ARTETA RED-ZONES SQUAD AND SUFFERS CONSEQUENCES

NUMBER 1 FITNESS COACH AT ARSENAL LEFT WITH BATTLEFIELD MESS

My big fear of Arsenal going out of three competitions in a week took a step closer yesterday when we dropped out of the FA Cup after 120 minutes of football and a penalty shootout.

You can rest your first team and lose.

You can go all-in with the first team and win.

You can't deliver the worst of both offerings and expect sympathy.

The starting 11 was an irrational decision made by a manager who consistently treats the players' fitness with reckless abandonment. I don't want to read people telling me what is good fitness management and what isn't or asking whether I was at the training ground. The buck for the outcome of that leggy performance sits with Arteta. He is the most important fitness coach at Arsenal, and a large chunk of the fatigue and injuries can be put at his doorstep.

Arne Slot, working with a much older squad, is not dealing with the same issues. Arteta believes being elite means being robust regardless of minutes. Here’s him talking about Saka two years ago.

"Look at the top players in the world, they play 70 matches every three days and make the difference and win the game. You want to be at the top, you have to be able to do that."

"If we start to put something different in the minds of our young players I think we are making a huge mistake because then it’s one yes, one no, now I don’t play, on astroturf I don’t play, I don’t want that. I want them to be ruthless every three days."

"There is not a fitness coach in the world who is going to tell me that they cannot do it because I’ve seen it. 72 games, score 50 goals. The players don’t score 50 goals if they play 38 games in the season, it’s impossible."

What you’re watching him say is part of his belief system. We know the training sessions are intense because the players have said it. The combination of those two issues seems to be colliding with what we're seeing on the pitch - dead young players, broken bodies, no explosivity, and silly errors from players who don’t normally make them.

Some clear observations:

• We are brutal when returning players from injury: Martin has not recovered. Timber has played all the minutes. Both looked broken yesterday.

• Losing players after training sessions has been a theme (Calafiori, Merino, Partey, MLS).

• Liverpool looks fitter and more explosive despite having an older squad.

• Bukayo Saka played all the games, even in the League Cup, and we lost him to an injury that most professionals would say is a manageable issue.

An issue just as important: if you go into the season with a skinny squad, that is on the club. Eddie Nketiah would be useful right now. Emile Smith Rowe would have been golden. I'm out here pining for Fabio Vieira's emaciated 52kg body to be offering up some energy, that’s how bad things are. Arsenal decided that it was more important to sell key names than to replace them, and now we're in deep trouble.

A small squad, training to breaking point, not rotating properly… it’s the perfect recipe for what we’re seeing right now.

Observation: Whenever there has been a squad gap over the last 5 years, it has always been brutally exposed with a costly injury.

Thomas Partey killed us his first two seasons - to the point we’d see Big Mo on the pitch.

Losing Saliba cost us two seasons ago, inviting Rob Holding to the party.

This year, we've been stung by losing Saka and Odegaard. Both players don't have suitable backups. In fact, it turns out Odegaard has NO heir apparent. We thought it might be Ethan; it wasn't.

Arteta ignored his head yesterday. He went with the heart. The man woke up after a hot and heavy dream about winning another FA Cup, and he risked derailing our Premier League season by rolling out his stars in a game they were too tired to manage effectively.

The cost? Gabriel Jesus looks like he's probably out for the season. One of our most injury-prone players was wasted in an FA Cup game. A player in great form. A player we should have wrapped in cotton wool. Jorginho rolled off, but that's why he was there - if you're going to lose anyone in a game like that, it's your third-choice #6. Jurrien Timber hobbled off, and Odegaard was limping at halftime. This is battlefield nightmare stuff here.

The second-order consequence of going all-in for an FA Cup we don't have the players for is that we played 120 minutes of football, a large chunk of that against 10 men, and we couldn't score a second. We've created 8 xG over two games and managed to score one goal. Kai was absolutely dreadful in front of goal. Declan Rice finished like a 6 in the box with three chances. We had a monstrous 26 shots and only hit the target 7 times. One of those was a Martin Odegaard penalty - his first miss in an Arsenal shirt. The boys couldn't break down 10-man United; that's really, really painful, and the players' confidence will be shot to pieces.

We can't say if you run that game 10 times you win it 9 of them because we've had that game 5 times this season and not won. It’s a pattern now. Forget that United were dreadful, unambitious and lucky.

But the bigger issue is now the squad is dangerously short of players. We only have Sterling as our right-wing option. The man should have started; it's ridiculous he didn't, it was the perfect game for him. When he came on, he was quite aggressive in his attacks, but wave after wave ended with him losing the ball because he made poor decisions. A lot of people thought he was great, but that was probably more to do with how poor everyone else was. Martin Odegaard was skewered for being poor, but he created 10 chances. Raheem, with nearly 90 minutes of football, most of it against 10 men, created one. Gabi Martinelli? One chance from the other side. But that’s why you start him, because he’s not integral to anything, but if he plays himself into form, he’s then a happy options. Now he knows he’ll be getting starts because 3 players are injured and he’s the only option. You think he’ll be feeling good about that?

Ethan is out for three weeks. Saka is out until late March, probably closer to mid-April. Jesus looks to be out for a very long time (and now we likely can't sell him). So we have no backup striker and only one option on the right. That is bad news.

Arsenal leaking stories of financial restrictions limiting our moves in January might have flown last week... but now we're in a situation where the lack of goals might cause us to drop dramatically in the league. We can't compete if we can't score goals. The team and the system create more than enough to win the Premier League. But goals win games, and the entire team has decided it has acid reflux when it comes to putting it in the net.

My main worry is this: Nothing changes in the market when you have a bad result. If Arsenal thought there was a player that would move the needle, he'd be here. The choice now is you either overpay for a main target, which hampers your summer, or you take a substandard option to get a body over the line.

I don't think Brentford or Wolves would sell now, regardless of the price. Goals are a hot commodity, and moving up the table is their biggest priority. Sesko, Gyokeres, and Isak could all do a NOW job, but their clubs aren't selling them. That leaves you flirting with names like Rashford, Barcola, Sane, and Coman. They all come with large potential upsides, but with a clear head and no sirens going off, you're probably not bringing those to the club with the long term in mind.

Now I have got that out of the system... it's time for the toxic positive segment of the post.

We lost two domestic cup games. We’re out of one. Still in with a shout in the other. No one really cares about them. They were free hits that went wrong, but those results aren’t as dire to our season as they’d be in the Premier League.

We have two games to make amends. We lost to Liverpool in the third round last year, and no one remembers because we grew from it and had a great run. Circumstances feel wildly different, but it is possible to recover from two very bad cup games.

Spurs went 120 minutes on an astroturf pitch against a non-league side. They'll also be cooked and low on confidence. They're the only team in the league in a worse state than us right now.

Here's the big one: Arsenal's worst two games of the season have seen us create over 8 xG and control the game in attack and defense. The system is mostly doing its job. If the finishing turns collectively, we can score goals. We can win games. We can battle on in the league.

Form feels permanent when you're in a rut like this, but it was the same feeling we had after West Ham last season. Things can turn, they have done for Arsenal in the past, and if it does you’ll forget about the FA Cup you didn't have the team to compete in.

The main difference is we're missing our best player, just like Manchester City. Saka is a difference-maker. He makes everyone else better. If he's not here, it's hard to see where the magic is coming from, because everyone is dead on their feet.

But... the mission is clear. Arteta's job now is to preserve his players, help them find form, turn the tables on a horrible 10 days for our season. Smacking up Spurs at home is a really good place to start. Following up against Villa would be magnificent.

Football is a journey; bumps in the road happen. We're going through a horrible patch this season... but the foundations are strong. The issue we're trying to solve is clear: Add goals to an attack that lacks them. Arteta knows this, so does everyone else at Arsenal. They have to admit they gambled on this season and lost. The issue has to be rectified at the very latest this summer. If your faith is wavering, ask yourself this: If you put Gyokeres, Sesko, or Isak into this system, do they score lots of goals? If you added Mbuemo, Cunha, or Williams, do they score goals? If the answer is yes, then you know we’re on the right track. The system does its job. It just doesn’t have finishers.

Put it this way. Arsenal is where Liverpool was when everyone said they’d never win the league without a world-class keeper and a world-class center back (some even said Klopp couldn’t coach a defence). They signed Virgil and Allison, and the rest is history. Our story is the opposite. We’re never going to find the promised land without a world class striker and a world class winger (and a 6 to replace Thomas Partey). The job is clear, now it’s up to Jason Ayto and co to find that name and make sure it works.

The feeling right now is not good. You might be tempted to listen to the people who feed off of pain to pay bills that have gone unpaid because Arsenal have been too good for the rage machine to truly thrive. But those people are not analysts, they’re arsonists who cater to the caveman part of your brain. They've been wrong for the last 5 years, have no track record of getting things right, but they'll have a moment before the correction arrives. You either keep your head on, which is hard, or you feed negativity into the system and feel shitty in the process.

Ok, I'm going off to cry in the back garden with a pint of bourbon and 4 cigarettes. Dry January is over; it's Cry January now. But tomorrow is a new dawn. A next game to look forward to. Another obstacle for this team to conquer.

Stay strong, big love, check out the On The Whistle. x

FA CUP SPECIAL: MANCHESTER UNITED (H)