Mikel Arteta in peril as Arsenal ‘fighters’ KO’d

It was, in short, a shambles and Arteta must have been looking beyond Saturday’s anniversary game against Chelsea and thinking anxiously about those below him in the table

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta on the touchline during the Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat to Man City. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire.

If Arsenal supporters had been told in the heady days of last summer that 2020 would end with Mikel Arteta rotating his squad ahead of some important festive league fixtures, the not-unreasonable assumption would have been that the Gunners would have been focusing on the top four.

Such has been the fall from grace for Arsenal and Mikel Arteta since that memorable day when they lifted the FA Cup against Chelsea as the start of August, that the Gunners faced Manchester City tonight looking nervously over their shoulders at holiday fixtures against Brighton and West Brom that could only be described as relegation battles.