After Arsenal fell to defeat at home to Manchester United on Sunday, we look into the issues Mikel Arteta’s side need to resolve if they are to end their wait for a Premier League title.
Three games without a win. Three games without any of their own players scoring in open play. And the gap at the top cut to four points even though their closest challengers have been slipping up of late, too.
Arsenal, only recently having won five games in a row to storm clear at the top, have, all of a sudden, got a little bit nervy.
They are desperate to finally end their Premier League title drought, having gone 21 years since last winning it and having come painfully close in each of the last three seasons.
It’s starting to feel a lot as though the crowd at the Emirates Stadium believes it’s now or never. If they don’t win the title now, when they had a seven-point lead after 22 games, will they ever?
The jitters appear to be filtering through to the players. There is far less assurance about their performances of late. They had been unbeaten on home soil this season before Sunday’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United, but at 1-0 up after forcing an own goal from Lisandro Martínez, rather than go for the jugular, the league leaders sank back and allowed their opponents back into the game against the odds.
A stray pass under relatively little pressure from the usually so reliable Martín Zubimendi put Bryan Mbeumo in to level the scores on 37 minutes, by which point United had barely had a sight of the Arsenal goal. Such a glaring mistake at a key time was as clear an indication as any that the nerves felt in the stands at the Emirates are also being experienced on the pitch.
Whether those issues are filtering through directly because of the fans’ insecurities or because of the players’ own, entirely separate, concerns, isn’t obvious – it’s likely a combination of the two – but whatever the reason, mistakes in Arsenal’s recent displays suggest the pressure is getting to them.
In Arsenal’s first 18 Premier League games of the season, they committed seven errors leading to an opposition shot (three of which came in one anomalous game against Fulham) – a rate of 0.4 such errors per game. They committed just one error leading to a goal, or 0.06 per game.
But in the last few weeks, mistakes have become far too commonplace. In their last five games, they’ve made eight errors leading to an opposition shot (1.6 per game) and two errors leading to an opposition goal (0.4 per game).
Nerves could be the explanation for such a stark rise, but so too could fatigue. Despite strengthening their squad so impressively last summer, manager Mikel Arteta still clearly has his favoured players, and many of them don’t get much rest at all. Tiredness, both of the mental and physical sort, could certainly be contributing to the players making poor on-pitch decisions. Arteta admitted after the United game that playing so many games is testing his players.
In attack, meanwhile, the performance against United followed a worrying trend of Arsenal failing to create much of note, particularly in open play.
In their four league games in January, they have managed just 2.29 expected goals in open play. Of all Premier League teams, Arsenal’s rate of 0.57 open-play xG per game this month is more than only Burnley (0.38), Wolves (0.40), Everton (0.42) and Nottingham Forest (0.57). Everton may yet overtake them when they play Leeds on Monday night.
The thing is, Arsenal have lacked cutting edge in general play at times throughout the season, but it hasn’t hurt them until this point. But now, having gone three games without a win, their reliance on set-pieces is starting to look like a problem. Mikel Merino levelled the scores at 2-2 with a goal from a corner against United on Sunday, but Arsenal weren’t able to go on and find a winner.
They weren’t even really able to threaten the United goal again at all, in part because they have so many forwards so lacking in form at the moment.
Key man and captain Bukayo Saka is without a goal in 13 games in all competitions; Gabriel Martinelli has only one goal or assist in 17 Premier League appearances this season; Noni Madueke hasn’t even got one in 14; Viktor Gyökeres has only one goal or assist in his last 11, and that was a penalty; Leandro Trossard has one goal in his last 11 in all competitions; Martin Ødegaard has only one goal all season, while Eberechi Eze can barely get a game.
Every one of those players – essentially all of Arsenal’s attackers who have been fit for most of the season so far – is posting their lowest numbers for at least one of goals or assists per 90 in league games in any of the last three seasons. Saka, Madueke, Martinelli, Ødegaard and Gyökeres are all down for both goals and assists (though Gyökeres is playing in a different league, of course).
‘Own goals’ is their third-highest scorer in the Premier League this season, with four. And if you take Gyökeres’ two penalties away, only Trossard (five) has scored more Premier League goals for Arsenal this season than opposition players.
It’s worth noting that if your teammates aren’t playing well, you’re going to find it more difficult to hit form, so this problem for Arsenal’s attacking players is self-fulfilling. But then again, they are all very good players, who would all walk into most other Premier League teams. Arteta may need to focus less on keeping his team solid at the back in order to unleash the full potential of even some of his many talented attackers.
That is especially important if Arsenal continue shutting teams out less effectively than they had done earlier on in 2025-26, when it looked like they might challenge or potentially even break Chelsea’s record from 2004-05 of just 15 goals conceded in a Premier League season. With three goals conceded on Sunday, they moved to 17 for this campaign, meaning they can no longer break Chelsea’s record.
It was the first time since December 2023 (vs Luton) that Arsenal had conceded three goals in a game in any competition, ending a run of 121 matches without letting in more than two. That shows how unusual it was, but having conceded twice against Bournemouth a few weeks ago and against Chelsea in the cup more recently, Sunday might have been a sign of a worrying trend.
However, all this said, there are still plenty of reasons to be positive. United only won thanks to worldies from Patrick Dorgu and Matheus Cunha. They generated just 0.71 xG and scored with all three of their shots on target. Arsenal ‘won’ on xG, so, based on the quality of chances both teams produced, the hosts would have been expected to win this match on most other days. They certainly shouldn’t be too concerned that anyone else is going to beat them in the same way.
Meanwhile, their performance at Inter in the Champions League last week is hardly irrelevant, and they were very impressive in that game, creating plenty in open play. Victory at San Siro made it seven wins from seven for them in the league phase, and they are the only one of the 36 teams involved who are certain of their final position, already guaranteed to finish top of the pile.
And the fact also remains that Arsenal are still four points clear at the top of the league, and are still huge favourites to go on and win the title. They do so in 81.7% of the Opta supercomputer’s simulations of the rest of the season as of Monday morning. They are still very much in the driving seat.
Arsenal had a mini wobble in late November and early December but responded admirably. As the pressure increases with the season wearing on and the club crying out for another Premier League title, their fate will rest on how they bounce back from this latest setback.
Subscribe to our football newsletter to receive exclusive weekly content. You should also follow our social accounts over on X, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
The Warning Signs That Arsenal Need to Be Wary of in the Title Race Opta Analyst.
Hence then, the article about the warning signs that arsenal need to be wary of in the title race was published today ( ) and is available on The Analyst ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The Warning Signs That Arsenal Need to Be Wary of in the Title Race )
Also on site :