Arsenal: The Problems Besetting The Club

It's time for Arsene Wenger to take a long, hard look at whatever has happened at Arsenal in the past few months. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the Arsenal manager is under the most pressure he's ever been in at the club.

After seeing his side completely lose the plot against Tottenham, Wenger watched as his squad suffered an ignominious defeat against Stoke City yesterday.

For an objective fan of the game, it must be very surprising to see Arsenal fans calling for Wenger's head.

But this has been coming for a long time.

Whatever anyone says, Arsenal over-achieved in the Premier League last season. 83 points over the campaign was certainly what the club deserved, but it raised the expectations of Arsenal fans to astronomical levels.

Transitional Season

Those two words probably annoy all Arsenal fans. Every season now seems to be a work in progress. Every close season sees one or two big players leave and when each one leaves Wenger tends to replace experience with inexperience.

While that is not a bad thing, it must have a limit. At the end of last season, Alex Hleb, Mathieu Flamini and Gilberto Silva left, with Wenger replacing Hleb with Samir Nasri. He decided to wait to find the right defensive midfielder and ended up signing nobody.

The game against Stoke saw Arsenal play a four man midfield, with all four being central midfielders. When Abou Diaby and Denilson are deployed as wingers, it suggests that there is clearly something wrong with the manager's thought process.

Total Football

This leads us to the style of Arsenal's play. Contrary to what many in the press say, Arsenal's style of play has evolved considerably over the past two seasons. There seems to be a Plan B, which was clearly seen in the game against Everton a few weeks back.

However, the plan of playing certain players out of position is simply ludicrous. I don't know of any other manager in the top flight who would play two central midfielders in wide positions, and this is not the first occasion this instance has occurred.

As a result both Stoke City and Sunderland took full advantage of such tactical ineptitude and Arsenal consequently dropped five points from those games.

Experience

Another point which everyone has been bringing up is experience.

Arsenal have prided themselves on being young and playing great football, but have nothing to show for it. There is simply no experience in their midfield, and the irony is that the team seemed over-confident in the game against Tottenham, both before and during the match.

Wenger has underestimated the role and importance of experience totally and is now seeing his team falter as a result.

You can say that the likes of Fabregas, van Persie and Adebayor are experienced in a footballing sense—but in terms of age, they're young. It's not a coincidence that players above 25 years of age make better decisions on and off the field.

Fear Factor

The more I think of it, the more I realise that the players at Arsenal are not afraid of losing their places in the team. The manager has an incredibly secure job and the players have incredibly secure places in the team. There is little competition for places within the squad due to its size, which has allowed complacency to come into the team's mindset.

Arsene Wenger promised changes after the game against Hull City, and we ended up seeing only one enforced change in the following game.

It's no wonder that a team with such hubris is now performing so poorly.

Potential

The true potential of youngsters is realized only when they play with experienced players. You need experience of some kind in your team to guide those players. Otherwise, the players might never ever reach their potential.

I've seen Arsene Wenger go on about the potential of this team, and all the fans know it too, but there needs to be someone harnessing this potential.

Wenger has been in the game long enough to know that this poor run of form will soon be history. But he has got to understand that this Arsenal team is not as good as he believes it to be.

One or two players is all it takes to make it better, but those players have to be acquired, and fast.

It's very difficult to see a team you love and a manager you admire so much get defeated in such a manner—but it's not too late.

My only hope is that Arsene Wenger is big enough to admit his mistakes and change his transfer philosophy.

I'm quite sure that the money is available for a couple of important signings, and with Arsenal's scouting network, it shouldn't be the toughest task in the world to sign a no-nonsense centre back and a tough-tackling midfielder.

If Arsene Wenger doesn't make these signings in January, he could well find himself in a difficult position. I'm in no way suggesting that he'll be sacked or that he should quit, but people have to understand that Arsenal are a club that cannot remain without trophies forever.

November is a big month for the club, and I'm just not confident about the big games coming up.

Let's just hope that Le Boss can bring some cheer back to Arsenal this month, and push on and make some important signings come January.

Otherwise Gunners fans all over the world will be quite disgruntled, and Arsene could find himself in a position that he's never before been in at Arsenal.