West Ham - on the bus. Reality check hits hard
Arsenal pulls an uninspiring performance and the team withdraws itself from the title race.
This leaves the team on the confident course of another trophyless season and the club and the manager have themselves to blame.
The depressing pattern repeats
The most disappointing part is that it came at the moment the title race actually revived itself after Liverpool’s loss of points in midweek. With the growing belief that Liverpool will also lose points on the Etihad, the gap between first two places could have shortened to only three lost points, which is nothing on the landscape of twelve remaining gameweeks. Coulda woulda shoulda.. as they say. Liverpool won their game and Arsenal has lost at HOME to West Ham.
Last season a similar scenario happened. The first week Arsenal actually came on top of the league in April, we suffered again a similar defeat to Aston Villa. 0-2, low number of chances and punishment on the counter attack. Having a very difficult run in - Spurs away, Man Utd away, Chelsea home - Arsenal’s worst performance came in the moment when the pressure was at its highest. Second worst performance was three days later at Allianz Arena. Again, when it mattered the most, Arsenal was toothless in front of the goal. The possession was there, the attempt to create something was there, but no real threat.
This was truly the worst performance of 2025. Even Newcastle defeats, however hurtful, were not as bad. In both legs we had a couple of powerful chances that were missed. I don’t remember a single real chance on Saturday, after which the fans could grab their heads in disbelief. In the end, against Newcastle we created over 2.5 xG in each of the legs. The West Ham fiasco tells an absolutely different story.
We don’t see a single large dot coming from Arsenal players and the total xG is only 1.22. Lower xG was recorded only against Spurs, Newcastle and Bournemouth this season, but at least those three were away games.
Quick game overview
Graham Potter has analysed our previous game against Leicester and came on Emirates with 5 defenders to provide additional defensive coverage for wingers Nwaneri and Trossard. And sadly it was enough. Merino, expectedly, didn’t pull goals out of the magic head. Rice didn’t provide the team with either additional aerial threat nor with drives through the opponent's midfield with attempts to shoot from the distance. It’s one of the rare times where his substitution in the 56th minute made total sense.
Odegaard wasn’t threatening the opponent’s goal as well, which is the regular story of this season. What is the sense of him dropping deep for the ball, if there’s no one upfront to receive it. Calafiori and Timber also weren’t particularly exciting. MLS was remembered by receiving a deserved red card. This episode is not really important, especially because Myles’ decision was somewhat justified. On the day we had more chances of earning a point with 10 men, than with 11 being two men down.
What happened to the team? Why was the performance so bland? Why were the players not just constantly putting pressure on the West Ham players and not letting them breathe? Surely it was not the first deep block Arsenal met on its way. If Ethan and Leo were pushed out to the sides, why didn’t we adjust to have three large bodies in the box - Merino, Rice, Calafiori to bombard them with long crosses? At least it would be some strategy. All these are tough questions to Arteta.
Are the players to be blamed?
It’s hard for me to blame the players. It’s not a coincidence when the majority of the team pulls a stinker. It points to the wrong atmosphere in the dressing room, failure to motivate for the game, failure to transform anger and frustration into player energy at half time.
The club and Arteta did not help the players in the transfer window as well. When the team was screaming for attacking reinforcements, the club took a passive stance, basically either being incompetent or ready to throw the season in the bin. Well, if the club throws the season in the bin, why aren’t the players allowed to do that?
On the same day that Arsenal lost to West Ham, Villa won their game with two goals from Rashford and two assists from Asensio. Both were loans with no obligation to buy, so the deals Arsenal would be easily able to pull off. I wrote here many times that Premier League loan was not a problem if the desire was there. If the club and Arteta really wanted to sign Rashford, they would sort out the Neto loan a week after Jesus' injury either by terminating it or by buying out his contract. And they would have two full weeks to complete the Premier League loan. But the club didn’t want to do it and Arteta also didn’t push for it, because he didn’t want to “just bring a body”. Now we are bearing the fruit of this “strategy”.
Arteta was the one to push for Merino in summer, Arteta’s staff was the one to push for a second GK for 25 million, instead of allocating the budget on a creative player. And these decisions, by the way, ended up in us making two quite unsuccessful Premier League loans that didn’t help the team throughout the season. The season that it is all done except the Champions League.
Champions League draw
Last Friday we were drawn to play PSV in the round of 16.
But the main focus was not on the 1/16 where we were guaranteed one of the Dutch teams, but rather on the potential quarterfinal. That was because, firstly, we were guaranteed a solid opponent and, secondly, we were supposed to play either without or with very limited Saka’s involvement. His return is expected for the beginning of April, right when the quarterfinals take place, so he won’t be able to carry the team alone in any case.
Over the weekend I was preparing a couple of paragraphs talking about Real Madrid, but after the West Ham the text lost some of its relevance. In a nutshell, Real Madrid is the worst possible opponent for Arsenal. That is because our defenders, while being quite good and able to close up the most prolific physical striker, don't deal well with the very fast runners. Isak made a meal of our defenders in the League Cup semi final. Can you imagine what Mbappe and Vinicius would do with them? This, on top of the famous Real Madrid confidence makes it a much harder fixture than the Bayern Munich last season. Which we lost while having a much better squad with all of Saka, Havertz, Odegaard and Martinelli fit.
The positivity of my prepared text was that if there’s a team that is well equipped to knock Real Madrid out - it is another Spanish team. Spanish teams has learned Real attackers much better after several personal encounters. Saliba and Gabriel also needed a couple of games with Haaland to get a grasp of his movement.
But after West Ham, I’d say that even if we get past PSV, we will get out in the quarterfinal. We don’t have defensive solidity to keep Real Madrid at bay - we weren’t able to keep the powerful team toothless all season. At the same time we don’t have the creativity to break down Atleti defence. If West Ham can tie us down to half chances at home, then Simeone would have zero problem replicating it.
Which brings us to the sad conclusion - Arsenal are without trophies for the fifth season in the row. Arne Slot will take the title in the first season in charge. Arteta (together with the rest of the club) keeps making crucial mistakes:
investing in the wrong areas on the pitch
overplaying and overtraining the same players
not planning well for the potential injuries
failing to motivate for the crucial moments of the season.
The fact that we’ve been out of cups and European competitions all these years comes down to the inability of Arteta to pull the team through all the way to the top. I’d say we need to start looking at the new manager. I know the club will never do that, because Arteta brought them constant Champions League participation, which is all they actually dream of.
With another trophyless season, I predict that if Real Madrid comes with 100 mln in summer, Saliba would leave. And I wouldn’t blame him - he is in TOP-5 in his position in the world and deserves the recognition for this. Same as Gabriel or Bukayo Saka. And, sadly, from the club perspective it would be the smart thing to do - take 100 million and spend 40 for Saliba replacement and 60 for an attacking player.
Fight for the Champions League spot awaits
Now we are officially in the fight for the TOP-4 (or even TOP-5 as it will quite likely also give a ticket to the Champions League).
In this context our game against Forest is a six pointer. But, luckily, when you are not in the title race, the draw is more than enough. We are 9 points above fourth place and it looks like a relatively safe margin, given that our opponents are also not winning machines.
It would be interesting how the team bounces back on Wednesday. However, from previous experience we always look better, when the clouds are at their darkest. To Arteta’s credit - the team rarely falls apart completely. Even two seasons ago in our first title run in years, we were not winning, but collecting points before being demolished at Etihad 4-1.
The only thing left to pray for is some miracle in the Champions League. I know it’s a tough time for us all, but if you liked the post, please like it or leave a comment below. And I sincerely hope you all can get a share of positive emotions from another source this week! Thanks!