Following on from a cobbled together team succumbing at Southampton (as per the annual tradition) and a hard fought victory over a particularly unpleasant Burnley team, the growing feeling that the Arsenal squad was running out of momentum was proven against Brighton and Liverpool.
The cracks have been visible for anyone who cares to look for most of this season, and as injuries have kicked in and the fixtures have piled up, they have widened to the levels on show during the last year of Arsene Wenger’s reign.
For the first 3 months of this season, the lack of high-end quality and recent incoherent squad building was largely covered for by expending more energy than our opponents and the impact of a manager with a penchant for tactical substitutions more nuanced than the Alamo.
However, the fact that the first 20 league games of the Emery era have only yielded one half-time lead, always made the giddy 22-match unbeaten run seem like one more likely to end imminently than continue into the distance.
As the weekly energy levels have inevitably dropped off, the fault lines have widened as much as the gaps in the defence, and have given clear indication of how much work the new head coach and supporting set-up have to do in order to return this club to the previously maligned status of Champions League regulars.
We now have our worst defensive record of any season at this point in the Premier League era. 28 goals conceded in 20 games.
Of course, our defensive record has fallen off a cliff since Bellerin, Holding and Monreal all picked up injuries, but the nature of the goals conceded suggested that personnel issues are being compounded by ongoing systemic ones.
Equally, going forward we alternate between looking swift, penetrative and efficient and reverting back to the worst elements of latter-day Wengerball, with sideways passing and wastefulness the order of the day.
In both cases, it is clear that the manager’s pursuit of tactical flexibility has been magnified by not finding a system that allows this squad and his broader philosophy to successfully co-exist.
There have been encouraging signs when all personnel have been fit and firing, but even so, this has not been characterised by a consistency of selection, system or performance.
What has become clear, and was probably inevitable, is that not all of Wenger’s departing squad will fit into whatever Emeryball turns out to be, much as, frankly, it didn’t really suit Wengerball by the end.
With this in mind, and with half the season gone, let’s have a look at where things stand.
3The Sharp End
Up-front, despite the endlessly changing formations, the personnel situation is a simple one. When the manager feels our defence and midfield can have control of an opponent Lacazette and Aubameyang start, with the latter either genuinely or nominally out wide, or with the two rotating between central or wider roles. When we pack the midfield or the backline it reverts to one up front, usually the Gabonese due to his extra goal threat, despite his minimal involvement in play.
In terms of their output as a pair of striking options we can have no complaints.
The difficulty lies in having Auba and Ozil in the same team.
In an attacking sense they complement each other pretty well, but both are ultra-specialists who do very little outside of those specialisms. When the remaining nine players can keep a modicum of control and solidity, this can work like a dream. Against tougher opponents, however, this combination can leave us lightweight and exposed. It is a balancing act the manager has to juggle, and it doesn’t yet feel the balance is right…but there is still half a season left before any big decisions need to be made.
A nice counter-balance to this in terms of work-rate is Danny Welbeck, but it looks like as well as his season, his Arsenal career may be over. The sometimes ungainly Englishman could have been a great signing for the club, but three freak unrelated serious injuries in five years is a lot to battle against. A terrible shame for a popular, hardworking and genuinely useful player, but as we know, top-flight football is seldom fair.
So, much of the remaining striking burden may fall on the shoulders of Eddie Nketiah. Unlucky not to have scored in his cameos to date, and equally unlucky to have three sub appearances in a row prevented by injured team-mates, he still remains our only option up top beyond the big two, so we will undoubtedly learn a lot more about him between now and the summer.
A good few months could kick-start his professional career and save the club a lot of money with investment needed elsewhere. But will we be spending?