The constant disappearance of Arsenal hits rock bottom

NbaSports Kasım 21, 2021

Home stadium of Arsenal Emirates Stadium

Emirates Stadium, home to English Premier League football club Arsenal, is pictured in North London on April 19, 2021. (Photo by Tolga Akmen / AFP)

The worst start to a league season for Arsenal in 67 years will see the Gunners spend the next two weeks on an international break at the bottom of the table without a point or even a goal to show in their first three games.

Mikel Arteta’s position as manager is under increasing pressure with the Spaniard reportedly giving four more Premier League matches against Norwich, Burnley, Tottenham and Brighton to save his job ahead of the October international break.

To rub the salt on Arsenal’s wounds, for the first time ever they sit at the bottom of the English top flight rankings while rivals from north London Spurs are at the top.

However, their decline has been a slow and steady process since the final years of Arsene Wenger’s 22-year reign in office and has only accelerated since the Frenchman’s departure.

AFP Sport looks at what went wrong for one of the traditional giants of English football.

Poor recruitment

Long after Wenger’s big teams in the late 1990s and early 2000s stopped winning league titles, he managed to keep Arsenal as part of the Champions League fabric despite a limited budget to buy players and even selling some of his best like Cesc Fabregas, Robin Van Persie and Samir Nasri have left.

Despite fan protests against the club’s American billionaire owner Stan Kroenke, Arsenal have long since abandoned their frugal transfer fee policy.

Since Wenger left in 2018, the Gunners have spent £ 425 million ($ 585 million) on new signings and have the second highest net spend in the Premier League behind Manchester United.

Also this window were the biggest spenders with £ 130 million splashed on Ben White, Martin Odegaard, Aaron Ramsdale, Nuno Tavares and Alberti Sambi Lokonga.

However, much of that money has been wasted.

Two years on from a £ 30 million transfer from Saint Etienne, William Saliba has yet to play a game for the first team. Young midfielders Lucas Torreira and Mateo Guendouzi were deemed to exceed Arteta’s requirements and on loan.

The signing of club record Nicolas Pepe failed to keep his £ 72m price tag, while even a string of huge paychecks were wasted and made it difficult to move players.

The club had to pay the remaining months for the contracts of Mesut Ozil, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Shkodran Mustafi before leaving for free in January.

No clear direction

Should Arteta be sacked in the coming months, he will be the third manager in three years to leave the club.

Changes have also been constant in the hierarchy. Former Borussia Dortmund scout leader Sven Mislintat left after just 14 months in 2019 due to differences with then football boss Raul Sanllehi.

However, Sanllehi also left the club last year due to dissatisfaction with his transfer business.

Arteta was promoted from head coach to manager, with more say in hiring, after just nine months of work.

Arsenal’s focus now appears on youngsters with all their summer signings between the ages of 21 and 23.

But that followed the costly mistakes of giving huge contracts to players over the age of 30 like former Chelsea duo David Luiz and Willian, Ozil and current captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Ozil even teased Arteta after Saturday’s 5-0 win against Manchester City by tweeting “trust the trial”.

Lagging further behind

As Arsenal have turned back, teams at the elite end of the Premier League continue to improve.

City, Chelsea, Manchester United and Liverpool have finished in the top four in the past two seasons and all look even stronger this season for their new signings or, in Liverpool’s case, for some key players returning from injury.

During Wenger’s reign, Arsenal boasted a record matched only by Real Madrid of 19 consecutive seasons in the Champions League.

They have now failed to qualify for a fifth consecutive season and would need a miraculous turnaround to prevent that streak from extending into year six.