NOW THAT WE lay the 2024-25 Premier League title race to rest, we can acknowledge its closest cultural equivalent is the ‘Homer’s Enemy’ episode of The Simpsons.
Arsenal are Frank Grimes of this operation: the assiduous, painstaking professional bewildered and tormented by the fact it’s not they but their blithe, unassuming counterpart who is sitting down to lobster for dinner.
Wednesday was another night of utter exasperation for Arsenal, but if there is any consolation, it should be their final night of exasperation. They can stop judging their results against Liverpool’s now. Their goalless draw at Nottingham Forest coupled with Liverpool’s win at home to Newcastle means the gap at the top is now 13 points, so you can stick a fork in this thing.
Arsenal’s failure is not that they’ll be beaten to the title by this Liverpool team, but that they are out of the running before the end of February. Manchester City may not be contending for the league but Liverpool are putting together a City-like season. They are averaging 2.39 points a game, putting them on course to finish with exactly the same total as City did last season.
Liverpool have also had the benefit of Mohamed Salah putting up Peak Messi numbers: this total of goals and assists from the guy who also does a huge chunk of the attack’s ball-carrying is not normal.
Watching Arsenal toil at Forest, it was impossible not to feel sorry for them, given much of what they did was very good. Glance at the game and it was easy to detect that this was the stuff of uniformly-sharpened pencils; of furrowed brow, tactical sophistication, earnest work and total buy-in.
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Hard work, smart work…this is what it’s all meant to be about. Yet in the absence of anyone likely to score a goal, it all felt so painfully futile. But if Mikel Arteta was merely rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, he was characteristically rearranging them in complex and interesting ways.
Mikel Merino again started as the number nine but he often dropped off in possession, with left-back Riccardo Calafiori pushing on and occasionally playing as the striker.
It almost worked too, when he found space in the box but curled a shot off the post. Calafiori was then hooked at half-time: perhaps through injury, or perhaps because he picked up a booking in the second minute of the match.
His replacement, Kieran Tierney, missed from close-range when he connected with one of Arsenal’s many corners, but otherwise Arsenal’s attack hardly sparked. It became an exercise in rote learning: forcing corners and running through the routines of their celebrity set-piece coach. This might work against most teams, but Forest were too good at defending their own penalty area.
Arsenal’s defensive set-up, meanwhile, was supremely effective. Forest are the best counter-attacking team in the league but Arsenal routinely stopped them at source, to the point that Nuno grumbled in the first-half about how often his team turned around and played the ball backwards.
But ultimately Arsenal’s goal never came and the night ended in more fist-gnawing frustration. It wouldn’t be this way if Arsenal had their full-strength team available. At one point in the first-half, Martin Odegaard prodded a characteristic pass through the Forest defensive line, only to see it roll over the endline without a team-mate anywhere near. It was a progressive pass, but to the ghost of Bukayo Saka.
Martin Odegaard. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The breaks have also gone Liverpool’s way. The game at Anfield might have been different had the suddenly-injured Alexander Isak, rather than Callum Wilson, raced onto a through ball over the Liverpool defence at 1-0. But it was Wilson who was fit to play, and he missed. Playing an Isakless Newcastle four days after playing a Haalandless Man City is a hell of a break.
Arsenal can bemoan Liverpool’s luck and their injuries but truly they have only themselves to blame for this flame-out season. Arteta has done a superb job in raising standards at the club, and their defensive strength and resolve has given them arguably the highest floor of any team in the Premier League. The problem is that their ceiling is not much higher.
Arsenal needed to improve their attacking options ahead of this season, and lighten the burden on Saka and Odegaard. They failed to do that, and instead they added depth to where they were already strong, in signing a tall midfielder and a physical but technical full-back.
Reporting suggested Arsenal didn’t sign attackers last summer as their primary targets were out of reach and the alternatives did not satisfy Arteta’s vision for the team. If that’s the case, Arteta must surely have cause now to regret the dogma of his vision: he should have compromised in order to sign a guarantee of more goals. If the answer to the question is Kai Havertz and not Isak, then the question is wrong.
The failure to reinforce the team in January, meanwhile, is unforgivable, and an issue for those above Arteta. The line from the club was that they didn’t want to risk signing the wrong player for the long-term, but that’s a false economy, given they wrote off this season for fear of affecting future seasons. City had no such qualms about splurging at the same time.
Arteta may also need to reassess his strategy for the future. One of the reasons they are so defensively robust is because of the deliberation of their attacking play: Arsenal take fewer risks on the ball that their rivals in order to be ready to react when they lose it.
Beyond doubt is the fact that Arsenal need to sign some attacking players, but they knew that last summer. That they didn’t is bewildering, and is the reason they are feeling as they are today.
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Arsenal have themselves to blame for flaming out of title race so early
NOW THAT WE lay the 2024-25 Premier League title race to rest, we can acknowledge its closest cultural equivalent is the ‘Homer’s Enemy’ episode of The Simpsons.
Arsenal are Frank Grimes of this operation: the assiduous, painstaking professional bewildered and tormented by the fact it’s not they but their blithe, unassuming counterpart who is sitting down to lobster for dinner.
Wednesday was another night of utter exasperation for Arsenal, but if there is any consolation, it should be their final night of exasperation. They can stop judging their results against Liverpool’s now. Their goalless draw at Nottingham Forest coupled with Liverpool’s win at home to Newcastle means the gap at the top is now 13 points, so you can stick a fork in this thing.
Arsenal’s failure is not that they’ll be beaten to the title by this Liverpool team, but that they are out of the running before the end of February. Manchester City may not be contending for the league but Liverpool are putting together a City-like season. They are averaging 2.39 points a game, putting them on course to finish with exactly the same total as City did last season.
Liverpool have also had the benefit of Mohamed Salah putting up Peak Messi numbers: this total of goals and assists from the guy who also does a huge chunk of the attack’s ball-carrying is not normal.
Watching Arsenal toil at Forest, it was impossible not to feel sorry for them, given much of what they did was very good. Glance at the game and it was easy to detect that this was the stuff of uniformly-sharpened pencils; of furrowed brow, tactical sophistication, earnest work and total buy-in.
Hard work, smart work…this is what it’s all meant to be about. Yet in the absence of anyone likely to score a goal, it all felt so painfully futile. But if Mikel Arteta was merely rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic, he was characteristically rearranging them in complex and interesting ways.
Mikel Merino again started as the number nine but he often dropped off in possession, with left-back Riccardo Calafiori pushing on and occasionally playing as the striker.
It almost worked too, when he found space in the box but curled a shot off the post. Calafiori was then hooked at half-time: perhaps through injury, or perhaps because he picked up a booking in the second minute of the match.
His replacement, Kieran Tierney, missed from close-range when he connected with one of Arsenal’s many corners, but otherwise Arsenal’s attack hardly sparked. It became an exercise in rote learning: forcing corners and running through the routines of their celebrity set-piece coach. This might work against most teams, but Forest were too good at defending their own penalty area.
Arsenal’s defensive set-up, meanwhile, was supremely effective. Forest are the best counter-attacking team in the league but Arsenal routinely stopped them at source, to the point that Nuno grumbled in the first-half about how often his team turned around and played the ball backwards.
But ultimately Arsenal’s goal never came and the night ended in more fist-gnawing frustration. It wouldn’t be this way if Arsenal had their full-strength team available. At one point in the first-half, Martin Odegaard prodded a characteristic pass through the Forest defensive line, only to see it roll over the endline without a team-mate anywhere near. It was a progressive pass, but to the ghost of Bukayo Saka.
The breaks have also gone Liverpool’s way. The game at Anfield might have been different had the suddenly-injured Alexander Isak, rather than Callum Wilson, raced onto a through ball over the Liverpool defence at 1-0. But it was Wilson who was fit to play, and he missed. Playing an Isakless Newcastle four days after playing a Haalandless Man City is a hell of a break.
Arsenal can bemoan Liverpool’s luck and their injuries but truly they have only themselves to blame for this flame-out season. Arteta has done a superb job in raising standards at the club, and their defensive strength and resolve has given them arguably the highest floor of any team in the Premier League. The problem is that their ceiling is not much higher.
Arsenal needed to improve their attacking options ahead of this season, and lighten the burden on Saka and Odegaard. They failed to do that, and instead they added depth to where they were already strong, in signing a tall midfielder and a physical but technical full-back.
Reporting suggested Arsenal didn’t sign attackers last summer as their primary targets were out of reach and the alternatives did not satisfy Arteta’s vision for the team. If that’s the case, Arteta must surely have cause now to regret the dogma of his vision: he should have compromised in order to sign a guarantee of more goals. If the answer to the question is Kai Havertz and not Isak, then the question is wrong.
The failure to reinforce the team in January, meanwhile, is unforgivable, and an issue for those above Arteta. The line from the club was that they didn’t want to risk signing the wrong player for the long-term, but that’s a false economy, given they wrote off this season for fear of affecting future seasons. City had no such qualms about splurging at the same time.
Arteta may also need to reassess his strategy for the future. One of the reasons they are so defensively robust is because of the deliberation of their attacking play: Arsenal take fewer risks on the ball that their rivals in order to be ready to react when they lose it.
Beyond doubt is the fact that Arsenal need to sign some attacking players, but they knew that last summer. That they didn’t is bewildering, and is the reason they are feeling as they are today.
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