Rudderless Arsenal drift along without a plan

No shame in losing to the Premier League champions in this form, but the manner of this schooling by Manchester City on home turf was embarrassing for Arsenal’s owners, directors, coaching staff, players, and supporters.

Rudderless, directionless, bereft of confidence and discipline, Arsenal have now failed to win any of their last six home matches, losing the last three.

The game was over after 15 minutes when City were already two goals ahead and Arsenal were thankful not to be more than three down by half-time. Goalkeeper Bernd Leno was their best player by some distance.

And while the result keeps City’s outside chance of winning a third consecutive Premier League title alive, it leaves Arsenal floundering in mid-table on and off the pitch.

They have Everton and Bournemouth away before home games against Chelsea and Manchester United and then Leeds United come here for a Third Round FA Cup upset just waiting to happen. It means they are hurtling towards 2020 with a far from perfect vision how to get back to winning ways.

To politely sum up a quick chat I had after the match with Arsenal Invincibles midfielder Gilberto Silva, here on television duty, he said: ‘there is a lot of work to do.’

Whether he is part of any future Arsenal coaching or managerial set up remains to be seen, but it all seems too big a job just now for caretaker manager Freddie Ljungberg, who has been unable to lift the team since Unai Emery’s sacking at the end of last month.

The Spaniard was dismissed with no obvious plan and with this season a write off, barring a possible relegation battle, perhaps the club’s kingmakers such as Raul Sanllehi and Edu can afford to wait until the end of the campaign to make a permanent change.

It did not escape anyone’s attention that Arsenal’s reported No.1 target was sitting next to Pep Guardiola on the Manchester City bench.

Former Arsenal captain Mikel Arteta is yet to manage a side but his coaching prowess at City is so highly regarded he is also being strongly discussed as Guardiola’s most likely successor too.

The decision on which club to go for would seem an obvious one, and why would he want to take on Arsenal in its current state?

The former Spanish midfielder was a key man in organising affairs on and off the pitch when he joined Arsenal from Everton and he would seem to be just the sort of character the club needs again.

Guardiola deflected the question in his post-match press conference, merely pointing out his value to City.

Poor Ljungberg, so liked and admired by supporters for his feats as a player and coaching young players here, it seems the job has come too soon.

The club is going backwards quickly and the players left the pitch to the sounds of City celebrations and a resigned silence from the sprinkling of Arsenal supporters who braved a miserable north London Sunday evening to see the whole match.

A couple of symbols of the malaise were teenage substitute Bukayo Saka waiting to come on as City scored a third with Arsenal needlessly down to ten men as they had not made the change quick enough.

Another was the mixture of booing and applause when Mesut Ozil was taken off for another teenager, Emil Smith-Rowe. It was a milder version of the incident that led to Granit Xhaka getting stripped of the captaincy by Emery.

Ozil kicked his gloves towards Ljungberg’s bench in frustration at at the end of a day in which his social media comments against China’s handling of Muslim groups caused the match not to be shown on television there.

Ljungberg did not get drawn into the political debate, but explained he had withdrawn the German midfielder as he wanted more energy and fight in midfield and was glad he was annoyed to be hooked.

The tickets sold for this match were around the 60,000 mark but there were many empty seats for kick-off and more for the start of the second half as many supporters gave up even before the players did.

By the time the match finished it was down to the hardcore only with a few singing for the team but the rest standing and sitting in open-mouthed amazement.

It could get worse before it gets better at Arsenal and Ljungberg knows it, as he ended his press conference by revealing he had already advised the club to make a quick decision on the long-term managerial situation — whether it goes in his favour or not.