Friday, March 29, 2024

Evaluating Arsenal’s Poor Record Against The Top Clubs

Wenger’s record versus the top clubs has been utterly awful. Half of the 40 Premier League goals they have conceded this season have been away at Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City and Liverpool.

Arsenal’s record against the top teams has been dismal for some time now. So why is this? One obvious issue is that Arsenal players lack the mentality and mental strength to boss these ties. Too often they flake under pressure and succumb to heavy, heavy defeats. Arsenal’s early collapses at Liverpool and Chelsea in particular were indicative of a side that were not switched on enough and ultimately paid the price, nor did they look capable of having the strength to get back into the tie. The players were making critical errors and in both these ties they were losing the ball carelessly in the midfield, despite being a strong ball playing team.

Another major factor has been that the players are arguably not as good as we think. The defense for example are fine against poorer teams when the side do less defending, but against the top sides they’ve been exposed as not good enough. Talk of Laurent Koscielny and Per Mertesacker as the best pairing in the Premier League now looks farcical. The huge number of goals conceded away from home versus the top six is a clear example of this. One person who has to take the blame for the defensive displays though is Arsene Wenger. His sides haven’t defended well versus the top teams for many years now and this has to go down to a lack of organizational capacity at the back. Crystal Palace have conceded less goals than Arsenal this season, which is not down to the ability of individual defenders but because Tony Pulis has the defence well organised from both open play and set pieces. Wenger on the other hand does not. They are very naive in possession in these games, often losing the ball in transitions only to see the other side charge up the field and score. Against Chelsea this cost them the first two goals for example. It’s naive and it’s avoidable if the side are organized better defensively and have better defensive fail safes.

Wenger simply cannot escape some of the blame with his sides clearly not set up well enough from a tactical stand point. Naive play in midfield and defence has been costly and Wenger doesn’t appear to set his side up to react to his opponents strengths, but just has them playing the same way irrespective of opposition. The top managers nowadays are reactive and win games in a tactical sense, Wenger’s players aren’t good enough to just go out-and-out play the top teams otherwise they simply are out fought and out witted. There isn’t an alternative game plan at Arsenal. Part of this is down to injuries, losing the pace of Theo Walcott in attack is a huge blow, but it’s Wenger’s job to deal with injuries by bringing in squad players which he hasn’t done. The sort of 1-0 away victory Chelsea recorded at the Etihad is not something we can ever imagine Arsenal achieving under Wenger. They don’t have the defensive organization, or the ruthless streak in attack to pick the opposition off in  more reactive style.

Arsene Wenger must take a huge amount of responsibility for the consistent failings of Arsenal against the better teams in the Premier League. Versus the ‘lesser’ sides they are consistent which usually gets them to fourth. This might be down to Arsenal just being better than those teams, playing their natural game and winning. Versus better teams their natural game isn’t enough and Wenger doesn’t look like he can set his side to react or fight. If Arsenal significant improvements are not made next season, serious questions will be asked of the manager and even if they do, the failings versus the better teams must be addressed or Arsenal won’t win the title any time soon.

Follow the author on Twitter @HassGeee

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