Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta must chart Gunners’ long road back from Unai Emery’s reign of error
In the week when they beat Liverpool and Manchester City, Arsenal became officially a mid-table team
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Your support makes all the difference.Perhaps, Stan Kroenke may reflect, there was an endorsement of his judgement amid the criticism. Arsenal have reached a historic low under his ownership, but the hope for a brighter future stems from his most recent appointment. “Back Arteta, Kroenke out,” read the banner displayed by a plane buzzing above Villa Park.
While the manager suggested the former will happen, the latter feels unlikely. Yet Kroenke, the investor who bought Arsenal in part because of the annual Champions League income, faces the prospect of a year without Europe, unless Arteta can win the FA Cup. Arsene Wenger was mocked for saying it but these days fourth place really would feel like a trophy for Arsenal.
Top four has become top six and now top half. Arsenal could finish 10th. They will not come higher than eighth. In the week when they beat Liverpool and Manchester City, they became officially a mid-table team.
It is, in part, Unai Emery’s unwanted legacy. Mikel Arteta inherited a mess and can emerge from his first half-season with some credit but defeat at Villa Park meant Arsenal equalled a club record of a mere four away league wins in a season. Burnley will complete the campaign with more league victories than Arsenal; Sheffield United and Southampton may do, too. For the first time in 45 years, they may finish below the Clarets. For the fourth consecutive season, they will have to look up at Tottenham in the eventual standings.
The last time Arsenal ended up outside the top six, they also had the compensation of a Cup final, even if it was rather ruined by Nayim famously lobbing David Seaman from the halfway line. The last time they finished as low, they went out and bought Dennis Bergkamp and transformed both their history and their identity. Statement signings may be shorter in supply this summer. Some of the money has been spent already. Nicolas Pepe was born a few weeks after Arsenal finished 12th in 1995 and their record signing is 25 now. Statement keepings may be more important: if they can retain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang they will have a deluxe goalscorer.
If Arteta, who had perhaps prompted the plane to circle above Birmingham with his comments a week earlier that Arsenal needed to invest, now suggested he will be supported. "The Kroenkes and the board and the sporting director, I have their full backing. I have that 100 percent: the fans have to believe what I'm saying,” he said.
Backing can sometimes be interpreted simplistically as spending. In a way, Kroenke has but, for the 11th consecutive game, Mesut Ozil did not figure. Arsenal’s recruitment and decision-making in recent years has been decidedly mixed. Arteta’s team had overachieved twice in a week but if fatigue was natural, the need to rotate exposed some of the faultlines in the group.
Arteta has brought an injection of ideas and if some of his experiments are necessitated by the shortcomings in Arsenal’s unbalanced squad, others are the product of an active mind. At Villa Park, Eddie Nketiah was miscast as a right winger, just as he, Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette failed to gel as a front three. Bukayo Saka has been a multipurpose marvel, but this was a reminder he is mortal. Lucas Torreira’s first-half display made the benched Granit Xhaka look indispensable while their classiest midfielder, Dani Ceballos, may only have two games left in an Arsenal shirt. Arteta has conjured defiant displays from often erratic defenders, defying some expectations, but that does not make them consistently good. Arsenal’s last two defeats, at Tottenham and Villa, have come courtesy of goals scored from corners. Twenty-five years ago, they at least had the best-drilled defence in the business.
“I know where we are in certain areas of the pitch and we will get that but it takes time,” Arteta said. His coaching and tactics can help, but where he has prospered has entailed camouflaging weaknesses. He has a team in transition but Arsenal have transitioned from one of the best to one of the rest. They have fallen further and faster than expected, in part because of Emery’s reign of error. They are 40 points behind Liverpool and adrift of too many others. “The gap doesn't lie,” Arteta said. “We have to make that smaller and smaller and really quickly."
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