Mr Arsenal Blog's 1/2 term report. What has gone good and bad for Arsenal so far? Where can we improve?

We are now at the mid-point of the 2012/2013 Barclays Premier League season, and to this point Arsenal have been one of the most "talked about" teams in the league, with many pundits and so called "experts" (Stewart Robson to name but one), having plenty to say about Arsenal and in particular Le Boss, Arsene Wenger. On the face of things it has not been the greatest of seasons so far for Arsenal, as I write this we are 7th in the league, although with a game in hand on those above us. We were eliminated from the Capital One Cup by a League 2 side and beaten at the home of football in the champions league for only the 2nd time since the move from Highbury. So on the face of it all is not really very well. Whilst there are issues that need to be rectified, I believe much of this can be misleading. In this article I will access what issues we have had, and also look into how this can hopefully be rectified, with one eye firmly set on the impending January transfer window.

So, let's dive straight into it. As I said above, many people have had lots to say about Arsenal so far this season and not much of it has been positive, but as I have said many times football has a habit of looking disastrous in defeat, and also has a habit of being taken out of proportions in times of difficulty. So let' me first try and put things into some kind of perspective. In the table below you can see how the team compares to other teams in the Premier League, in terms of many different statistical sections based on their play so far this season. It proves the point that it many ways we not by any means in bad shape at all, in fact far from it!

We have the 3rd best defence, the best possession percentage, 2nd best passing accuracy, have put number of crosses into the box in each game e.t.c So therefore, as we can see from this chart, it is a big surprise that an Arsenal team's achilles heel if you will, would actually revolve around scoring goals, as opposed to conceding goals, which is what we have spent a lot of time talking and moaning about over the last 5 years or so. But why is this?

Well firstly as I have written on this webpage countless times so far this season the quantity of our possession and the quality of our possession have been two completely different things. Yes we have the 2nd highest accuracy % for our passes, and yes we have the highest % of average possession for the entire league, however the way in which this possession is actually used is more important and this has been, in my opinion, has been an issue for us this season. In a number of games we have had so much possession, made so many passes, kept the ball excellently, but have not won the game and in some cases have lost the game (e.g. Norwich away, United away and Bradford away). This is because our passing, whilst making lots of passes in and around the middle of the park, is not penetrative enough and therefore doesn't threaten the opposition defence enough. This is something which certainly needs to improve. This is not really a personel issue, more of a mindset issue, the players must start looking to get the ball forward quicker, rather than just playing it around the middle, because that is easy to form up against and ultimately therefore easy to stop, and keep out.

Another reason I believe Arsenal have struggled relatively to score goals, compared to previous seasons is because of a lack of intelligent movement on and off the ball. Given our formation of only playing with one striker, you really require the advanced midfield player and the wingers to make runs beyond the striker, in behind the defence. This has rarely happened for Arsenal this season, therefore making it difficult to score as many goals as we have been used to. Gary Neville was talking about this on the Monday Night Football on Sky before the Reading match (where we won 5-2), and this was interesting to hear. He outlined how that whenever he played against Arsenal, he always knew that when a defender went out to mark an Arsenal player, another would run off the ball, into the space that the defender has just vacated, thus creating an overlap. This season we have not had enough runners beyond the striker, and beyond the ball. We need to get one player running into space, dragging the defenders out whilst someone else runs into the space that the defenders have just been dragged from, the movement has got to be more intelligent.

As much as Santi Cazorla has been brilliant for us so far this season, I don't think he is the sort of player like Cesc was for us, and what Rosicky was for us last season, who runs and charges forward off the ball. He is more of a ball player, someone who gets on the ball, and likes to manipulate it around the field, which is great! I therefore believe we need a "runner" in this position. Would love to see Diaby fit of course, Rosicky too, either of these could fit this mould, and then I would play Santi on the left with Jack, Mikel as the 2 deeper players and then either Rosicky or Diaby playing in "the hole" or the "Cesc role" if you like.

All in all it has been an up and down season for us so far. On the face of it seems we are miles off, but in reality I don't think we are. We need to re-discover that intelligent movement and passing that I talk about. Statistically there really is not much wrong, other than our goals scored and shots to goals ratio. Therefore we can see that we have to improve our ruthlessness and also improve our movement and efficiency on the ball. As Gary Neville said in this same clip (which I will link below). I believe that we are a quality player up front, short of being a very very good team again. You can see that our defence is good, our midfield is good (all of which is outlined in the stats), what is missing therefore is that clinical, ruthless edge up top.

This is why it is so frustrating that RVP left, because you put someone back into this team (considering we have added Podolski, Cazorla and Giroud in since last season), we would be a very very good team). This shows that we are not far off, and therefore the January transfer window is really key for us this year. If we can get a quality forward through the doors, to really help improve our goal scoring stats, everything will take care of itself, and I genuinely believe we can challenge towards the top. Everything else is taking shape OTHER than the goal-scoring, which of course whilst it's massively important is very fixable in my opinion. On the whole, we can do better, we must do better, but there are many reasons to look forward with excitement and anticipation for the rest of the season because this team is very capable of being very good, it just needs a slight sprinkling of gold dust up top, which hopefully can arrive in January!

Let's hope we see a productive January transfer window, and a successful end to the season with Arsenal finishing as high as is possible. We have only lost one more game than the team in 1st place (Manchester United), but have been let down by the number of draws that we have had, therefore given that little extra quality we can turn these points into 3 points. I also hope that we can see some decent runs in the FA cup and Europe.

UP THE ARSENAL!!!!

@Mr_arsenal_blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAsYAB-kD6w - Gary Neville talking about Arsenal.