Whilst one club in West London are looking like a well-oiled machine, another in North London is far from perfect. Arsenal have made their worst start to a season for 118 years.
The Gunners have mounting issues which are giving fans of the club serious concerns. Having lost their opening two games to Brentford and Chelsea, they are already playing catch up in the League.
Despite a number of injuries, they have still yet to score
Yes, they have a number of players missing through injury and illness, but they have still yet to score. Under Mikel Arteta they have lost 20 of the 60 Premier League games he has been in control off.
There has been talk that he has been given five games to turn Arsenal around or face the consequences of a P45. To be fair to Arteta, his plans for the opening two matches were thrown into disarray following some positive Covid tests.
He was without Pierre Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Willian and Alex Runarsson at Brentford. New £50million summer signing Ben White was struck down with Covid on the eve of the Chelsea clash.
Highest spending Premier League side this summer
Arsenal are currently the highest spending Premier League side this summer after bringing in a number of new personnel. Unfortunately, for an Arsenal point of view the new signings haven’t made the club Premier League contenders.
Already this season the squad has looked very lightweight. Players constantly getting pushed off the ball far too easily. The club have some promising youngsters in the shape of Emile Smith Rowe and Bukayo Saka, but have no real experience in the side.
Think back to the halcyon days of Arsene Wenger. The Gunners were a stylish but tough outfit. They didn’t just win leagues, they won doubles as well. Wenger was intelligently backed by an ambitious vice-chairman in David Dein.
Wenger upset some fans of the club by selling record goal scorer Ian Wright. The legend Wright was quickly replaced by Nicolas Anelka. After the striker stressed his desire to leave, he got a big fee for him. The money was then used to build a new training ground and brought in a certain Thierry Henry. The rest as they say is history.
Good start from Arteta, but can he win a Premiership?
Arteta got off to a flying start in his management career at Arsenal by winning the FA Cup last year. After a while without silverware, this was warmly received by the Arsenal fans.
Arsenal’s current owners Stan and Josh Kroenke wrote in Sunday’s programme notes about a “bright future”. I’m not so sure many Arsenal fans agree with those words.
The problem with Arsenal is that in their eyes underachievement is tolerated and many excuse are often made. This would appear to be the norm for a long time to come. Sadly for fans of the red half of North London this looks to be an ongoing issue, which won’t change.