When Joshua Zirkzee sealed Arsenal’s penalty shoot-out fate, Kai Havertz immediately sought the cover of the Emirates tunnel. He cut the figure of a man yearning for a moment’s respite from life cast as the living embodiment of Arsenal’s goalscoring limitations.
For the second time this week, the German endured a miserable time in front of goal. He sliced wide a clear opening in the 54th minute and in the 88th minute skewed a shot over the bar from three yards out. Jurrien Timber offered support as he lay face down on the grass but there was nowhere to hide. Nor was there to be a reprieve as he later missed the decisive penalty.
Turkish goalkeeper Altay Bayindir, who had helped keep Manchester United alive after saving Martin Odegaard’s penalty in normal time, became the first Premier League goalkeeper in over ten years to save a penalty in both regular time and a penalty shoot-out in the same FA Cup match.
Arsenal had found another novel method of losing a game they had the chances to win comfortably against a team playing with ten men for the final hour, but bad things do not tend to come in one’s or two’s with this team. The bitter blow of defeat was compounded by three players having to be substituted due to injury, in keeping with a season which has felt like a constant battle with misfortune.
Martin Odegaard saw his penalty saved during the second half on Sunday (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
This is the third game in a row Arsenal have failed to win — a 1-1 draw with Brighton in the Premier League last weekend and on Tuesday a 2-0 defeat to Newcastle in the first-leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final — which leaves them staring at the possibility of another trophyless season, unless they can stage an almighty comeback in either of those competitions, or win the Champions League.
This proclivity for allowing one defeat to snowball into a slump has now undermined Arsenal’s attempts to win silverware in three successive seasons. The tremors of defeat seem to produce aftershocks in the following games, which runs counterintuitively to their status as one of the best teams in Europe.
There is a clear pattern that shows their poor form occurs in clusters. Since they became title challengers in 2022-23, Arsenal have experienced three-game winless streaks on six occasions in that period.
Rather than one-off disappointments that are shaken off, they fall into mini-ruts that may only last two or three weeks but contain so much damage that it derails their entire season.
Altay Bayindir celebrates saving Kai Havertz’s penalty in the shootout (Julian Finney/Getty Images)
In October, their 2-0 loss to Bournemouth was the start of a four-game winless streak in the Premier League, parcelled within a run of just two wins in seven in all competitions. It let Liverpool build a commanding lead in the title race. Even last month they followed up the draw away to Fulham with a goalless draw at home to Everton.
Last season, November brought a surprise 3-1 Carabao Cup defeat away to West Ham, which then bled into a a 1-0 league defeat at St James’ Park. They regrouped but a month later they won just one game in seven, losing three successive games to West Ham and Fulham, and falling to a 2-0 at home to Liverpool in the FA Cup third-round.
Even though Arsenal were almost flawless in the second half of last season, their one Premier League defeat at home to Villa was sandwiched between two winless Champions League quarter-final legs against Bayern Munich.
In 2022-23, a 1-0 FA Cup loss to Manchester City in January preceded defeat away at Everton, a draw at home to Brentford and another loss to City. Letting slip of a 2-0 lead at Anfield in April saw Arsenal’s title challenge collapse as they embarked on three back-to-back draws before a crushing 4-1 defeat at the Etihad. They won just three of their final nine games.
The similarities with their current depression and the blip in December 2023 are striking as the early season problems with chance creation have morphed into a struggle to convert.
(James Gill – Danehouse/Getty Images)
“In 1,000 games (like this) you lose one and it was this one,” Arteta said after what is Arsenal’s third FA Cup exit at the third-round stage in the past five years.
Just a single goal from 49 shots, 23 corners and 6.41 expected goals from the last two games is a return that supports Mikel Arteta’s belief that his team were on the end of a freakish anomaly, but it is difficult to square with the fact that it happened twice in as many days.
By their very nature, statistical improbabilities are difficult to rationalise. If fundamental tactical issues were presenting themselves repeatedly, Arteta would at least possess a logical explanation to justify the result and clarity on what to improve.
Instead, he has to wrestle with the knowledge that suffering from the goalscoring yips is a problem that lies within the heads of his players, who he cannot control in those pressure moments. When the ball-striking technique of elite footballers is seemingly replaced by a sand wedge as soon as they enter the penalty area, identifying a solution is difficult apart from spending money on the few killer strikers in world football. One of those is unlikely to be arriving this transfer window.
A warm weather camp, the catalyst of last season’s revival, is another lifeline unavailable due to the absence of a winter break. Arsenal need to find a way to break the cycle and emerge from an emotionally shattering week believing that they can salvage this season.
Arsenal have come very close to winning the league two years in a row but it is a long period of time to have been fighting without a single tangible reward. They won the Community Shield this season and have found a way to get over the psychological hurdle of beating Manchester City but they have not yet found a way to get over the line and claim their first trophy together.
The post-mortem each year may conclude that bad luck and freak numbers are the only margins available to close but, when the number of trophies missed out on mounts up as they have, challenger fatigue can set in.
“Not performing like this and relying on one shot to go on target and score a goal? I don’t want to bet on that,” said Arteta.
“I bet on that team to try to do (what they created against Manchester United). Are we going to win big trophies? I don’t know. But playing like this, there are very few teams in the world that can play at that level.”
Is it an equilibrium issue that creates the conditions for these blitzes of disappointment? A collective doubt certainly seems to descend on the psyche of the team.
Barely half the team did a full lap of the pitch at the end of the game. Most looked bewildered, perhaps wondering if their time is ever going to come. It is a question that is going to echo louder after the last two bruising evenings at the Emirates.
(Header photo: Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
