There were a few stragglers left inside the Emirates Stadium when Mikel Arteta and his two‑year‑old son enjoyed a kickabout on the pitch. Young Gabriel evidently has a stylish left foot already. His father, unfortunately for Arsenal, was not able to do anything more than roll the ball gently for his boy to chase.
Arteta's injury – he damaged ankle ligaments against Wigan Athletic, and as he fell the opposition broke from the exact area the Spaniard was patrolling and scored – has coincided with Arsenal's end‑of‑season decline. The moment he went down turned out to be a quadruple whammy. Arsenal lost a goal, the game, the player who glues the side together for the remainder of the season, and their momentum. They have not won a single Premier League match this season in which Arteta has been absent.
At the end of a deflating draw against a lively and opportunistic Norwich, it seemed that all Arsenal's frailties were coming back to haunt them at the worst possible time. Arsène Wenger made no bones afterwards about how badly his team fared both defensively and offensively. He sounded fed up that the goalscoring burden rests with Robin van Persie, although he has to take some responsibility for the fact the two support strikers he signed, Marouane Chamakh and Park Ju‑young, have not been trusted enough to play much part.
"Again we are punished because Robin had to score, and many times we do not get enough goals from elsewhere," Wenger said. "We had so many obvious chances that you want somebody else to score one. That doesn't happen enough. Of course we need to address that." The arrival of the German international Lukas Podolski from Cologne is a start, but you sense Arsenal will need more shooting prowess from other areas to push on next season.
Planning is in a kind of limbo as Arsenal wait to see what the fates bring in terms of Champions League qualification. Wenger was in no mood for optimism at the end of a match that was engrossing for the neutral yet enraging for him. He declared himself "gutted". But his spirits were boosted 24 hours later when both Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur faltered, effectively handing Arsenal a get-out-of-jail-free card. Third place had slipped out of their hands on Saturday, only to be gifted back on Sunday. Arsenal will have to lift their levels of concentration to get a result in their final game at West Bromwich, and prevent what has become a recurring seasonal breakdown at this time in the football calendar.
Three and a half weeks ago, going into that home game with Wigan, Arsenal were five points clear of both Tottenham and Newcastle, and on a convincing run of eight wins out of nine. If third place was not quite a formality, it was certainly expected.
Two points from three home games since left Wenger shocked. Not for the first time this season, the Frenchman intimated there might have been some complacency in his team. That is a damning indictment at this stage of the season. The fact that Wenger did, in the early part of his Arsenal career, produce teams with the personality and endurance to finish a campaign strongly makes the trend even more puzzling. The manager knows what is needed when the pressure is do or die.
The changes in the team this season, with more experienced heads around the place, seemed to be making a difference. But it is a concern that whatever the personnel or circumstances, Arsenal choke up at this time of year. The League Cup final defeat to Birmingham City last season, and the subsequent collapse (they won two of their last 13 games and slipped from second to fourth in the table) was a case in point. The previous season they lost four out of the last six games. Before that they lost four from seven. Go back another year to the 2007‑08 season, and Arsenal were title contenders but a period of two wins from 13 games saw them fall away.
It is a terrible habit they have one last chance to break next Sunday.
When it comes to battling qualities, Arsenal could have learned a thing or two from Norwich. Not that Paul Lambert took a question about his team's grafting as a compliment. "You trying to say that was just a battling performance?" he growled, looking as if he had been gravely insulted. The Scot was proud enough of what he had witnessed to value Norwich's performance as superior to their victory at White Hart Lane. "Top-class," he said. "And you've got to remember where we came from. Two years ago we were bottom of League One."
As Arsenal now realise, their rise has been sensational.
Source: Amy Lawrence, The Guardian on 6 May 12
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