West Brom Will Show Us Where Arteta’s Arsenal Are Headed
The pressure has been mounting for Mikel Arteta. Two matches, two defeats, and zero goals into the new campaign and the mood around the club has already descended into a frenzy of fury and angst. Reports have emerged suggesting that Arsenal are sizing up replacements for the manager and ready to call it quits with the Spaniard if results don’t improve. Fans are clamoring for a change to be made, worried this will be another lost season. Less honorable “supporters” have taken to abusing club leadership and their loved ones. Things look grim around the Emirates.
Unfortunately, it won’t get better anytime soon. After being comfortably handled by a powerful but penetrable Chelsea side, an even sterner test awaits Arteta and his men at the weekend. A Manchester City side that is a striker away from having no visible weaknesses looms as Arsenal’s next Premier League fixture on Saturday. But for many, the canyon between the quality of the sides serves to make the trip to the Etihad a bit of a free hit. For all intents and purposes, Arsenal’s home skirmish against Norwich is the next time to properly evaluate Arteta’s performance.
But there is a match that Arsenal plays before the international break that will serve as an adequate indicator of just how much we can expect from Arteta’s Arsenal in the near future. On Wednesday, the Gunners will travel to The Hawthorns to face West Brom in the second round of the EFL Cup. While this is not a competition the club has typically made a priority, the manager will need to take this fixture seriously. In the wake of the maelstrom that currently engulfs Arsenal, the team needs a result. A win of any kind would be welcomed right now.
To that end, Arteta is likely to deploy a strong side with only a few players held out. He has already confirmed that he plans to do so. Therefore, the team that Arteta fields and the style in which they play will be highly comparable to what we will see in the Premier League.
So far, Arsenal have done little more than occasionally look threatening in their first two matches have the season. Brentford played them off the pitch. Chelsea routinely dispatched them how they would a team in the relegation spots. But the Brentford match could arguably be chalked up to a bit of rustiness out of the gates and an affected mindset due to a late COVID scare — this is no way absolves the team and manager of blame for a bad result, but serves an explanation for what happened. Chelsea is so far ahead of Arsenal right now that it was difficult to expect anything other than a loss. Arsenal’s poor start, while still massively frustrating, is understandable.
West Brom is a different proposition, however. If Arsenal cannot defeat a side in the Championship, regardless of the fact that it is unbeaten in seven matches, there can be no denying that it is time to panic. Even if Arsenal can manage a victory, it is hard to see a promising future under Arteta if that win does not involve the team playing well. The Gunners need to take shots. They need to threaten West Brom’s goal regularly. They need to control the game for most of the match. They need to look capable of playing football at the level required in the Premier League.
For that is the most worrying symptom of Arteta’s Arsenal. It is one thing to claim that the team needs time to become contenders for top honors once more. If the side is showing consistent improvement under the manager, fans are willing to extend their patience in order to achieve that goal. But it is another thing entirely for Arteta to say his project needs time when his iteration of Arsenal regularly is one of the poorer sides in the top flight. So far we’ve seen a team that rarely creates chances, does not dominate midfield, is increasingly suspect defensively, and is just flat out not an entertaining watch.
If Arteta cannot take the game by the scruff of the neck against West Brom with players such as Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Kieran Tierney, and Martin Odegaard at his disposal, how can he be expected to do better against sides like West Ham, Leicester, or Aston Villa? Why should fans believe he can compete for European places when his side has some of the worst metrics in the Premier League and has difficulty overcoming clubs in the second division? A convincing win against West Brom would not assuage supporters’ concerns regarding whether he is the right man to see out the Arsenal rebuild. But it certainly would stave off credible calls for him to be replaced immediately, before Arsenal has even initiated a proper process to find his replacement.
Wednesday’s second-round tie against West Brom might not look like the most glamorous fixture in the opening weeks of Arsenal’s budding campaign. But it is an important one nonetheless. A sound victory against the hosts will see the mood lighten slightly around the club. But anything less than that will go a long way toward legitimizing the conclusion that the only direction Arteta can take Arsenal is down, down, down.
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