Former player and current pundit David Pleat felt Arsenal weren’t penetrating enough as they struggled to break down a solid Middlesbrough side in the 0-0 draw at the Emirates Stadium.
The Gunners headed into the clash with Boro as the form team in the Premier League, winning their previous six league games in succession while also going strong in the Champions League.
The likes of Theo Walcott, Alexis Sanchez and in particular Mesut Ozil have been outstanding this season, yet the talented trio couldn’t get the best of Boro in a frustrating home performance.
Co-commentating for the BBC, Pleat felt that Arsenal wasn’t threatening enough in wide areas and lamented their inability to take risks and really grind the visitors, instead opting for the safer option.
“When Arsenal get it wide, rather than go to the byline, they play it back inside and start the attack again. They are probing rather than penetrating,” the former Tottenham Hotspur man explained.
Arsenal seemingly played against Boro with the handbrake on from the start, and it wasn’t until the final passages of play that they really tested the visitors and got in behind them.
Arsene Wenger was celebrating his 67th birthday and would have wanted to toast to another victory, yet in truth, he could count himself somewhat fortunate to come away with a point.
The Teesside outfit were excellent on the counterattack and had it not been for Petr Cech and the woodwork coming to Arsenal’s rescue, it could have been much worse for the hosts.
If this wasn’t a classic Arsenal performance, it’s largely because they badly missed Cazorla.
Without the Spaniard, out due to an ankle injury, there just wasn’t the same fluency to their play or the same control. They had so much possession but didn’t have the direction to do much with it.
The choice of midfield partners in his absence didn’t exactly help. Wenger
opted for Mohamed Elneny alongside Francis Coquelin and that meant that Arsenal had more running, but none of the poise to properly release it.
Recent matches have been characterized by the glorious way that fast players like Sanchez and Theo Walcott have interchanged at pace, but they just didn’t have the platform to do so here.
It was much more labored, as evidenced in the opening minutes when Ozil tried to backheel a ball on the bounce to Sanchez at the edge of the box.
Sanchez did try and lift things in the second half, by running at the Middlesbrough box himself with more purpose, but it was clear Wenger needed to change something.
First, he opted for summer signing Lucas Perez, who came on for Alex Iwobi. Then, he finally reshaped the midfield, bringing on Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain for Elneny. It didn’t really reshape the game; Arsenal still toiled, and still couldn’t get the breakthrough.