Arsenal Versus Sunderland: In Victory, Arsenal Display Seven Weaknesses

Arsenal are now tenth on the Premiership table, thanks to their 2:1 victory over Sunderland at the Emirates on Sunday. Another victory next week could advance them further on the table and do a lot to calm the nerves of both players and fans.

What we saw from the match against Sunderland did little to inspire confidence that Arsenal are finally on their way to recovery, however. On the contrary, we saw the old fragile Arsenal, displaying the same old weaknesses. I highlight seven of those here.

Arsenal Are Too One-Dimensional

Arsenal are too predictable, too one-dimensional: recall the last 65 minutes of the game, when they offered little attacking threat. They dominated possession as usual, granted, but what did that yield in terms of a genuine threat on the opponent’s goal?  

Move after move faltered with little threat on goal, a result of employing the same approach too often. On the defensive end, does your possession keep your opponent quite, so that your goal and defense are relatively unthreatened? Here is the difference between a Barcelona possession and Arsenal's as an example.

After 25 minutes, Sunderland figured out Arsenal and adjusted accordingly, making it difficult for Arsenal to begin any incisive move from the midfield as they had done in the first 25 minutes.

It is often the same story: Arsenal enjoy a splendid first half, or the first quarter of an hour, after which the opponent adjusts and nullifies them, often cancelling out their goals, whereas the reverse is seldom true. It certainly wasn't today.

What is your plan B and C when your opponent figures out your plan A? It seems to me that Arsenal's reactionary and nervy temperament as games wear on results from a lack of well-thought out alternate plans. This surely is a weakness.

Walcott Is a Disappointment

Walcott, like the team, offers little option beside speed, which is not always an advantage.  Influential players trouble their opponent with as much of their movement off the ball as on the ball. Walcott's positioning and decoy movement leave a lot to be desired.

In this game, he positioned too wide whenever Arsenal attacked quickly and frontally instead of making diagonal, decoy runs to take out defenders, or to provide a more viable passing option—as would be expected.  It meant that passing to him that wide would take the bite out of the attack.

His lack of creative movement meant that he contributed little in the final third in helping to finish attacking moves, an unfortunate fact, since he is part of Arsenal's attacking fulcrum.

Based on this game, and unless his game improves, I do not see that he is ready to lead Arsenal's attack as he desires, or that his game appears headed to a higher level, and this is not good news for Arsenal. 

This potential strength falls strangely flat and borders on an attacking weakness for the team.

Right-Back Still an Achilles' Heel

Ironically, Arsenal's defense in this match outscored both the midfield and attack in my opinion. All four of the defenders were sufficiently calm and composed on the ball, including Santos, when he replaced Gibbs.

Gibbs has grown remarkably since Clichy left. Mertesacker is calm and collected in possession and positions well when defending; on a good day, Koscielny can give an impeccable performance. What he lacks is consistency. This, though, was a good match for him.

Santos is intelligent going forward. I can't recall any hair-raising moment from him in this match in terms of defense.

Jenkinson looked good overlapping. His only mistake in the match, as I recall, was the one moment in the dying minutes of the first half, which led to Szczesny making a point blank save from a header.

The right side of Arsenal's defense, despite Jenkinson's improvement, is still a weakness, and may remain so until Sagna returns.

Midfield Is Still Not Convincing

The midfield wasn't bad but was actually excellent in the first quarter of an hour, winning balls and initiating attacks. After the first quarter of the match, however, it ran out of ideas in terms of turning possession into genuine threat. Possession was too often lost at the edge of the opponent's penalty box.

What one would like to see are more through passes and more transitional attacks, that is, retreating while still in possession and rebuilding towards the opponents goal. Barcelona, and the current Bayern Munich, are good at this. This disorganizes and frustrates the opponent.

This wasn't Song's best game, although he performed adequately enough, still, he did have a few misplaced passes.

Rosicky was surprisingly good in this match, his movement as well as his passing was splendid.

Arteta was neither brilliant nor woeful. We would hope for an upward swing from him. There was nothing special from Benayoun, although he was adequate enough as a substitute.

An improved midfield will be less reactionary and more in control of the game. Arsenal's midfield still lacks such control.

Attack Still Blunt

The attack, as a collective unit, needs improvement.

Walcott, as I mentioned earlier, towed the line of deplorability. He shined for fifteen minutes, then faded into anonymity. Gervinho was excellent earlier on, but seemed to have tired out in the second half.

Arshavin was impressive taking on defenders. The spark in attack, of course, was Van Persie. His movement on and off the ball was excellent. 

What was lacking in the attack unit was movement off the ball. Walcott, again, was the major culprit. Gervinho needs to work on his durability to provide the same threat and option he provides in the first quarter of the hour.

Arsenal cannot depend indefinitely on Van Persie as the sole scoring option. Walcott needs to lift his game and soon, otherwise, he needs to give way to other players.

Nonsensical Mistakes in the Dying Minutes of a Match

A helter-skelter display during added time has become a hallmark of Arsenal, justifying the suspicion that they seem to like well-thought out game plans (quarter to quarter say) in their matches.

Why punt the ball mindlessly upfield when you have possession and your intention is to protect a lone goal and see out a victory? Szczesny is the guilty party here. He committed this error time and time again at this dicey moment of the match, when all he needed to have done is pass the ball to one of the players and maintain possession. 

The goalkeeper alone is not at fault, of course. The team, as a whole, needs a collective strategy to seeing through the dying minutes of a match, instead of nonsensically surrendering possession through stupid upfield punts and exposing themselves to undue pressure. 

Last season's costly draw against Liverpool at the Emirates resulted from this exact error. With just under sixty seconds to go, Szczesny needlessly punted the ball upfield with the end result of a freekick conceded and eventually a penalty, when it would have served better to take a few seconds off the clock through time wastage (!)—and what if you get a yellow card?—and then pass the ball around.

Someone should, in short, tell Arsenal and Szczesny  to stop this stupid business.

Arsenal Is Still Not Ready

My overall assessment of the weekend fixtures is that, of the four teams that may challenge for fourth place this season—Liverpool, Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal—Arsenal are by far the weakest. Although my thesis, that Arsenal could still finish fourth this season (see here), still stands in theory, today's performance did little to assure this will happen. 

Without improvement on today's disjointed performance, I do not see Arsenal winning against Stoke City next weekend. Wenger continues to pipe on about rebuilding and rebuilding (what the summer is for?), how long is the so-called rebuilding going to last? When would we see real, assured performances?  

Arsenal are reaping the result of the simple adage: When you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Let's hope this is not the case come May.