Arsenal’s season is being derailed by a combination of injuries and in-game frailty

A carousel-like treatment table, the impact that has on the starting XI and a sense that a single goal could pull the rug from under their feet. This is the recipe to derail Arsenal’s season.

Each of these factors hit Mikel Arteta’s side in yesterday’s 2-2 draw with Aston Villa, a result which came just hours after Liverpool found two late goals to beat Brentford.

William Saliba was the latest absentee from the starting XI. Life without him hasn’t been kind to Arsenal, and that didn’t change despite Arteta’s best efforts in the transfer market to guard against an over-reliance on the French centre-back.

This was just the 13th Premier League game out of 98 that Saliba has not started since establishing himself alongside Gabriel at the start of 2022-23.

Conceding twice in eight minutes only worsened Arsenal’s record without him. When Saliba plays, Arsenal win 71.8 percent of the time and concede an average of 0.8 goals. When he doesn’t, Arsenal win just 38.5 percent of the time and concede 1.7 goals a game.

Saliba’s injury was the main factor in Arsenal’s title failure two seasons ago, but instead of having Rob Holding as a substitute, Arteta was able to call on Jurrien Timber against Villa. It was his natural position for Ajax, but he had been used exclusively as a full-back by Arsenal.

Villa tried to target the middle of Arsenal’s defense all game by looking for the direct pass to Ollie Watkins. Timber and Gabriel did well to delay him or suppress his shots as Villa managed to find him in one-on-one situations, but Watkins was excellent in the second half and the unfamiliarity of Arsenal’s squad was exposed for Villa’s two goals.

In Timber, Ben White, Riccardo Calafiori and Takehiro Tomiyasu, they should have a range of defenders equally capable of playing full-back or centre-back. It was designed to eliminate any scenario where they could be left undermanned, but Arteta still had to shuffle the piles as Timber was the only player fit out of those four.

Arsenal have struggled to field a consistent XI at any point during their 34 games this season.

• No RB or LB has managed more than 5 games in a row.

• 16 changes to no. 6 in the last 17 games.

• No same LCM for more than 4 games in a row.

• 8 changes at RW in the last 9 games. pic.twitter.com/eunjaMEdiW

— Jordan Campbell (@JordanC1107) 19 January 2025

Arteta could have chosen Jakub Kiwior as a direct replacement for Saliba to reduce the amount of turnovers, but Partey moved from midfield to right-back, Timber moved from right-back to central defense and Declan Rice moved from central midfield to play in a deeper role.

Consistency in selection breeds understanding, but Arsenal have lacked this all season. This was the 11th different back four and 13th different midfield combination in just 22 league games.

However, that does not excuse Arsenal from letting a two-goal lead slip. An inability to kill off games and let leads slip is a well-known curse for this team, even when the team is less depleted by injuries. Arsenal have now dropped 12 points from winning positions this season, eight more than Liverpool.

Red cards are reserved when they lead against Brighton and Manchester City, but of the 14 games they have taken the lead this season, the opposition have come back level in seven of them. Even Leicester came from two behind at the Emirates in September before Arsenal eventually won 4-2.

It is the sense that the game is never over that haunts Arsenal. They have to remain psychologically fully engaged, and this becomes taxing over a long period of time.

The percentage of plays they play in a level has increased and the percentage of plays they use in a winning position has decreased from 47 percent in the 2022–23 season to 42.5 percent this season.

Across 626 minutes when they have led by one goal – the equivalent of seven games – Arsenal have scored 11 and conceded nine. They have only spent 105 minutes of the season three or more goals ahead.

Liverpool have also had to come from behind, but they are scoring in brutal flurries, while there is a sense that Arsenal are trying to lead their opponents to a slow death instead. They are strong starters but struggle to get through the gears, often meaning the scoreline remains closer than their dominance would indicate.

Arsenal are the best team in the first half of the Premier League this season. If the games had ended after 45 minutes, Arsenal would be top, eight adrift of leaders Liverpool. Arne Slot’s in-game leadership has helped save so many games for Liverpool, with his side winning 15, drawing five and losing just one in the second half this season. That amounts to a 16-point swing over Arsenal.

However, a manager can only make that difference by turning to his bench, and that is the difference between the two teams. Liverpool have Mohamed Salah, Luis Diaz, Diogo Jota, Darwin Nunez, Cody Gakpo, Harvey Elliott and Federico Chiesa to fill their front three positions. Nunez came off the bench to score twice against Brentford.

Injuries to Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus and Ethan Nwaneri meant Arteta used just one substitution from a possible five against Villa, even though his side were chasing a goal.

“They (Liverpool) made the subs and the subs made the impact and they managed to change the game,” Arteta said afterwards.

“And on our side it was the opposite. After closing the two goals very close to each other, the danger (that) I knew how the team was, that we could go down here because we were physically drained.

Raheem Sterling was the only senior forward with Ismeal Kabia, 19, and Nathan Butler-Oyedeji, 22, on the bench. Villa could have signed Leon Bailey, Emiliano Buendia, Donyell Malen and Jhon Duran. On Wednesday, an injury-ravaged Tottenham had James Maddison, Brennan Johnson and Richarlison on the bench.

Last season Arsenal’s substitutes were involved in 20 goals – the fourth most in the league – but this season their substitutes have contributed to just eight goals.

Arsenal have scored just five goals after the 80th minute this season compared to Liverpool’s 10. Last season Arsenal scored 18 in that period – bettered only by Liverpool on 19.

This corresponds to 13 points won after the 80th minute last season and four lost. This season the record is net negative with only two points gained and four lost.

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This season has been about soldiering from game to game, leveraging the adaptability that has fueled their recruitment and finding backups for backups.

They’ve managed to stay in the race, but they’ve been stuck in third gear this season. So how much of a contributing factor is injury?

Arsenal had eight players play more than 75 percent of the total minutes available in the Premier League last season. It may have felt like the number has dropped this season, but it’s actually seven.

Across the entire squad, according to Premier Injuries data, the squad has missed a cumulative 567 days to fitness issues compared to 562 at the same time last season. They have suffered 20 injuries compared to 15 last season.

David Raya, Saliba, Gabriel, Jorginho, Partey, Declan Rice, Leandro Trossard, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Martinelli have all been available for pretty much the entire season apart from the odd game.

Partey and Timber have played over 80 percent of the available minutes, meaning they’ve been almost like new signings since they missed almost all of last season due to injury.

The overall figures suggest that Arsenal have not had drastically worse luck than they did last season. The problem is that they have had waves of injuries concentrated in specific areas of the team at the same time, which has had a destabilizing effect.

(2024-25 minutes played graphic does not include Aston Villa game)

In September, they lost Mikel Merino for a month to a broken shoulder and Oleksandr Zinchenko for a month to a calf injury. In October, it was Odegaard, Timber and Calafiori who missed a month each. In November it was White for over two months, in December it was Saka for over two months and less than a fortnight into the new year it was Gabriel Jesus with an ACL injury that will keep him out for the rest of the season.

Of the five players whose minutes have been most affected by injury, three of them make up the right side of Arsenal’s team. Their availability has been so reliable that this one flank has been the team’s creative factory for three years.

In the two seasons following White’s switch to right-back in 2022-23, the trio started 64 of the 73 games together in all competitions. This season they have only managed four. They started the first three Premier League games of the season together, but the last time that happened came against Chelsea on October 11. Only Calafiori, Tomiyasu and Kieran Tierney were missing from the 25-man squad due to injury that day, but as things stood. up, White had to undergo knee surgery that has kept him out ever since.

In the last two seasons, there were only 11 games where one of the three components was missing and only once where two of the three were missing. This season, one has been missing eight times and two have been absent on ten occasions.

Removing such an important network from any team is sure to cause a disconnection of the team’s identity. Saka and Odegaard have become so intertwined that removing one can leave the other isolated.

Without the same players next to each other on the pitch, the patterns of play that made Arsenal so relentless in the second half of last season have dried up.

The defenders in possession-dominant teams usually want most of the ball, but last season the second most common sequences were all White, Saka and Odegaard. This season the hotspots are cooler, a sign that Arsenal have lacked players who operate on the same wavelength.

A player of Timber’s quality means he should, in theory, have covered the loss of White this season, so it’s too easy to say there was no way to overcome one absence.

The situation has given Myles Lewis-Skelly the opportunity to play a bigger role, but just as Nwaneri also stepped into Saka’s shoes on the right wing, he was injured.

Again, it’s an absence that will last less than two months, so it’s not season-defining, but when so many players have been sidelined by injury that keeps them out for a game or two, it’s hard to build a head up. of steam.

That was the point Arsenal clicked into gear last season. Wednesday’s north London derby win was seen as a chance to go on a similar run, but instead looks like another false start.

Arteta’s side are unbeaten in 12 in the league, but draws are not enough. Liverpool are on course for a 90-point season, which requires Arsenal to win 15 and draw one of their remaining 16 games if they are to match it. A difficult task in most seasons, a seemingly impossible one in 2024-25.

(Top photo: Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)