Despite Arsenal’s position at the top of the Premier League and comfortably qualified for the Champions League knockout stages, they have been criticised at times this season.
It has been claimed that Arsenal are not attacking with the same fluency as they did last season, and these struggles going forward are not sustainable over the course of the campaign.
Despite having the statistically best defence in the Premier League, Arsenal have been criticised, but there is one key point missed in the by those eager to pick out Mikel Arteta’s problems.
Arsenal are suffering from reduced availability
At the start of last season, Arteta was able to choose teams where the lineups pretty much wrote themselves: there was less depth, less choice of starters, but a completely settled main starting XI.
The likes of Gabriel Magalhaes, Granit Xhaka, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus started every game in the first half of the season, in which Arsenal earned 50 points in 19 games.
However, it has been a different story this season. Arsenal have suffered from several injury issues, as the likes of Jurrien Timber, Thomas Partey and Emile Smith Rowe have hardly featured, whilst Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli, Fabio Vieira and Oleksandr Zinchenko have also been absent.
CBS journalist James Benge has now highlighted the fact that after 13 Premier League games last season, Arsenal had nine players with over 990 minutes, or 11 full games played.
This season that number has taken a 66% reduction to just three players: William Saliba, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka.
Do Arsenal have stronger depth than last season?
Whilst this stat may indicate that Arteta has more rotational options, with Jakub Kiwior, Jorginho and Leandro Trossard arriving last January before a busy summer window, this stat may also explain the struggles going forward.
In the first half of last season, the front three of Saka, Jesus and Martinelli would start together without fail, until Jesus picked up an injury at the World Cup.
This season, they have hardly started together at all, and there was naturally going to be some difficult adjustments with new players, and constant rotation in attack.
All three started together against RC Lens, and all provided goals and assists in a 6-0 win. If the trio can stay fit and put together a run of games, the attack may start to flow like it did a year ago.
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