Thierry Henry gives a damning assessment of Arsenal’s struggles in attack | OneFootball

In the wake of our recent league performances, we gooners have been trying to make sense of our current plight. Our attacking play has been the point for debate in recent days following the disappointing draw against Everton.

Three set piece goals and none from open play in the last three game,s including our most recent in the Premier League, is to blame for the frustrating debates about the root cause and solutions to it.

Thierry Henry has had his say on our struggles and it’s safe to say, he wasn’t impressed. Considering that he’s arguably the best forward to play in the Premier League while also representing our colors, there should be no one better at explaining our struggles in the forward line. He did just this in a brilliant analysis for Sky Sports’ Monday night football special where he also was involved in some other key talking points.

In a brilliant narration, he mostly used clips from our 2-0 win over Man United, two weeks ago. He pointed out how often Bukayo Saka gets isolated with few options to pick out apart from Martin Ødegaard, he then points to our unwillingness to make runs to provide alternative options. He then compared Saka in that position on the right to Liverpool’s Mohamed Salah, saying he always has options due to his teammates always making runs:He said. ‘When you see Liverpool going forward you see [Joe] Gomez, [Darwin] Nunez, [Diogo] Jota running.’

He also highlighted an instance from the game, where Martin Ødegaard opted against a ball in between the lines for Declan Rice which would’ve seen us get a 3v2 overload on the left, he branded the decision to go backwards as being “too predictable” yet again, as we failed to make good use of that central access to cause damage which is a thing that has been the case in the following two games.

After those two pick outs, the Legendary Frenchman didn’t stop there as he then shifted his focus to our left side, Gabriel Martinelli in particular. While playing a clip of the Brazilian against United’s Diogo Dalot in a 1v1 situation, he explains why he should be utilising his best asset. To beat his man and therefore create a chance in the box. This asset  is his lighting pace.

Instead of doing this however, he played negatively and went backwards before ending up at the halfway line from a very good position on the wing. A telling word he used to describe our play was “predictable” but what I got from that analysis is our lack of bravery to take risks, we simply played too cautious recently.

Henry then went on to state what we should do if we want to return to the title race, he stated: “A lot of things need to change in order to win the Premier League. When I see Liverpool play it looks like they’re trying to win it and others look like they’re trying not to lose it.

‘If you’re going to win the league you need to grab it and win it. You have to find a solution.

‘In my team they helped on the other side (right). Everyone needs to score and be important. Freddie [Ljungberg] used to make that run in between lines and score.

‘If you want to be champions, people adapt to what you do. What are you going to bring year on year?”

Either way, it’s a long road to get back firmly in the running, like he said a lot of things needs to change and they might, but you do have to wonder if the damage has already been done!

BENJAMIN

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