Analysis: Arsenal’s defending has regressed and at the wrong time

Arsenal have defensive regressed and collapsed of late. We had praised Arteta for solving the defensive problems at Arsenal a few months ago when Arsenal were in good form and keeping clean-sheets.

The Gunners haven’t kept a single clean sheet since a 0-0 draw with Manchester United back in January making it a run of 13 games across all competitions without a clean sheet.

In those 13 games, Arsenal have conceded 20 goals. Many of which were a result of lapses in concentration, poor defending and especially individual errors.

Using the last two games as a case study shows how shocking Arsenal’s defending has become. During the 3-3 draw with West Ham, Arsenal were three goals down in 32 minutes.

In that game Arsenal conceded two goals in the space of 100 seconds, what was going on!? The highlight was Arsenal coming from three goals down to make a draw so that made us forget about the horrific defending.

On Saturday against Liverpool they conceded twice in four minutes and the general performance was awful.

With all hopes lying on the Europa League this is coming at a bad time as Thursday’s quarterfinal against Slavia Prague approaches..

Arsenal have been sloppy in the Europa League. Against Benfica in the first leg, Smith-Rowe handled the ball in the box and gave Benfica a penalty.

In the second leg Arsenal were close to being eliminated after conceding twice at home both goals were individual errors from Ceballos.

Against Olympiacos in Greece Ceballos again carelessly lost the ball after receiving a pass from Leno. The manner in which Arsenal have been shipping in goals is irritating, an example is Holding and Chambers being beaten to an aerial ball by a much shorter player during the 3-0 loss to Liverpool.

This is down to what happens on the training ground and Arteta instructions and tactics. Since Arsenal’s last clean sheet we’ve seen four different centre-back partnerships, the full-backs have also been rotated but Arsenal still concede.

Arteta must therefore do something about this or risk losing out on the Europa League competition.