Frustration, Frustration, Frustration. Good players but no run of form. Finding the right formula to get success for AFC.

In property terms there is a widely used phrase of location, location, location however unfortunately if we had to coin 3 words to describe Arsenal it would be: frustration, frustration, frustration. Now I am someone that thinks about the game, set-ups e.t.c almost constantly and at the moment I am really struggling to work out why it is that Arsenal are struggling to put a run of good form together. It really is hard to pinpoint the issues. Why? Well because I simply do not accept people's opinion when they say that we do not have good players, because quite frankly we have some very very good lads at the club who can play to an exceptional level, however at the moment it is not working. Therefore we need to find the right formula to rectify this.

However I can notice a few issues that need to be rectified. Unusually for Arsenal in recent years, these issues do not surrond issues at the back as I do believe that on the whole our CBs have done well this year, especially Mertesacker. But the area that ironically that we are actually strongest in, the midfield, is in my opinion the real issue that is evident to me. Because we have many good players in a central midfield role and because of the space that was made available after Songo's departure, we have tried to get as many of these players on the field at once, this has meant that we are really struggling for balance in our midfield. We lack of point of difference in my opinion.

Now to re-wind a bit at the start of the season we were actually playing particularly well, and in all honesty we played Liverpool away and City away and played both of them off the park, surprisingly especially at the home of the champions. In recent weeks we have lacked that real spark and imagination, and as I said balance. What is therefore missing? Well in my opinion it is one thing. Abou Diaby! At the moment we are playing Mikel Arteta and Jack together, both of which are exceptional players on the ball, however neither of them really have that physical strength or size that you would associate with most midfields in world football, at least in "top" sides. Abou delivered for us at the start of the season, and it is in my opinion no supprise that since he returned "home" to the physio room at Colney, our form and performances have significantly dipped. So basically it is going to be really good for the team if we can get Abou back, but knowing his record this seems unlikely which is extremely extremely frustrating, because this lad in my opinion has the ability and the talent to be an absolutely TOP TOP class midfield player. Therefore should we buy someone in this area in January?

I am not convinced about this because if we did this we would have to take one of the quality players we have in midfield out, and I am really not sure if that would be a good thing. It is therefore perhaps more sufficient and crucial that we find this balance from within. Jack and Arteta for the time being at least, need to develop more of an understanding, and get one of them playing a more deeper defensive, quarter-back like role. This is going to be important in my opinion. As I said before on my blog, I am not convinced about the whole "defensive midfielder" thing, I think it is more important to have two balanced players, that "sit and go" effectively. This is something we had with Arteta-Diaby and have not managed to replicate since Jack and Mikel have been playing together. Let's hope they can develop this.

The second thing that has been lacking especially this season, and to be honest actually for a number of seasons, is a lack of running of the ball!! We don't chase down the ball enough in midfield when the opposition have it. At the weekend Swansea worked their socks off and got a result, when we had the ball they chased, they harried they hastled and they pressed us. We never seem to do this. We have to acknowledge that we don't have the players in midfield that can just sit of and stop players coming through, and therefore we have to actively chase the ball down and therefore hold on to the ball. We allow teams to play, and we cannot allow to do this, because as I said we don't have the players to sit of a team and just pressurise them when they get to the box, we have to pressurise them ALL over the pitch, and win the ball back quickly.

Finally what has got to improve is our movement off the ball. Watching the highlights (or lowlights) from Saturday again, we gave the ball away so much because players had to gamble on passes, because there no real options for them to pass to, because our players were not moving around enough. Sky Sports just showed a stat that showed in passing terms we are 1st and 2nd in the league for all their different statistical collections of passing. Therefore we can pass the ball, it is just key that we start making more effort than we did against Swansea, and give the opposition more to think about, by moving clinically off the ball! Would it help if we tried a different shape, perhaps two up front, to give oppositions more to think about?

I am as always extremely confident that we will turn this around because we do have good players. But I just think we have really missed Diaby, and have not worked to get the right balance in his absence. And finally on the ball we have become static and predictable because our movement is too slow and at times non-existent.

Let's hope this changes.

UP THE ARSENAL

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