FUL 2-1 ARS: Gunners Not Trophy-Ready

 As the game wound down yesterday, the phrase "easy to play against" kept running through my head.  That was what they used to say about us in the late Wenger era.  Everyone knew what we were going to try to do and they'd made plans to counter it, and knew we'd give them a few chances.  Fulham just did everything they planned better than we did, and Arteta had no adjustments.  When I saw Kiwior get a start, I was glad, because we need a left fullback to do the defensive job.  But Arteta wanted Kiwior to invert into midfield like Zinchenko, which is just dumb.  The Cottagers set up to frustrate our attack, and then take advantage of our attacking commitment to counter.  Long story short, they did that and more.  We were second best again in a London derby we needed to win to maintain any pretense of challenging for the title.

I have criticisms of Arsenal players, but I'm not going to make them in this post.  This was another of Arteta's losses.  He simply won't admit that everyone in the league has figured out how to negate his setup.  Teams that try to play an open style will be sliced open by Arsenal, but if they organize their low block properly we aren't versatile enough to score.  To be honest, Arsenal had been lucky in quite a few games.  This dreadful stretch has been coming for a while.  Our roster is stacked with great players in most positions.  Saliba and Gabriel may be the best center back pairing in the world.  Rice may be the best holding midfielder.  We have two top goalkeepers.  The fullbacks are fine though not top class.  Saka and Martinelli are very good wingers; Odegaard is a world class attacking midfielder.  The glaring weakness is at center forward.  We don't really have one when Jesus plays--he operates like a third winger--and we don't have a good one when Nketieh plays.  We also downgraded at the position ("left 8") that Xhaka played last season, with Havertz.  What would ten Hag give to trade squads?  Answer:  a lot.  It's not personnel, it's how they're prepared, selected, and organized.

I don't have the heart to go into the way we've collapsed on set piece play, from Trossard's awful corner kicks to sloppy defending on their corners, or on our increasingly impotent offense.  The players are losing faith in the Arteta Way, and why shouldn't they?  We're good, but not good enough to tell everyone exactly what we're going to do and then keep doing it whether it works or not.  I know it seems crazy, but maybe Arteta did his best work in assembling this group, and is not the guy to get the best out of them.  He deserves the rest of the season to try to put things right, but frankly I don't think he has it in him to admit that he needs to do something different to have a chance at top four.  (Forget winning the league.)  I hope I'm wrong, but based on our recent form I expect we'll be out of the FA Cup and in fifth or sixth place by February.  

There's no point splashing cash in January; it won't work.  Let's take stock in June, either basking in the glory of a major trophy or ruing a drop into Europa Conference League territory.  If Arteta needs to go, there will be plenty of applicants.  This is a group of players that can do great things with great management.