Arsenal's failure to sign any new players in the January transfer window "rubber-stamped" their summer mistakes, but the finger of blame cannot be pointed at one person, Gunners expert Charles Watts believes.
Despite losing Gabriel Jesus to a season-ending ACL injury and also missing Bukayo Saka for another couple of months due to his hamstring problem, Arsenal ended the transfer window with the same set of attacking options as they had at the beginning of the season.
Head coach Mikel Arteta frequently reiterated his desire to sign a new forward player in press conferences and interviews, as his only out-and-out central options at present are a wasteful Kai Havertz and an inexperienced Nathan Butler-Oyedeji.
Leandro Trossard did fill in up front in the recent 2-1 Champions League win over Girona, but Watts is extremely concerned about the prospect of an overworked Havertz suffering an injury that could leave the Gunners in a disastrous position.
"Kai Havertz must be sitting there today looking at the fixture list and thinking, 'oh my God, these next three months are going to absolutely kill me'," Watts told Sports Mole. "He's going to have to play pretty much every single game. There's no other striker.
"You can play Trossard there, and I'm sure he will at some points play Trossard there when he attempts to give Havertz a bit of a breather. But Arteta couldn't have made it any clearer to him in the window. He wanted another signing. He kept saying it. We need help.
"The key thing for me here is it didn't necessarily have to be an out-and-out starter. I mean, Just a bit of help for these players because they're weaker now than they were when they started the transfer window. They were weak up front when it started. But they've lost Jesus since then.
Why Watts can "understand" Arsenal's lack of January signings
"You just worry about the amount of minutes and the amount of loads. If you want to get the best out of players you've got now for the remainder of the season, they've got to be at a fitness level where they can perform at their very best. But if you're running players into the ground and they're playing pretty much every single minute, it's very hard to maintain that level."
Arsenal went into the last summer transfer window on the back of registering their best-ever goalscoring season in the Premier League, seemingly convincing the board that a new striker was not a priority as permanent deals were struck for Riccardo Calafiori, David Raya and Mikel Merino.
The Gunners still strengthened their attacking ranks with the unplanned loan signing of Chelsea's Raheem Sterling on deadline day, but the 30-year-old has flattered to deceive, and Arsenal will have a nine-point gap to make up to Liverpool at the top of the Premier League table if the Reds win their game in hand.
However, Arsenal's last game before the window shut saw them mercilessly demolish reigning Premier League champions Manchester City 5-1, where Havertz struck a confidence-boosting goal and emerging talent Ethan Nwaneri bagged his seventh of the campaign in all competitions.
As the hectic festive schedule has now eased, Watts can see things from the board's point of view, but he has warned Arsenal that they will have no choice but to cop the blame if Havertz is also sidelined later on in the season.
"I can understand from the club's point of view," Watts added. "Fixture congestion, we've got over the worst of it. Until the Champions League starts up again, it's a game a week now. It's not what we've been going through for the last six weeks.
"Nwaneri's emerged as a bit of a goal getter. Saka, maybe March, he'll be back. They were very wary of if they did something now that was going to really impact them in the summer. It's a gamble. It's a massive gamble, no doubt about it.
'Arsenal's summer failings rubber-stamped'
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"I look at it more as the mistakes from the summer. I can understand it in a way because January is so difficult, but it keeps going back to the failings of the summer and basically having to just scramble around and get Sterling on the last day just to help the attack out.
"They needed to get stuff done in the summer. It was very, very clear. They've left themselves short. And I think this window rubber-stamped that a little bit and it's a gamble. If Kai Havertz gets injured tomorrow, and he's out for any significant period of time, they've only got themselves to blame for the fallout that will come from that."
A new number nine is expected to be Arsenal's utmost priority for the summer window, where targets that were not attainable in January - such as Alexander Isak, Benjamin Sesko, Viktor Gyokeres and Victor Osimhen - may become realistic options.
It was not for the want of trying for Arsenal in January, but they were priced out of a move for Aston Villa's Ollie Watkins after failing with a first bid and then saw their hopes of a deal evaporate when Jhon Duran went to Al-Nassr.
The Gunners also opted against pursuing Bayern Munich's Mathys Tel - now on loan at Tottenham Hotspur after performing a sensational transfer U-turn on deadline day - and the blame game is now being played by Arsenal fans.
Gooners have voiced their frustrations towards the Kroenke family - Arsenal's owners - on social media, in addition to interim sporting director Jason Ayto, who replaced Edu after his predecessor's shock resignation.
However, Watts would not hold Ayto or any singular person responsible for the Gunners' quiet January, and there is no way of knowing whether Arsenal's bold call was the right one until their silverware fates are sealed.
Can Arsenal fans blame the owners for quiet January?
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"You can sense it from the fans of 'the owners haven't done enough', they're willing to accept just a top four finish and they're not showing enough ambition to really go for trophies. And we haven't really heard that for a while," Watts added.
"When the Kroenkes came in, there was a lot of distrust about them and quite rightly so in terms of how they're operating. But since Arteta was installed and that partnership with Edu, you didn't really hear the disquiet about the owners too much. That's certainly come back on the back of this window and the summer. Who bears the brunt? I don't know.
"I don't think Edu's departure would have helped, it put Jason Ayto in a difficult situation. But I wouldn't lay the blame on his door. I think if deals were there to be done, I'm sure he would have been able to, but ultimately the club felt that they didn't want to push and go too far.
"Ollie Watkins for example, they were willing to go to a certain figure for him, but they weren't willing to go to a figure that would have really tempted Villa to do that. That's how they approached the window is that they had a number in mind, maybe for a player or players.
"If they couldn't get that, they were willing to gamble and just wait for the summer. So ultimately, again, with all these things, you've just got to wait until the end of the season to see how it's going to pan out."
Arsenal will need their Saka and Jesus-less attack to be firing on all cylinders on Wednesday evening, as the Gunners travel to Newcastle United for the second leg of their EFL Cup semi-final with a 2-0 deficit to overturn from the first encounter.
Ben Knapton
