Poor Gunners drop points

Arsenal 0-0 Middlesbrough

Arsenal produced a performance on Saturday so bereft of any energy, hunger or desire that it will have many questioning their title credentials once again.

Having gone into this game on the back of an excellent 6-0 victory against Ludogrets on Wednesday and a fine run of form that had seem them recover from the opening day defeat to Liverpool to be joint top of the league, the Gunners should have been firing on all cylinders. However they committed the sin of starting the game with a real lack of intensity.

This really is Arsenal’s Achilles heel. Far too often they start games in this lethargic manner and then find it extremely difficult to snap out of it. Before they know it the opposition have grown into the game and started to gain in confidence, making the match all the more difficult. Having defeated Chelsea and then Basel in quick succession in games which they had started on the front foot and full of energy, there was hope amongst the Arsenal faithful that this issue had been resolved.

Unfortunately the problem was to rear its ugly head once more on Saturday and unsurprisingly Arsenal dropped points as a result. The Gunners play was painfully slow and there was a return to the sideways passing which plays right into the oppositions’ hands. There was no desire to get in behind the Middlesbrough defence as the likes of Walcott and Iwobi failed to attack their fullbacks with any real intent while Sanchez was denied any real space to exploit the away side’s defence.

In truth it was a game in which Arsenal missed the physical attributes of Giroud. The Frenchman is far from being one of the best strikers in the world, but does at least offer an aerial threat which can be so useful against the so called lesser sides who look to defend in numbers when visiting the Emirates stadium. Against such sides, the middle of the pitch becomes extremely congested and the only way to really get at them and stretch the play is to get the ball out wide. However with Sanchez upfront, Arsenal don’t have an aerial presence in the box and so crosses are very easy for the opposition to defend. As a result, even when the ball was played to wide areas, the player on the ball would tend to come inside and ultimately end up losing possession as he would turn into a wall of defenders.

As Arsenal were also lacking any pace or movement to their attacking play, the Gunners just could not break Middlesbrough down and found themselves extremely frustrated. In fact they could count themselves lucky to have earned a point from the game as Middlesbrough actually had the better chances. Adama Traore became the second winger in the space of a week to cause Monreal serious problems on the flank as he terrorised the Spaniard time and time again, with Monreal having flashbacks to the run around Modou Barrow had given him the week before. The Middlesbrough winger should have given his side the lead in the first half as he raced through one on one with Cech but was denied by a fine save, with the goalkeeper also denying the away side from the rebound. Cech was also forced into a good save in the second half as this time Traore raced through all the way from the halfway line before firing a shot across goal and forcing Cech into the save.

Middlesbrough also saw a free kick come back off the post in the first half, with Cech beaten had the effort been on target. For all their possession, Arsenal could only muster one real chance which forced Victor Valdes into a top save to deny Sanchez in the second half. Other than that it was a lot of build-up play without any real substance or end product. In truth, every Arsenal player produced a poor display with the likes of Mesut Ozil being amongst the most disappointing.

The German should have been flying after his mid-week hat trick against Ludogrets, but turned in a display which was so bereft of any commitment it should have earned a severe reprimand from Wenger. However the Frenchman left Ozil on until the very end, almost vindicating such a poor performance in which Ozil looked completely uninterested, lost possession multiple times and was far too easily outmuscled time and time again. His performance really epitomised that of the whole team. In the build-up, Wenger had warned against a feeling of complacency amongst his players, but the warning was clearly not heeded and rather than making excuses for them, Wenger should really read them the riot act.

If this team truly want to the win the title then they simply cannot afford to produce such displays. They may have got away with it this weekend as other results tended to go their way, but this will not always be the case and true competitors would look at it as an opportunity lost. The Gunners need to show their desire to win the league by turning in performances of the required standard. Speaking of this desire and then producing substandard performances is not good enough. Talk as they say is cheap and Wenger must address the issues which continue to prohibit his side from being genuine title contenders, as soon as possible. Failure to do so in a league which has several contenders for the title, will only lead to his side falling behind in the title race and scrambling once more for a top four finish.