Arsenal showed "worrying signs" in their goalless stalemate with Everton at the weekend as their Premier League title hopes suffered another setback, Gunners expert Charles Watts has told Sports Mole.
After coming back from the November international break with a bang, the Gunners have hit a Premier League plateau, only taking two points from their last six on offer against Fulham and relegation-threatened Everton.
Mikel Arteta's men had 77% of the ball in Saturday's clash with the Toffees and generated 1.22 Expected Goals (xG), but they ran into an inspired Jordan Pickford and only managed to generate one big chance throughout the 90 minutes.
As Liverpool could also muster just one point in their own 2-2 draw with Fulham, Arsenal failing to trump the Toffees is another massive opportunity gone in the title race, Watts feels.
"It was really a hugely disappointing afternoon at the Emirates," Watts said. "I think there's been a lot of soul-searching the last couple of days since the full-time whistle. Certainly sitting around me in the press box, you could just sense as the second half meandered towards the close it felt pretty inevitable with 20-25 minutes to go that that was going to end 0-0. The realisation of that set in and the frustration and disappointment of knowing that it was a big opportunity missed.
'A lot of frustration among Arsenal fans'
"With news filtering through of what was going on at Anfield as well and looking like Liverpool were going to drop points, you just wanted that final 20-minute push from Arsenal to get themselves over the line and get themselves what would have been a really crucial goal. It never came and you could really sense the frustration afterwards.
"Online has not been a pretty place to be for the last 48 hours. I think there's a lot of frustration amongst not all Arsenal fans but certainly some Arsenal fans right now and that they haven't really taken an opportunity that's been given to them over the last week or so in the Premier League."
While Arsenal came into the weekend's encounter on the back of a 3-0 Champions League win over Monaco, Everton were extremely well-rested, having not played since their 4-0 battering of Wolverhampton Wanderers on December 4.
The Toffees were given a rare break two weekends ago as Storm Darragh forced the postponement of the Merseyside derby with Liverpool, and the consensus was that Sean Dyche's men would set up to park the bus in North London, and so it proved.
Everton only had two shots all game and generated 0.09 xG, and Arteta's peculiar answer to the visitors' defensive might was to take off Declan Rice and Martin Odegaard for Ethan Nwaneri and Jorginho, which failed to pay dividends.
Odegaard, Rice withdrawals made Arsenal "disjointed"
© Imago
"There were worrying signs from Arsenal's performance in that game," Watts added. "Everton were really good. You could tell they had 10 days to prepare and had worked on nothing but how to stop Arsenal for 10 days and they did it really, really well. Credit to them for that, but Arsenal had enough of the ball. They dominated the game from start to finish, they had no real concern or threat behind them and so you would have expected them to be able to prize Everton apart, even as well drilled as they were, but they just never looked like doing it.
"They had a few chances in the first half that mainly fell to Martin Odegaard that he didn't take. They had Saka shot at the start of the second half where you thought 'okay, here we go', this is going to be the real push here to get the goal, but they never really tested Jordan Pickford after that. That last 20 minutes, 25 minutes where you expected a full-on siege of the Everton goal just never came. It was just pass, pass, pass, sideways, sideways, sideways.
"You know things aren't quite clicking for Arsenal when they just get into that horseshoe pattern. You could look at the heat map of the territory in the second half and it's dominant in a horseshoe shape, but there's nothing in and around the penalty area.
"He [Arteta] made some bold substitutions that didn't work ultimately. He tried to change the game, he gave Ethan Nwaneri over half an hour. He took Martin Odegaard off to the surprise of pretty much everyone, even though Odegaard hadn't had a good game and hasn't had the best of fortnights in terms of performances, and the subs didn't work. It made Arsenal more disjointed if anything and the threat just tailed away. Everton were very, very comfortable I thought in that final 25 minutes."
Still six points behind Premier League leaders Liverpool - who have a game in hand - and four worse off than second-placed Chelsea, Arsenal now endeavour to respond against Crystal Palace in the EFL Cup quarter-finals on Wednesday before also tackling the Eagles in the Premier League on December 21.
Ben Knapton
