Arsenal worrying trend that Mikel Arteta has ‘no clue’ on how to solve

Mikel Arteta must be feeling the frustration after Arsenal players followed a worrying trend in their North London Derby against Tottenham on Sunday.

The match ended in a 2-2 draw, with Son Heung-min netting twice for Spurs and Cristian Romero‘s own goal and Bukayo Saka‘s penalty providing the goals for the Gunners.

However, it was the timing of Son’s second goal that once again highlighted a concerning issue for Arteta.

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In the match, Son’s goal came just one minute after Saka had put Arsenal ahead 2-1. This pattern of conceding goals shortly after taking the lead or at the start of games has been plaguing Arsenal, and Arteta admitted he has no clear solution.

Arteta had previously acknowledged that his team has a tendency to concede goals early in matches and immediately after restarts.

This issue has been evident in three of Arsenal’s last 10 home games before the North London Derby, with them conceding goals within the first 60 seconds. Although Son’s goal didn’t fall into that specific category, its timing was enough to further frustrate Arteta.

The Spaniard has been cautious about discussing the various challenges his team has faced during his tenure, including a high number of red cards and a lack of clean sheets. However, he openly admitted his inability to address the current problem: “I don’t have a clue. That is the reality with certain things.”

He also reflected on how discussing certain issues in the past seemed to make them worse, saying, “We used to have a lot of people being sent off. And we used to always talk about it a lot. But the more we talked, the more we made it worse. And then we needed to keep more clean sheets. So we stopped saying about that and then we just get a first clean sheet in 13 games. So, I really don’t have the answer yet.”

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In the North London Derby, a mistake by substitute Jorginho allowed Spurs to capitalize with Son converting James Maddison’s pass.

Despite the error, Arteta stood by the Italian midfielder, emphasizing that errors are a part of football and expressing his support: “What happened is I love him and we love him. Errors are part of football. They’re allowed to make errors because they play, and we don’t play. For us, it’s really easy, but if there is someone who is willing to help the team and do the most of it, it’s Jorgi. We are all with him.”

As Arsenal continues to grapple with these persistent issues, Arteta faces the challenge of finding effective solutions to improve his team’s performances and results.