Daniel Storey: Are these the final days of Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal?
Arteta can labour his point on bad luck all he wishes, but the reality is that his Arsenal have become far too easy to play against.
Arteta has been a player and coach in England long enough to know the importance of PR, and turning up a press conference armed with statistics that talked up Arsenal’s misfortune in losing recent matches to Burnley, Tottenham and Everton seemed a remarkably odd move. Not least because it became a story in itself at a time when Arteta does not need any extra flak.
Arteta can labour his point on bad luck all he wishes, but the reality is that his Arsenal have become far too easy to play against. Opposition managers need only to instruct their players to sit back and be confident that Arteta’s team lack the pace and guile to break them down. Wait long enough, as Burnley did to the best effect, and Arsenal will either make an individual mistake, suffer a catastrophic lack of discipline or leave themselves exposed to the counter attack.
There is an argument that playing an opponent like Chelsea who will be favourites to win the match might play into Arteta’s hands. He can revert to the safety-first approach that served Arsenal so well against Liverpool, Manchester City and Chelsea themselves in the latter stages of last season. But then there’s nothing like being outplayed by supposed top-six peers to emphasise your fall from grace. These really could be the last days of Arteta at Arsenal.
It’s a stretch to find faults in the blossoming partnership between Harry Kane and Son Heung-Min, but Tottenham’s understandable reliance upon the pair to create and score is that the plan quickly falls down if they don’t quite click. Against a defence that sits deep (and defends well) and a holding midfielder that is able to pick up Kane as he roams, Tottenham can be thwarted.
The problem comes when Jose Mourinho needs to change the game. On Saturday he brought on Lucas Moura (no goals as a substitute under Mourinho) and Gareth Bale (Tottenham have scored once with him on the pitch in the league). Having all four forwards should enable chance creation, but Spurs barely put Leicester under serious pressure.
The inevitable question is whether Mourinho needs to work on an alternative strategy for when Kane and Son are being starved of possession and Tottenham’s counter-attacking threat is stymied. In the eight league games this season when they have ‘enjoyed’ more than 50 percent possession, Spurs have taken only 12 points. Can this team (and this manager) play on the front foot effectively?
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer deserves great credit for the manner in which his tactical plan to expose Leeds United’s man-marking system worked so devastatingly well. By using fast attackers to stretch Leeds and drag defenders out of position, Manchester United created large pockets of space into which their midfielders could wander unchallenged.
But we know that United can be brilliant on the counter attack. What matters now, if United are to forge a meaningful title challenge, is that they prove themselves capable of breaking down deeper-lying defences without being forced to overload the final third and leaving themselves exposed to the counter. Handily, in Leicester City, Wolves and Aston Villa they have three opponents who they should beat but offer exactly that threat.
Sam Allardyce’s appointment by West Brom understandably provoked a cavalcade of nostalgia pieces for his previous firefighter missions at Sunderland and Crystal Palace. But West Brom will surely prove to be his toughest task yet. The suspicion is that Allardyce said yes because West Brom were the first club to ask not because they are a perfect fit.
Allardyce’s approach has always been to secure the defence; his Palace team scored only 22 goals in 21 league games but stayed up. But West Brom do not possess defenders that can be magically made suitable to thwart high-class attacks. Slaven Bilic reportedly believed too much of the summer transfer budget was spent on attackers that failed to provide value for money.
West Brom have conceded 29 goals in 14 league games so far this season. They have faced more shots than any other Premier League team and it is not obvious that the transfer budget exists to buy in January, as Allardyce did at Palace. This is not going to be easy.
Carlo Ancelotti deserves great credit for changing his system and taking Everton into the top four at Christmas for the first time since 2004. Without James Rodriguez and Lucas Digne, two players who crave possession, Ancelotti believed that Everton needed to sacrifice possession, sit deeper and protect their full-backs. He moved Gylfi Sigurdsson into a No. 10 role to ensure that Dominic Calvert-Lewin would not become isolated.
It has worked brilliantly. Everton beat Arsenal, Chelsea and Leicester City without ever having more than 42 percent possession having had more than that in nine of their other 11 league games. Now Ancelotti has two strategies; Everton can go back to possession football when James and Digne return.
Over the festive period, Everton face two contrasting opponents in Sheffield United and Manchester City. In recent seasons we have seen them come unstuck against lower-ranked teams and fail to land a glove on high-quality opponents. Take four points or more from those two games and Everton must be considered candidates for a top-six place.
