The vibes at Arsenal aren't good, but the team is
It is a bad run of form, mixed with mixed performances and bad luck. This shouldn't be a permanent problem.
The vibes in the Arsenal fanbase are in the gutter right now.
It is understandable, the team is coming off back-to-back losses with just two wins in the last six played, and one of those was in the League Cup and no matter what the people that say trophies matter, that competition doesn’t for making you feel better about the team.
In the bigger picture the team is in 5th place (on goal difference), 5 points behind Manchester City and 7 points behind Liverpool having dropped points in half of the League matches this season.
The expectations for this team have risen and the team is well below where we would like them to be. When I did the first check on the team compared to expectations that I do bi-monthly, the team was across the board below the level that I had set for them on the performance related metrics.
Arsenal KPI - November 2024
Trying to find the right timing for this post is always tough; this year with 3 red cards in the opening 9 matches it is even harder.
The big question that the club needs to ask (and what smart fans should be asking too) is this a blip or a downward trend and that is the early signal that there is something fundamentally wrong with the team?
I lean strongly that this is much more of a blip than something drastically wrong, in a run of 14 matches (not counting the League Cup) weird things can happen and variance/luck plays a much larger role in the team.
This doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that are wrong with the team, they clearly are. The attack, especially from open play looks labored. The team looks like it is lacking technical security and maybe the obsession with duels as tilted things too far in that direction. On the tactics front it can seem at times that Mikel Arteta is leaning too far towards defensive conservatism vs attacking risk with the play right now.
There was also what appears to be a squad construction plan this summer that if they could not get one of the marque ceiling-raising attackers that they had on their list they would rather wait for the right target over picking what would have been an expensive compromise just to have someone. When the squad is healthy, on paper it has more than enough talent but as we have seen it has been fragile to injury and suspension.
Even with all of the above, this is still a team that has moved in the right direction and from my perspective even now, is better than last season’s team.
Here is a stylized view of my point to illustrate it. The red line represents the potential outcomes that each season’s team could have been expected to hit over the course of the season, with the vertical blue line the actual outcome among those.
That 2022/23 team was coming off of 5th place but made some shrewd additions and had a big step up from Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli. It also had a good number of bounces and general variance go their way helping push them way to the right tail for the potential outcomes that nearly got them to the title.
Last season’s team had the potential where they were better but had the step back on points situation. The team did well in the transfer market again, adding talent to make the team better and raising the ceiling of the team. It took a bit of time for the team to settle but it showed that over the course of the season that they were a legit great team and came close to unseating Manchester City for the title.
This season, the moves in the transfer market that were able to be completed were more focused on raising the floor rather than pushing the ceiling higher. The team in totality looks better than last season’s addressing the major weakness at defense, adding depth in midfield and tweaking at the margins in attack, but the change is not as drastic as it was in the last two seasons. This year the bounces and variance are just on the left side of the potential outcomes, so it just feels so much worse right now.
The team has played a tough schedule, made tougher by getting sent off and they still show up well on the metrics.
It doesn’t provide much comfort to say, the luck hasn’t gone Arsenal’s way this year but it is generally a really good team, with a very highly thought of coach. Give them some time to get back key players, stop playing 10 vs 11 and let the manager work through things with the tactics.
It feels much better to say #ArtetaOut and to lash out, even if rationally I think most people would realize that is not a great move for the long term with the information that we have right now on the team. People love to focus on the it could get better part, and that is a possibility but ignore that the it can get worse part is probably much larger given that there isn’t exactly a replacement out there that is obviously better and it does look like Arteta is a very good coach but with room for improvement.
This is a time of short attention spans and what have you done for me lately, combined with an internet environment that favors controversy and extreme takes because it drives engagement.
Hold the course folks, it really should be okay.
It's a blip. We have been very unfortunate with referee decisions, injuries and poor form. I think that a lot of these problems are exacerbated by the manager. For as much money as has been spent, we have a very good squad, but not an elite squad. That is compounded by a lack of playing time for fringe players. And Arsenal cannot afford fringe players. The less they play, the more pressure they put on themselves when they are put into matches that we are chasing. This small loss of confidence is the difference between these good players dropping down another level. Where is Jorginho? I am not saying that we need a 9, but watching Solanke and Osimhen this week in the champions league...