent in a five year period, yet still we don’t have a balanced squad. So this summer, that surely needs to change?
Of course we all want to see a striker signed but we also need to add some speed to the way we play and a different kind of creativity in the oppositions half. A player who can open up a defence with one pass or with one movement. A player who hasn’t even heard about receiving the ball and turning backwards, let alone do it. Again, again and again.
I don’t know about you guys but I want to watch Arsenal and be entertained. I recall Unai Emery saying he’d rather win a game 5-4 than 1-0 and whilst that’s a tad extreme in my opinion, I totally understand what he means. Don’t get me wrong, a 1-0 win can be exciting and entertaining but this Arsenal, certainly in the Premier League isn’t doing either.
I know after the the Bournemouth game Martin Odegaard said the players might have been thinking about the PSG game, or something like that but that game hasn’t been coming since the first day of 2025 has it?
Over to you guys, do you think Arsenal have regressed this season?
Catch up in the comments.
Remember when we all, it seemed, implored, begged even, for Arsene Wenger to sign a proper, dominant centre half? Even other managers said they couldn’t understand why we didn’t sign one.
Did Arsene listen? Did he heck, he thought the triumvirate of Toure, Gallas and Silvestre was enough. It took an 8-2 thrashing at OT for him to smell the coffee.
Then there was the goalkeeper situation that seemed to drag on endlessly, I’m sure you all remember them, the guy with the blond bleached hair, the guy caught smoking in the showers, all the midgets we seemed to have between the sticks, Italians on loan who never played, every one a punt, eventually Arsene signed veteran Petr Cech. But he never, in all his years at Arsenal, adequately replaced Seaman
Then there was the clamour to buy a big, robust central midfielder to help out all our nimble, beaten up incumbents who Stoke and Co routinely roughed up. Did Arsene do it? Well we all wanted another Patrick Vieira, or maybe a Gilberto, even an Edu would have done but all we got was the tiddlers.
Abou Diaby I suppose, was the annswer after a few seasons of mayhem but when he got injured we reverted to the tiddlers.
Remember that classic visit to Anfield under Unai Emery and watching Liverpool transition into acres of wide open spaces in the Arsenal half with no Arsenal players in view. Remember the stats, the amount of chances we allowed the opposition in every game it seemed, it wasn’t dull but it also wasn’t great for your blood pressure.
Has Arteta made mistakes, hell yes!
Has he improved in certain aspects of his team maintenance?
I think he has, especially in terms of developing young players and trusting them.
Can he improve in terms of rotation and leaving something in the tank for the final weeks of the season?
Of course, but he needs a bit of luck as well. Let’s see how Slot goes next season if he loses 40% of his squad to injury during his second campaign in charge.
Great post Rico…
Good morning Rico.
Regressed? No I don’t think so, we certainly haven’t improved though. Our style of football has stayed, basically, the same apart from a short period of scoring from set pieces. That worked until every other team worked out how to nullify the ploy.
We were never very good at converting chances created into goals scored and that ratio dropped dramatically with the injury to our only striker Havertz.
The total failure to recruit a goal scorer in two transfer windows effectively scuppered any chance of improving the chances/goals ratio, so stagnation is a better description than regression in my considered opinion.
Thanks Kev, great comment to.
I suppose I’m comparing this Arsenal to Man City and their squad. even Liverpool too I guess as they’ve just won the league.
Morning Cicero, I’m of a similar opinion. I think we’ve stood still. Last summer was the golden opportunity to make the additions to get us over the line. We didn’t make them, in fact I think we actually weakened the squad with all the sales.
The after effects of the players paid off to depart perhaps.
Maybe Rico, but Arteta wanted a younger squad of players he could train into his (Pep’s) style of play. That was blown out of the water when City went for the big bloke up front and we got the little bloke they no longer wanted. Haarland and Jesus in case there was any doubt. 😉
I understand why he did that Cicero, he’s just forgot to fill a few positions.
Never a doubt in my mind by the way 😜
Alexander-Arnold move to Madrid confirmed then…
Rico, I kinda feel really sad for Jesus, because after all the trials and tribulations of recent injuries and him finally recovering and then going on a short scoring run only to break down again was so cruel.
I thought he looked back his best, to the player we initially saw when we signed him from City and his arrival coincided with a definite upturn in competitiveness, he was influential, energetic, physical and finding the net, his injury kinda encapsulated our bloody season.
Yeah I agree with Cicero, I think we’ve just trod water this season, but the club needs to up its game in the summer, no more procrastination, get the business we need done and get it done early, none of this deadline day BS.
There’s a lot of ‘Saliba in talks with Real Madrid’ nonsense doing the rounds online. All the Madrid online sycophants are doing their best to destabilise Big Bill and soften up the Arsenal fans…
I guess we’ll know where we stand when the contracts are being agreed and signed – or not as the case maybe.
Good post rico, and as Kev recalls, it’s happened for years and years now. Always that obvious hole in our squad and it’s continued worse than ever this year. If we look back it was so obvious even before the injuries. No more weak excuses, if we don’t go big with one or hopefully two CFs, it’s despair time.
A big game this afternoon for Arsenal Women, away to Brighton k o 4pm live on Sky.
A win tonight would guarantee second place in the league and WCL football for 25/26 with one more game to play. We have 45 points, Man U in third have 44 but have played one game more and we play them next week at home in the final game of the season. Apart, that is, for the little matter of the WCL final against Barcelona in a week or two.
Saliba is under contract until 2027 Kev and I don’t think he would be interested in leaving before then.
Mind you a swap for Real Striker Rodrygo might be a consideration.
Indeed a good post. Balanced with more questions than suggestions. However I don’t share the majority opinion.
Have Arsenal regressed? I believe so. Maybe not much, but clearly.
Yes, I know we had our big chunks of bad luck this season. Many of the suboptimal results have mitigating sircumstances. We had early send-offs (Brighton-draw, Bournemouth-defeat), Partey playing makeshift right back (5 draws in the last 5 attempts), Odegaard missing (Atalanda draw), Saka missing (Brighton/Villa draw, Newcastle losses in the cup), etc. And while I think such excuses appliy to most other teams, and don’t make a season particularly catastrophic, I’m willing to accept them. But there are games like both Everton draws or the thin victory over Shaktar where we have little to no mitigating circumstances for the performance.
I think we play all games in the same formation and tactics, and we become more and more predictable.
Has Mikel Arteta’s management regressed? Probably yes, but just like you said, it really depends how good he was in the first place.
To be honest many of the best Arsenal performances under Arteta’s tenure happened in this season. Defeating City vagy 5:1 was divine. Trashing PSV in Eindhoven rightfully broke several records. And giving no chance to the defending CL champion was nothing short of a toto-killer. So it is the matter of individual and team consistency.
If we say (and we should) that bringing out the best of Salah (32) and van Dijk (33) was a coaching or motivational masterclass from Slot, then we have to admit that this is currently missing from Arteta. While Rice is firing from all cylinders and Timber performs on a consistently amazing level, we have to face on a weekly basis that Odegaard has 3 poor games for every excellent one, and Saka is similarly inefficient since his return from injury. Not compared to his word-class self. Compared to any other PL right wingers. Even Saliba, the best CB in the word made 2 uncharacteristically terrible mistakes in the spring – more than he made in the previous 3 years combined. BUT we know they are all elite players, so it cannnot be their lucky streaks coming to an abrupt end, but the othwer way around: they cannot find their remarkable selves. And it might not be solely the coach’s responsibility, he definitely playes a part. However, I’m not sure this is a decline, as it very well be an area that Mikel wasn’t particularly impressive in the first place (let’s cut him some slack, this is his first managerial assignment), but if it is not a regression then a lack of progress.
Totally understand that re Jesus Kev, he’d finally stopped going to ground at every opportunity too..
Thanks Andrew, I guess there are a few positions that a club can get away with not signing when needed but not when it comes to the core of the team.
Thanks pbarany, my focus was on the league performances over the season really. I think in the Champions League, we’ve been very good so far. It’s a tough competition to win and baring in mind the great Guardiola took years to win the competition with City, it makes our journey to date better than it seems.
If we go out on Wednesday night having left everything on the pitch, so be it.
Whilst we talk about strengthening the squad we have to remember that we are about to lose some too. If Neto , Tierney , Jorginho , Zinchenko , and Partey leave then we are five down already and little or no money coming in .
So to stand still we need a keeper a left back and potentially 3 midfielders . Add to that the striker forward , the extra midfield playmaker and one other and we are looking at 8 coming in . Going to be a busy summer for Signor Berta .
It needs to be a busy summer, early in the transfer window too imo. Whoever comes in needs a full pre season with his new teammates.