Arsenal legend Ian Wright has offered a damning assessment of Mikel Arteta’s side after a 3-0 collapse at the hands of Dean Smith’s Aston Villa.
The Gunners succumbed to two sumptuous strikes from former Brentford hitman Ollie Watkins, whilst Arsenal youngster Bukayo Saka was unfortunate to concede an own goal in a tussle with Villa’s Trezeguet.
The defeat has consequentially left the Gunners languishing in the bottom half of the Premier League table, with legendary goalscorer Wright insisting that it was the ‘worst performance he has ever seen from any Gunners team’.
“It’s as bad a performance as I’ve seen from an Arsenal side when you consider only two of them were playing in midweek, ” fumed the 57-year-old in his analysis on Match of the Day 2 last night [via Daily Mail].
Despite the strong rotational line-up from the Europa League win over Molde, the Gunners were unable to put in a spirited performance and were assessed routinely as ‘poor’ by Wright, who said:
‘It was poor in every department. They need to break the lines, they need space to hit the ball into, they were dithering on the ball. It was a million miles away from the performance against Manchester United [where they won 1-0]. They were streets ahead of us today.’
‘The effort and workrate from a team that was rested was nowhere near good enough. You need to impress your game upon them.
‘There’s a lack of central midfielder that can create what [Arteta] needs, but you can’t go into a game like that.’
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Arsenal need to heed Wright’s words – though few would deny that. Watkins haunting his boyhood club was almost fate, but that cannot detract from the woeful lack of threat exhibited by Arsenal.
Despite managing 13 shots, only two were on target – by comparison, Villa’s 15 shots resulted in six on target, with half of those resulting in goals.
Clearly, offensive improvements are needed for the Gunners.
