Morning Gooners and welcome to a new week. After the disappointment of the Forest game I said I’d take some time away from engaging with Arsenal content and that’s just what I did. It was refreshing. Staying away from social media, not engaging with any football content whatsoever, not listening to Arsenal podcasts, or watching any of the FA Cup games this weekend was, frankly, quite enjoyable. I had a lovely weekend with The Management and so I’m ready to get back in the Arsenal saddle and start thinking ahead to what is an important crunch game for Arsenal tomorrow night against PSV.

Arsenal will be rested having not played whereas PSV lost away from home to Go Ahead Eagles, so if there are any crumbs of hope we have of this season developing in to anything successful, you have to take any crumbs of belief from the fact that they are a team who will hopefully not be going in to this game in sparkling form and belief.

That’s the hope, anyway, because as Arsenal fans ours have certainly been dashed with the two blanks we’ve drawn in the league. Domestically our season is about treading water and qualifying for the Champions League now, but on the continental front we are still in the competition; albeit with the same goal scoring challenges that we have faced that will surely be a factor tomorrow night.

Our lack of potency in attack will worry all of us, but unlike the Forest game last midweek, staying resolute at the back and trying to draw our a clean sheet doesn’t have to be a bad thing tomorrow night. Away goals are not a factor, so Arsenal could feasibly go to PSV and eek out a stubborn bore-draw like they did against Forest, which would be greeted with a very different perspective than it was just under a week ago. A draw in Eindhoven means that the return leg at The Emirates becomes a straight knockout with Arsenal on home advantage. Of course what we don’t want is what happened around this time in 2007 in the Champions League to the same opponent. We drew a blank in the Netherlands, but the expectation was always that we should have enough to go through at home. Leading on the hour mark it felt like we just had to go on and get the second, but that Alex header from a corner on 85 minutes still haunts me to this day. That’s because I remember us basically being in control of the match. PSV were venturing forward occasionally, but it was us coming closest, so when that equaliser (on the day) came in I almost didn’t believe it. My brain didn’t compute that we were out and it was too late in the game to mount enough of a counter-offensive to steal a goal back. Back then of course, it would have also have meant we needed to score two goals because of the away goal rules, so the life was sucked out of the Arsenal team and we limped out.

We need to avoid that this time around, but that can only happen if Arteta has found a way to change our fortunes in attack. Trossard looks better on the left but wasn’t great against PSV, the Merino project clearly hasn’t worked, Nwaneri is still a kid so we have to give him a pass and the the less said about Raheem Sterling, the better, if we’re all honest. Odegaard’s lack of cutting edge and incision on a consistent basis is causing us problems and the fact that we are so reliant on him from midfield to be that creative output is a worry in itself. We are too over-reliant on him and whilst Rice has been getting in to better advanced positions, he is not known for his final ball incision, is he? That doesn’t mean I don’t think he can do it by the way; he’s shown us that he is such a great all rounder, we just haven’t seen it and as a result all eyes turn to the out of form Odegaard.

But Arteta has to do something different now. He has to try something different. I don’t know what that is, I have no idea how on earth he can re-mould a team who have been decimated by attacking injuries and with no sign of return for a month, but to stop this season becoming a series of slightly more important testimonial games, we have to find a solution for the current predicament and it has to work for the next four to five weeks at least.

Merino as a false nine was a dud. Sterling full stop is a dud. I’ve seen some suggest Calafiori as a centre forward, but I think there is a difference between arriving in to a position and being told to stay in a zone, which is what would happen with the Italian. There’s no doubt he looks tasty in the final third at times and his defending against Hudson-Odoi makes you wonder whether having him at left back against certain tricky wingers is the right course of action, but for PSV at least that won’t be as much of a problem because we will  have MLS back if Arteta wishes to use him. But the idea of having Riccardo as the next one in line to the centre forward thrown just isn’t something I can see Arteta going for.

So what else does he do? He can’t go for the likes of Butler-Oyedeji; the lad has picked up a few precious minutes further down the footballing pyramid but that’s it. He could look at a back three with wing backs. That would mean he could play either White, Timber or Calafiori as the third centre half, push two wing backs into position which includes MLS on the left, have Partey and Rice as the double pivot, put Odegaard in to a number ten role, then maybe Trossard can be partnered with one of Nwaneri or Merino. That would at least represent a change that would see us shape up differently. The argument of course would be that it would change our footballing style and approach that Arteta has cultivated; suddenly I think we wouldn’t be looking to spread our wide forwards high and wide and have overlaps, because it would be just the wing backs pressing in to that space. It would mean we would need to congest then central spaces a bit more but against European opposition, who are unlikely to tuck in and camp in their own box in a low block, maybe that isn’t the worst idea in the world. It would certainly surprise the analysts at PSV, I’d imagine.

But we have to try something. And I hope he’s been working on that something different over the weekend.

We’ll find out tomorrow night.

Catch you all tomorrow.