Arsenal’s players need to take matters into their own hands on the pitch and stop relying on Mikel Arteta for guidance if they are to turn around their slump in form, according to Danny Mills.
The Gunners’ hopes of finishing fourth in the Premier League and ending a five-year spell without Champions League football have been seriously dented by a terrible run of form. Arteta’s side have lost their last three league games and four of the last five altogether to hand the impetus to their rivals.
Arsenal are now sixth in the Premier League, three points behind rivals Tottenham and level on points with Manchester United – albeit with a game in hand on both of them. They will be hoping to bounce back from their 1-0 defeat by Southampton on Saturday when they take on Chelsea in their game in hand on Wednesday.
Arteta has been critical of his players in recent weeks, admitting on Sunday that they are “really down” because they “cannot find the right answer” to their problems. So former Leeds United defender Mills believes the players need to take responsibility for their struggles and adapt their game plan to suit their needs in the coming games.
“When we talk about leaders, it’s players with a voice, influence and experience. So when things aren’t quite working on the pitch, whatever the manager’s instructions are, you’re not a robot and you can change,” he told Football Insider . “Football is one of the most fluid games. You can have a game plan but it might change, it’s not stop-start, you can’t reset every two minutes.
“If things aren’t going your way you need players to be adaptable, to adjust to certain situations and tell their teammates to adjust and do things a different way. If you don’t have that ability within players and they constantly look to the bench then there’s an old saying: if you’re looking at the bench then you should be on it.”
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Arsenal have suffered key injuries at the worst possible time. Thomas Partey and Kieran Tierney are both currently on the sidelines, while Alexandre Lacazette was unavailable against Southampton for what Arteta called “private reasons”, leaving Eddie Nketiah to lead the line. Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe and Granit Xhaka all had efforts saved by Saints keeper Fraser Forster as they drew a blank for the fourth time in the last five games.
Tottenham had won four straight games to move up to fourth place before their shock defeat by Brighton on the weekend and Mills believes the phrase coined by their north London rivals is actually now more applicable to Arteta’s side. “Arsenal have become Spursy. They were on a really good run then all of a sudden they are fragile, there’s no backbone. That’s been their problem,” he said.
“They’ve got a lot of good, young attacking players but they are trying to put square pegs into round holes and it’s not quite working for them. Do Arsenal have that fight and tenaciousness of the Arsenal of old? They clearly do not.”
