NEW BOSS BUT GUNNERS ARE STILL THE TAME

ARSENAL’S stars are raving about Mikel Arteta but what’s the point if they’re still not doing their jobs?

Scotland midfielder John Fleck’s late goal was the third time in four games the Gunners have clocked off too early.

Chelsea did them at home three minutes before the end over the festive period. And last week Crystal Palace pegged them back after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored early.

Unai Emery had his faults but he is long gone and the Arsenal players are still making the basic mistakes, at both ends of the pitch, that cost him his job.

Will they be as gushing once Arteta starts holding them accountable for their errors and replaces them?

Arteta looked like a man running out of patience as he had to explain, yet again, why his players blew it in a game they should have won. Was it a lack of concentration?

He said: “I don’t think it was. Against Palace it was. We switched off on a freekick and paid the price.

“Here it’s a second ball. You have to put a header into the wide areas, not centrally. Then someone scores from it.”

So a lack of leadership then? Arteta said:

“It’s game-management. We can talk about things that happened prior to that situation that can be avoidable.

“But there are 100 million decisions to make in one match and 11 players or 22 players making them at 180 beats per minute.”

That ability to make high-class, splitsecond decisions should mark out a player as being good enough to play for any top club, let alone Arsenal.

Concentration, too, is an issue. Regardless of what Arteta says. Arsenal have been held to score draws by Norwich, Bournemouth and both Watford and Southampton.

They’ve also lost to Brighton and were beaten by Sheffield United away from home. They switch off at crucial moments.

It’s embarrassing such an expensively-assembled squad has managed back-to-back Premier League wins just once this season, in August.

Arsenal’s players can hammer Emery, with some justification, all they want. But they’d be better off taking a long hard look at themselves. It isn’t just a personnel issue, it’s psychological. As a team they’re not mentally strong enough to deliver what Arteta wants.

For all their resources Aubameyang, with his nine on the road, has scored 75 per cent of Arsenal’s away goals. Why don’t more players taking responsibility?

As it is, Arteta heads to Chelsea tomorrow night well aware without Aubameyang his side will be playing with one hand tied behind their backs.

He added: “It’s harder. When you lose a player of his stature, you’re concerned because he gives you something.

“There is only one player in the Premier League more important to his team and that’s Jamie Vardy.

“But it doesn’t matter how sad we are for the next two games. We need other players and against Sheffield United some of them showed they are capable of doing it as well.”