Arsenal finished at the top of the Premier League table at Christmas following a creditable draw with Liverpool at Anfield. However, two defeats on the bounce to West Ham and Fulham has seen Mikel Arteta’s side drop to fourth place, five points behind the League leaders, Liverpool, that has been in imperious form, aided by the goalscoring feats of their talisman, Mohamed Salah.

The Arsenal manager described the game as the worst performance this season, and he was 100 percent correct. The play was lethargic, the attack failed to connect and the passing play was very disjointed. Oleksandr Zinchenko has been in a poor patch of form, so his suspected calf injury paved the way for Jakub Kiwior to come into the starting lineup, but the Pole didn’t cover himself in glory. Gabriel Jesus was also benched for Eddie Nketiah, and the Englishman offered little or nothing in attack, as the Gunners struggled in grand style.

As Declan Rice rightly said, its time to reset, and we shouldn’t go into panic stations just yet. It is a mid-season slump and we have loads of games to recover and sustain the dwindling title challenge, and this wouldn’t have been possible if we were in April, like the debacle of last season, which is still fresh in our memories.

In several Arsenal forums, fans are clamoring for the new center forward that would be a knight in shining armor, since the club’s alpha-dog in attack, Gabriel Jesus, is firing blanks. In 15 Premier League games, Jesus has scored only three goals, but he has been in good form in the Champions League, smashing four goals in five. However, Jesus has never been a prolific striker, and amassed only 11 goals last season, even though we need to factor his lengthy layoff from that knee injury.

With Jesus not providing enough firepower last season, Arsenal could count on Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli to come up with the goods. This season, the aforementioned trio haven’t come close to replicating their amazing form of last season, so Arsenal’s frailties up front have been exposed, which has coincided with the dip in form. 

December’s fixture was very grueling, but January is a whole lot better with Arsenal having only three games in the month – the mouth-watering FA Cup clash with Liverpool this Sunday, a home tie with Crystal Palace in three weeks time and an away clash against the invigorated Nottingham Forest at the end of the month.

Speaking of the FA Cup, Arteta has confirmed that Arsenal will be without Takehiro Tomiyasu and Mohamed Elneny, who will be departing North London for the sojourns of the Asian Cup and African Cup of Nations consecutively, thereby missing the clash with Liverpool.

It has also been reported that defensive lynchpin, Thomas Partey, will not be joining the Ghana squad for the AFCON, due to his current muscular injury which has sidelined him for quite some time. Arsenal are no strangers to seeing Partey missing a considerable chunk of action, but this campaign has been rather disappointing for the Ghanaian. His form in the tail end of last season was atrocious and he started this season in that unorthodox right back position, which didn’t help his cause either. 

Injury struck and we have had to soldier on without him and there was the fear that he was going to get fit in time just to depart for AFCON, but those concerns have been allayed with the midfielder missing out on the final Black Stars squad for the competition. 

At the time of this post, there hasn’t been any confirmed news regarding Partey’s fitness, even though there were articles on Twitter, I mean, X, (can’t get used to this), stating that he was very close to full fitness. 

It’s back to the drawing board for Arteta and I’m sure he’s going to drill his lads for a big performance against Liverpool this Sunday. At least, they will be without the lethal Mohamed Salah, and their emerging defensive midfielder, Wataru Endo. 

Sayonara. 

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