Arsenal won 2-1 against bottom-placed Wolves at the Emirates Stadium early this morning. The special thing about this victory was that the home team did not score any goals. Both of the Gunners' goals were against.
After the unfortunate loss in the last minute against Aston Villa last weekend, this week, Arsenal almost dropped 3 points when Wolves equalized 1-1 in the 90th minute. The defeat to Aston Villa puts Arsenal in a position to beat Wolves if they want to keep a safe distance from Man City. However, that seemingly simple task became extremely difficult.
The nightmare of Christmas has been haunting Arsenal for many seasons. Remember in the 2023-2024 season, two consecutive defeats against Fulham and West Ham at this time pushed Mikel Arteta and his team from the top to the bottom. Although Arsenal have only dropped points twice since January 2024 until the end of the season, they still cannot beat Man City in the championship race.
Regardless of how Arsenal won, 3 points are the final result recorded and everything is temporarily safe for The Gunners.
Looking at Arsenal's positive points in the match against Wolves, Declan Rice and Bukayo Saka were the two biggest bright spots. In the context of the whole team playing with a lack of vitality, Rice lifted everyone's spirit in the second half with thunderous long-range shots, accompanied by breakthrough dribbling situations. One of them brought home a corner kick, indirectly helping Arsenal score.
Saka had his most active match of the season since the beginning of the season when he always tried to stir up the opponent's left wing. Both of Wolves' counter-attacks came from Saka's passes into the box.
One of Arsenal's biggest concerns right now is injuries. With many key players still missing in the defense, Mikel Arteta received another bad news when Ben White had to leave the field after 30 minutes. This is the 20th time Arsenal have had to make a substitution due to injury since the beginning of the Premier League season. This is the highest statistic in the Premier League, the team behind is Bournemouth with 14 times.
Ben White's injury was largely due to overload. The England star has not played for 109 days since the opening round of the season in August. After a series of key players were injured, White has had to start 4 matches in the last 11 days and the overload is felt.
Arteta once described a concept as a "dangerous spiral". When a few players are injured, the rest have to play more, the risk of injury is also higher. When the first injured return, the replacements continue to suffer injuries. That is a hopeless spiral that has haunted the Spaniard for many years.
When Ben White was replaced by Myles Lewis-Skelly, Jurrien Timber was forced to move to the right-back position. This reluctant change not only disappointed Arteta with the loss of a defender, it also lost White's quality dribbling ability. This makes Arsenal much more dangerous in attack.
The Wolves game also pointed out one of Arsenal's inherent weaknesses, the left wing. For the second time this week, Gabriel Martinelli has performed below expectations. A series of wrong decisions, strong passes and clumsy touches. The Brazilian striker had 4 shots, all of which were missed. He was then replaced by Leandro Trossard in the 57th minute.
When Ben White was not injured, Piero Hincapie played as a left-sided centre-back. During the time he and Martinelli collaborated together, things still could not improve as expected.
Arsenal's best left winger at the moment is Trossard, who has scored 6 goals and 5 assists (the most) in this position since the beginning of the season. Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke have also had times playing on the left wing but are not really assured, still a concern for the top team.
"We have to give Wolves credit for having a good match. I watched their games against Chelsea and Villa so I knew this match would not be easy. However, it is clear that Arsenal made things difficult for themselves and playing with a defense like this is unacceptable" - Arteta shared.
In round 17 of the Premier League, Arsenal will travel to Everton's home ground with the mission of continuing to win.
