What Arsenal Need to Do to Get Their Title Challenge Back on Track

Arsenal’s assault on the Premier League title is beginning to falter. After their 0-0 draw with Southampton, the Gunners have now gone four league games without a win. They haven’t even scored in their last three.

A team who started the new year at the top of the table have now tumbled to fourth, and their momentum is all but gone. It will now take a dramatic turnaround to see them emerge as champions.

Their performance against Ronald Koeman’s side was not particularly bad. Although Arsenal started slowly, they produced an intense second-half display that would ordinarily have been enough to secure three points.

However, there were two factors preventing Arsenal from getting the result they needed.

First, there was the outstanding performance of Southampton goalkeeper Fraser Forster, who has been in inspired form since returning from injury. Second, there was Arsenal’s finishing. 

In recent weeks, Arsene Wenger’s team have seemingly lost the ability to be composed and clinical in front of goal.

Speaking to the official Arsenal website after the game, Wenger admitted:

"

You expect their keeper to have a good game but I believe as well we had very poor finishing. It’s difficult to find a player in our team basically who had no chances today.

We came out with a 0-0, with the experience we have in our team, that’s disappointing. It’s frustrating because we put a lot of energy into a game like that. We created a lot of chances of top quality and couldn’t finish.

I think we have to look at ourselves and start to finish with a bit more conviction. The way we have took our chances was not good enough and that’s why we dropped two points.

"

It’s not as if Arsenal don’t have players of the requisite quality to score. Olivier Giroud has already amassed 18 goals this season—you don’t arrive at that kind of tally by chance.

It’s a pity some of Arsenal’s best chances against Southampton fell to Mesut Ozil, who is far from a natural finisher, but with his technical gifts, he still ought to have scored at least once to secure the points.

Scoring goals is linked with confidence—the longer Arsenal’s barren run goes on, the more difficult it will be to break it. Wenger must hope for an immediate return to finishing form against Bournemouth in the Gunners' next game.

Catherine Ivill - AMA/Getty Images

There are other issues in the team to resolve, too. Against Southampton, there was yet more evidence the central-midfield partnership between Aaron Ramsey and Mathieu Flamini is not good enough for a side with aspirations of winning the league.

The two players both lack positional discipline, and that can leave Arsenal exposed to the counter-attack. Against Saints, both Sadio Mane and Shane Long were able to run at the back four with worrying regularity. Had the Southampton attackers been more clinical, the Gunners might well have lost this game. 

Wenger must address the issue, starting with the immediate reintroduction of Francis Coquelin to the first team. It may even be worth trying Mohamed Elneny alongside him to reinforce the midfield and protect the back four.

This was a bad night for Arsenal—and how fitting that on "Groundhog Day" they found themselves back in fourth position. Their title chances aren’t dead, but they are dwindling. Two wins from seven league games is hardly championship-worthy form.

As league leaders, the Gunners had a real chance to establish themselves as front-runners. Having fallen to fourth, they will now require a dip in form from three other teams and a significant upturn in their own performances.

If that doesn’t happen soon, this will be remembered as yet another year where Arsenal threw it all away.

 

James McNicholas is Bleacher Report's lead Arsenal correspondent and is following the club from a London base throughout 2015/16. Follow him on Twitter here.