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Three areas Arsenal must improve to challenge for the Premier League title next season
Arsene Wenger will be the first person to admit that it hasn’t been the best of times at the Emirates Stadium this season, missing out on the top-four for the first time in 20 years as manager in North London.
Despite managing to claw back a healthy deficit to their top-four rivals during the final six weeks of the Premier League season, they ultimately fell agonisingly short on a dramatic final day of the year.
This failure to secure Champions League football for next season – whilst their main top-six rivals all have – could now spell the end of the Frenchman’s long tenure at the club ahead of board meetings.
A dogged and determined victory over Chelsea in the FA Cup final on Saturday at least left the Gunners with some silverware to show for their efforts, but there’s a lot of work to be done now.
The Boot Room looks at three key areas that Arsenal need to improve ahead of the next campaign.
Goalkeeper
It seems a bizarre suggestion to say that Arsenal need to invest in a goalkeeper when they possess the experience and quality of Petr Cech in goal, but at 35 years of age he won’t be around for too long.
Since signing from arch-rivals Chelsea two years ago he has been outstandingly consistent on the whole for Arsenal and there is no doubt he is a top-class goalkeeper.
Yet his standards have noticeably dropped somewhat this season – with individual errors creeping into his game – hence why David Ospina has been given the nod in the bigger matches this campaign.
Selected ahead of Cech for games with Bayern Munich, as well as the FA Cup final, it’s clear that Wenger isn’t quite sure who his number one is – and now could be the time to wipe the slate clean.
In conceding 44 Premier League goals this season Arsenal had the worst record of any side in the top-six, and their ability to concede three at the likes Crystal Palace and West Brom has hurt them.
Compared to the other top-six teams, who have the likes of Hugo Lloris, Thibaut Courtois and David de Gea, Arsenal need to secure their own young, up-and-coming goalkeeper and the likes of Ospina, the evergreen Cech and even the returning Wojciech Szczesny just don’t fit this world-class criterion.
Somebody in the mould of AC Milan’s Gianluigi Donnarumma would be the perfect signing for the Gunners, and would no doubt make a huge statement ahead of making a title-challenge next season.
Attacking Midfielder
For a team that has the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez playing week-in, week-out, improving their attacking midfield options seems like the last place that Arsenal should be concerned about.
Yet, this season, Arsenal’s reliance on their two world-class assets has been highly exposed, with Sanchez alone being involved in just under 50% of Arsenal’s Premier League goals.
The Gunners managed the least number of goals (78) out of the teams that finished in the top-five and, without Sanchez’s creativity in midfield, this final total would have been substantially lowered.
Arsenal simply have too many good players in their squad – not world-class – and this is what’s cost them a shot at the Champions League next season; Theo Walcott, Alex Iwobi, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain (when played there) and Lucas Perez are good players, but they are not top-quality.
And it’s shown this season, as between them they’ve only managed to create a combined 77 chances for Arsenal, a number that’s lower than both Ozil’s and Sanchez’s individual tallies for the recent campaign.
One of the key things that Arsenal need to sort out fast is the future of Sanchez; if he remains at the club then other big players could be attracted more easily, yet if he leaves the Emirates then there will all of a sudden be a rush to try and sign somebody that could even come close to replacing the Chilean.
Manager
It’s the big question on everybody’s lips at the moment – Wenger in or Wenger out?
If Arsenal supporters weren’t divided enough over the French manager then securing a record seventh FA Cup trophy certainly served to fuel the growing argument of whether he should stay.
On the one hand, the club has stagnated its progress hugely over the past five or six years, failing regularly in the Champions League and battling to secure a top-four spot, not the title.
Yet on the contrary he has been there and done that during his 21-year reign at the Arsenal helm, having an instinct to win trophies, and given one more season he could turn things around quickly.
With board meetings set to take place during the upcoming week surrounding his future, it’s something that – either way – needs to be sorted to allow maximum time to adjust this summer.
If it’s a new manager coming in then he will need the time to stamp his mark on the Gunners’ squad, or if he stays then Wenger will need time to sit down and think about where to invest his money.
The over-riding thought is that Arsenal need to make a change and get a fresh perspective coming into the club – preferably the perspective of someone who is experienced at winning the big titles.
Perhaps Wenger should take a leaf out of Louis van Gaal’s books from last season, ending on a high with the FA Cup before leaving his position in a dignified manner. With the Frenchman having so much proud history at the club, he shouldn’t want to taint it with another below-par campaign next year.
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