LONDON — Welcome to Arsenal’s cursed season. There will be all sorts of reasons given for the 2-0 defeat to Newcastle that probably means no trophy in March, a prime opportunity for Mikel Arteta to assert his status on the English game slipping away.
This team, which just put up way over two expected goals on one of the Premier League’s form teams, lacks the attacking mustard. They are too reliant on Martin Odegaard for creativity. It’s set pieces or bust. Arteta has made this team too big, too clunky, too conservative.
If any of those are the explanation that speaks to you then the following really isn’t. Hear me out, however. What about if Arsenal are cursed? A particularly luxurious bit of hoodoo, the sort that a lot of other teams would consider a dream season, but Arsenal: The Murphy’s Law year regardless. There are other issues, fixes that could propel this team higher up the table but little if anything, maybe not even several hundred million in the transfer window, would have as profound a positive benefit as working out what exactly is causing all this misfortune. Who found a monkey’s paw and asked to make Arsenal contenders, not champions?
It’s the sort of season where your unstoppable set piece machine can be as deadly as ever, creating multiple shots inside the six-yard box that somehow find their way over the bar when such angles seem to defy physics. It’s the sort of season where you can miss a hatful of chances and the guy you’ve had your eye on for years, seriously mulling whether he’s your next great No.14, converts the best chance of the lot. It’s the sort of season where you can genuinely write to my editor, “If I start framing something around cursed season, the ball is bouncing in off Havertz’s appendage,” and the ball bounces out off Havertz’s appendage.
Oh, and all that happens in one night.
None of which is to say that Arsenal were without their flaws nor to discount the excellence of match winner Alexander Isak — whose two shots saw him poach the first and create the second with impudence, David Raya only palming into Anthony Gordon’s path — and Newcastle’s qualities in exploiting that. No team beforehand had the precision and pace in transition to nerf Arsenal’s policy of using Declan Rice as an eight in attack and a four in defense. Eddie Howe, building down the left through Lewis Hall and Gordon, found a way. They created two really good chances and took both.
Arsenal, meanwhile, ended this match with seven shots worth over 0.33 xG. They could have had even more if Newcastle’s 5-5-0 hadn’t quelled their crossing threat so emphatically in the closing stages. This game ended 23 shots to seven, 3.12 xG to 1.22, 69% possession to 31%, 47 penalty box touches to 15. A team putting up those numbers tends not to lose 2-0. Maybe a team that repeats this at St. James’ Park overturns this two-goal deficit. Maybe they’re just in for another Fulham, Everton, Brighton, Newcastle, take your pick.
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“If you look at what both teams produce and the domination of the game, it’s not a result that reflects the story of the game,” said Arteta. “The reality is they were super efficient with the chances they had. We weren’t. At this level, in these scenarios, you need that to impose yourself and win games. It’s just halftime [in the tie]. When I see the team playing and how we deal with a lot of situations, playing against a very good team, I have full belief that we can go out there and do it.”
It’s probably fair to say that Arsenal would have been better tonight and would be better in February’s second leg with at least one more incisive forward, an Isak-esque talent who only needs one opening. They were, however, creating high-grade opportunities for themselves in dead and live play. On another night, Gabriel Martinelli drives the ball just inside the post. Havertz meets a deflected cross with his head rather than his arm. Any of the three or more moments the ball pinged around the Newcastle box result in it dropping at the right Arsenal boot. Or the left.
This is just the tale of the season. Major injuries to Martin Odegaard and Bukayo Saka have been coupled with the sort of targeted damage to the squad that just doesn’t hit a team that wins league titles. This campaign began with jokes about Arteta hoarding fullbacks. Lengthy absences for Ben White, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Riccardo Calafiori — some more predictable than others — have meant hurling Myles Lewis-Skelly in at the deep end, who continues to swim quite excellently against the tide of pressure that comes his way. Arsenal supporters won’t need reminding about the string of refereeing decisions that have left them indignant, marginal calls that are within the letter of the law but have many questioning the spirit in which it was refereed.
Odegaard tonight and across the last five months is Arsenal in microcosm. When it clicks — a delicate flick around an onrushing defender, a run of games where no one seems able to lay a glove on him — you convince yourself that there is talent here to win the biggest prizes. But then there are the injuries, the illnesses, even the newborn. There’s always something getting in the way of the best.
There are ways Arsenal could have mitigated against the misfortune that has hit them. That extra elite forward that Arteta has wanted for some time now has not been procured. They tried other targets in the summer, could they have taken a really big swing at Isak, he of the Thierry Henry-esque celebrations, at a time when there is believed to be the PSR space to add one more at big money? Even if it meant hamstringing future investment, this is a team that was ready to win now.
That explains why, for all the misfortune that has hit Arsenal, they are still the best placed team if the league leaders fall. They could still win at least one cup; that defense looks tailor made for a deep Champions League run. This isn’t necessarily how the elite respond to bad breaks. Liverpool have proven as much in the years when they’ve lost load-bearing figures such as Virgil van Dijk. Rodri’s loss for an entire season might be more profound than a couple of months without Saka or Odegaard. It certainly looks it when you see Manchester City play.
Arteta would tell you exactly that. Asked by CBS Sports if this is a season where the luck is out, he was adamant. “Comparing to last season, we’re in the same position in the Premier League and were out of the Carabao Cup. We’re in a better position considering everything that happened. I don’t want to really use [luck] as any excuse. The team still performs and competes with the best teams. We’re one of the best teams right now. We produce much better things. No time to talk about [luck].”
Given that, the downside risk for Arsenal this season isn’t anything to fear. Worst case scenario, they don’t win a trophy but keep themselves in the Champions League (Opta gives them a 98.75% chance of qualification through the league). That won’t make it hurt less. This felt like it was going to be the year that an outstanding young side got its hands on silverware. It might still be but when every instant seems to be breaking against you, could any player be blamed for concluding that it just isn’t happening this year? Fate has not been on Arsenal’s side.
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