Arsenal have let their position at the top of the Premier League table grow weaker and weaker – is Mikel Arteta to blame?
This was meant to be a week in which Arsenal stretched their advantage at the top of the Premier League to a daunting distance. They were meant to go from leaders to champions elect. Instead, they blew it – first at Brentford and then at Wolves – and now their lead is just five points having played an extra game. Either Arsenal figure out what went wrong and fix it swiftly, or they risk collapse.
It’s time for Arsenal to face a hard truth – Mikel Arteta is holding them back
It’s time for Arsenal to face a hard truth – Mikel Arteta is holding them back | Getty Images
The initial response to Arsenal’s failure to hold on to a 2-0 lead at the Molineux Stadium on Wednesday evening has been to blame the squad’s mental toughness. The word ‘bottle’ has been floating around an awful lot. But to put the past week’s failings down solely to psychological factors might be to miss a crucial issue – Mikel Arteta’s methods may be costing his side crucial points.
Why Mikel Arteta’s tactics are becoming a problem for Arsenal
If it had happened just once, then it might be fairly viewed as an aberration – but it has happened twice in a week, and several times before. Once again, Arsenal controlled a game almost completely until they reached a point at which Arteta felt comfortable, and then sank into their shell and allowed the opposition to take both the ball and the game by the scruff of the neck.
Arsenal may not have been turning the screw as far as they could have, but they had a stranglehold on possession and territory for an hour until Piero Hincapié scored their second. Then, Arteta flipped a switch and his side dropped far deeper, allowed Wolves to control the flow of the game, and trusted his defence to repel the opposition for 40 solid minutes.
Wolves may have had a little luck on their side with the equaliser, but it was luck that Arteta permitted them. He offered the home side enough opportunities to fling balls into the box that something could just go wrong – which it did, thanks to David Raya’s failure to deal with a Mateus Mané cross.
Had Arsenal simply continued to play higher up the field and to accept control of the ball, it’s hard to imagine that they would have got into such a tangle at the death. Had they continued to give themselves some freedom to attack and pin Wolves back, they would likely have choked them out. But between Hincapié’s effort and the own goal which levelled everything up in injury time, Arsenal managed just one shot. Arteta allowed the match to descend into attack against defence.
It was much the same story at Brentford. A 10-minute spell in the first half aside, Arsenal largely dominated the game until they scored, and then gave Brentford every chance to attack them and to lionise the flow of the match for more than half an hour. The result was the same.
Arsenal have now dropped seven points from winning position since the turn of the year, although in fairness to them and to Arteta the total for the entirety of the campaign is just nine points – compared to 21 in 2024/25. Arteta had seemed to be getting out of bad habits, but is now sliding back into them. Perhaps the psychological failings aren’t in the squad, but in the dugout. Perhaps the pressure of the league lead and the sheer weight of the opportunity presented to him has encourage Arteta himself to crawl into his tactical shell.
Whether or not that is the case, the plain fact is that Arteta is an innately conservative coach who is allowing a risk-averse mindset to cost his side points and games. He is leaning on his defence in a league which so often punishes that approach. Arsenal’s defence may be superb – it is certainly the best in the Premier League right now – but even the weaker teams in the top flight have enough quality going forward to score the odd goal.
The mental barrier blocking Arsenal’s path to the Premier League title
None of this is to suggest for a moment that Arteta is a bad coach. He has undeniably improved Arsenal over the years, especially at the back, and they are still at the top of the table. But their current average of 2.15 points per game only puts them on course for 82 points – and of the 25 teams to become English champions since the turn of the century, only three scored fewer.
Arteta has built a potent side, but his negative tendencies are also holding them back and allowing this title race to be rather tighter than it should be. Given how often Manchester City turn into a juggernaut in the second half of the season under Pep Guardiola, it’s hard not to picture the Gunners in a bridesmaid’s dress yet again.
Guardiola was, of course, Arteta’s mentor as a coach, and the Arsenal manager has borrowed many traits from his former employer. Guardiola can be very conservative in big matches, something we often see with Arteta – in the recent 0-0 draw with Liverpool, for example, a game in which Arsenal could surely have been considerably more aggressive.
The key difference between Guardiola and Arteta is that when Guardiola’s sides take control against theoretically weaker teams, they almost never let go. Manchester City have made a habit of relentlessly punishing sides who allow them to get on top. It’s hard to imagine a Guardiola side loosening their grip at 2-0 up away to a bottom-of-the-table Wolves team.
That may be the strategic hurdle which Arteta needs to clear in order to turn his team into champions, and is perhaps a bigger barrier to that long-awaited title win than any lack of ‘bottle’ in the playing squad. Arsenal may well still manage it this season regardless – after all, their strengths as a side still outweigh their weaknesses, even if they are far from perfect – but there is a growing sense that for all that his adroit technical coaching has elevated his side, Arteta’s tactical conservatism is also holding them back. Faint heart never won Premier League trophy.
