ARTETA NEEDS A PLAN TO LIFT FLAT ARSENAL

Arsenal don’t seem to have one as Aubameyang falls flat again

BOTH of Tottenham’s big-game players finished the afternoon where they usually do, on the score sheet. So what happened to Arsenal’s? Harry Kane and Son Heung-min are perfect for Jose Mourinho’s team. Quick, deadly, selfless and ready to work. Here they were at their rapier best to dismantle Arsenal at either end of a first half that decided this derby.

On the other side of the divide, Arsenal have Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette and the Brazilian Willian. There is some talent in that trio — and some money in wages, too — but currently the magic box remains locked.

Aubameyang, supremely gifted, has scored two Premier League goals since signing a £300,000-a-week contract in the summer, one of them a penalty. Willian has not found form since switching from Chelsea while Lacazette’s role in the team is so uncertain that in this game he was asked to play as a deep-lying forward, a No 10. It is not working for Arsenal and their coach Mikel Arteta and, goodness, it certainly did not work here.

Take the goals out of the footage, look at the numbers and action areas in isolation, and this looks like a pretty good day for Arsenal. They had two thirds of the possession, six times as many touches in the opposition penalty area and 30 more crosses.

Yet the truth is they were well beaten. There is no collective threat carried by Arsenal’s football and there is no one who looks remotely like winning a game with something special, either. Almost a year into Arteta’s reign, his team look flat.

It is not always wise to pay too much attention to match statistics but some of these were remarkable. Tottenham had only six touches in the Arsenal penalty area, yet scored twice from three shots on target. Arsenal had 36 such touches but hardly mustered an attempt. Arsenal also had 32 crosses to go with the 30 they had in losing at home to Wolves last week. Who on earth were they all aimed at?

Aubameyang is not a proficient or particularly keen header of the ball and only three of his 74 Arsenal goals have arrived that way. So what is the thought process of the Arsenal coach? If he has a clear one, he is not telling us what it is.

Watching a team play poorly is one thing. It can happen. Watching one play poorly without an apparent plan or method is another thing entirely.

Mourinho’s football is not to everybody’s liking and more difficult days than this will arrive for the Tottenham manager this season. You cannot win games from within your own half every single week.

Nevertheless, watching this disciplined and structured showing from the leaders of the Premier League, it was possible to see evidence of thought, intelligent planning and training-ground work.

As for Arsenal, it was a mish-mash. There was progressive play down the left from Scotland full back Kieran Tierney, while substitute Dani Ceballos worked well on the ball, but that was as far as it went.

Aubameyang is scaring nobody at the moment and is not leading by any kind of example. He looks low on confidence, too.

When he was found by a lovely Lacazette pass late on, he was one-on-one with Toby Alderweireld. It was the kind of situation he should relish, but it was clear which way he would go and from which side the shot would come. There was no craft, no disguise and no mystery. The shot arrived and Alderweireld blocked it with ease.

Contrast that with the Tottenham goals. Son’s finish for the first was magnificent, but so in a different way was the overlapping run by left back Sergio Reguilon that essentially took Arsenal’s Hector Bellerin out of the goalscorer’s way. Reguilon will have started that run knowing his chances of getting the ball were slim but he made it anyway. Superb.

Kane’s goal was delivered like a rocket, too, and the Tottenham forward is confounding those of us who wondered if he would struggle under Mourinho. The England captain looks like he is having the time of his life and he and Son now have 18 League goals between them. Arsenal have scored only 10 as a team — fewer than Brighton and Fulham, who sit just beneath them in the table.

Arsenal’s defending for Kane’s goal was lamentable. A decision made by Thomas Partey to seek treatment as Tottenham broke did not help, but even with the Ghanaian on the field Arsenal would have been outnumbered. The way the Arsenal midfield ‘emptied’ up field as they attacked was amateurish and spoke of a coach who isn’t saying the right things or players who are not listening.

These are not desperate times for Arsenal or Arteta. Not yet. A personal opinion is that the club has the right manager. There was much to fix on the Spaniard’s arrival and it was always going to take time.

The worry is that Arsenal have regressed since winning at Manchester United on November 1. They have taken one point from four League games since then.

Arteta said after this one that his team’s problem is end product and he has that right. With only 10 goals from 11 League games, Arsenal are the lowest scorers outside the bottom three and the manager seems some way from a fix.

IT WAS a world-class opener by Son Heung-min but nobody in an Arsenal shirt tested him. With the time he had, he could have got a protractor out to measure the angles of the shot. Then Tottenham’s second goal was a copy of the first: Arsenal lost possession high up the pitch and were punished on the counter. Thomas Partey had walked off because he was injured, and this was an example of a team’s footballing brain not functioning. Both of Arsenal’s full backs, Hector Bellerin and Kieran Tierney, had flown forward as if they were still being used as wing backs. Suddenly, one ball out and it was four on two in favour of Tottenham. Where was the communication? Arsenal over-committed in this game and encouraged the opposition to break. Tottenham, meanwhile, were compact and picked their moments to pounce. Their two midfielders, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Moussa Sissoko, were never too far from their central defenders. Arsenal had 70 per cent possession but Spurs knew what to do when they didn’t have the ball. They put up a shield. Even Harry Kane had more touches in his own box than the opposition one. Tottenham’s players are working so hard and have bought into Jose Mourinho’s messages. They’re morphing from a group of nice guys into a team of Mourinhos. They are streetwise, and that’s epitomised by Hojbjerg —a player who doesn’t mind doing the ugly work in midfield.