Although sad to say, gone are the days when Arsenal football club was a regular inside the Premier League top four. In recent times, things appear to be on the up and the team is getting stronger, but what else do they need to actually make that leap forward?
Winning the league seems a long way off, especially given the fact that Manchester City seems to get better every season. The latest English Premier League betting odds present City at odds of 3/20 to win the league title, as of January 25th. Before they can be considered worthy contenders for City, Arsenal firstly need to focus on cracking the top four, which means competing with Chelsea, Tottenham, Manchester United, and possibly even West Ham for the final two top four places behind City and Liverpool, who look too strong to fall out.
Promisingly, Arsenal does have a solid foundation and feature heavily in EPL predictions. They will be targeting a solid top-six finish this season, to get them back into Europe and closer to the top four, but what do they need to make that final push, and become a top-four regular again?
Squad Depth to Challenge the Big Guns
You can look at the starting eleven that Arsenal has and, while this looks a little behind the top teams in the Premier League, it is certainly not far off. However, where they’re mainly exposed in their lack of quality in-depth, and if Arsenal wants to finish in the top four on a regular basis, this is the main issue they need to rectify immediately.
? “Alexandre Lacazette didn’t do enough…”
Jamie Redknapp and Paul Merson felt nerves got the better of Arsenal’s youngsters in their 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in the Carabao Cup semi-final second leg ?pic.twitter.com/TQMUcEgbhe
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) January 21, 2022
Their recent 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in the semi-final of the EFL Cup highlights the difference between a team inside and out of the top four right now. Both teams played that game with a handful of players missing, due to the African Nations and injuries, but Liverpool coped with that much better than Arsenal.
This game isn’t the only example in which they’ve been outplayed recently. If you go back to the start of January, Arsenal played a number of fringe players in a very disappointing 1-0 FA Cup defeat to Nottingham Forest, dumping them out of that competition.
This has shown where Arsenal are at right now and where they need to improve. What The Gunners could do, if they wanted to improve their first team as well as improve their depth, is to bring in new first-team members and not sell any players.
By doing this, they would improve the quality they have in their starting eleven and the players who were starting eleven members in the past would then drop down to provide the much-needed depth they’ve been seeking. Of course, this is certainly not the cheap option and finances may stop them from doing acting on this.
All we know is that, however it is done, depth at Arsenal is the big issue that needs addressing, and the reason why they aren’t currently top-four regulars in the Premier League.