Three Things We Learned after Arsenal's frustrating draw with Villa

Ian Mills reflects on the Gunners disappointing draw with Aston Villa at the Emirates 

After Villa’s second half revival against Arsenal, we were left rueing yet more dropped points as Liverpool go six points clear.  

Here are three things that stood out for me, writes Ian Mills

1 - A depleted squad is running on empty –

A quick look at the two benches before kick off showed just how much we are missing from the current squad.

We had only Raheem Sterling as a senior attacking option with three Hale End graduates in Maldini Kacurri, Nathan Butler-Oyedeji and Ismeal Kabia. Beyond that we had a plethora of left backs in Kieran Tierney, Jakub Kiwor and Alex Zinchenko along with Jorginho and Neto – it is fair to say it hardly screamed ‘goals galore’.

As for Villa they could call on Jhon Duran, Leon Bailey and Emi Buendia all of which could vastly improve our final third options.

What is more, our opponents started with Ollie Watkins in attack, a boyhood Arsenal fan, and once more he gave an impressive example of what he would bring to our attack.

He added the killer second goal for Villa when they beat us in April and again it was he who found a second goal for the visitors which this time snatched a point that at 2-0 down early in the second half had looked improbable.

The frustration is that we played well in parts with Gabriel, Jurrien Timber and Myles Lewis-Skelly outstanding in the back four, while Declan Rice was tremendous in midfield and Leandro Trossard, confidence restored after his winner in the North London Derby, was a constant creative force. Gabi Martinelli worked hard too.

However, with the game tied and half an hour (allowing for injury time) to go who could we turn to change the momentum of the match?

On came Raheem Sterling in the last ten minutes and his Arsenal career to date was encapsulated when he first lost possession of the ball and then committed a foul to earn a yellow card and allow Villa some much needed respite. The fact that the rest of the bench remain unused spoke volumes.

2 - Stop playing players out of position –

Rumours started circling on social media on Friday that Wiliam Saliba wouild miss this game due to a hamstring problem picked up late on in Wednesday night’s win. He was indeed absent however whilst this was initially put down to a muscle problem, Mikel Arteta suggested after the game that he was ‘very worried’ and that the centre back would undergo more tests before a deadline could be set for his return.

In his absence, rather than simply shift Kiwor to partner Gabriel thereby leaving our full backs in place and Thomas Partey in midfield, he decided to shift Timber to centre back and Partey to right back.

In my opinion this weakened our central midfield and left us even more vulnerable in defence.

Seeing Partey static as Watkins fired in the equaliser was particularly galling. His record at right back this season is played 6, won 1.

If Arteta does not trust the like of Kiwor, Tierney or Zinchenko to play in the back four, go out and find players you do trust and move on those you do not.

The rigidity of Arteta’s current style of play is one of the biggest obstacles to this team’s progress as once we were are without one or two first team players we look incredibly weak.

3 - Did we need Riccardo Califiori –

This is not to dig out our new Italian addition.

It is more the fact that he already looks like a player who is going to be injury prone if the small sample size we have to go on so far is anything to go by.

Add to this our aforementioned trio of left backs sat warming our bench and you have to question whether our resources could have better spent last summer?

We were already at least one striker plus a reliable Bukayo Saka deputy short going into the season let alone where we are now with our current injury crisis.

Talking of new additions, Arteta’s post-match comments about how Liverpool could win their game at Brentford courtesy of a very expensive substitute in Darwin Nunez seemed a very pointed shot across the Kroenke’s bows – it remains to be seen if it will be acted upon.

If we want to keep our season alive, urgent attacking personnel must be acquired, the issue is every club in world football now knows we are desperate to improve our attack and will hold us to ransom on any possible deals.