Back
Mikel Arteta admits Arsenal are struggling with an old problem that became so cliched that it was featured in a sit-com 18 years ago.
The Gunners beat Hull City 1-0 on Saturday in the Premier League, with Martin Odegaard scoring the only goal at the Emirates.
Any problem Arsenal are struggling with is not too serious as that win, followed by Manchester City’s defeat at Nottingham Forest, put Arteta’s men six points clear at the top of the table.
However, Arteta was frustrated with Arsenal only scoring one goal and it not coming until the 72nd minute, despite dominating possession and producing 21 shots at goal.
Sometimes the inability to even produce a shot was the problem, despite having the ball in dangerous areas plenty of times.
In a 2008 episode of The IT Crowd, Moss and Roy both try to ingratiate with football fans by learning the phrase: ‘The thing about Arsenal is they’re always trying to walk it in.’
Arteta seems to have a similar take on his team, accusing them of trying to score the ‘perfect goal’ against defensively-minded teams.
‘[We need to] be more efficient,’ the Arsenal manager said. ‘We are one against one against the keeper. That’s happened twice today. There is a penalty there, there is another situation inside the box where the ball is bouncing.
‘So many shots that have been deflected, blocked. We need to find ways to be more efficient, sometimes even more pragmatic.
‘Sometimes my feeling is that we are trying to score a perfect goal against these low blocks. We need to be much more chaotic than that, and that’s it. And open, I think, the scoreline much earlier because obviously that’s going to change the course of the game.
‘We had enough chances to make the scoreline much bigger. We weren’t efficient enough to do that. And then we have to rely on generating volume, generating a lot of situations in and around the box, insisting, insisting and insisting until we are able to break them down. And this is exactly how we won the game.’
Odegaard is Arsenal’s top-scorer this season with five goals in all competitions and three in the Premier League.
While Arsenal’s attack does not always penetrate as much as Arteta would like, the defence is incredibly reliable.
Another clean sheet meant the Gunners have conceded just five goals in 10 league games and have not conceded in 10 of their 17 matches across all competitions.
Centre-back Gabriel Magalhaes said: ‘If we don’t concede goals, we have a big chance to win games. We are really happy to have another clean sheet.
‘Like I said, when we have a strong team, a strong defence, we don’t concede goals. I think this season, how many is that? Ten clean sheets in the whole competition? This is our standard. We need to keep winning.’