Arsenal stumble at the wrong moment in Premier League title race

Ivan Toney scores Brentford’s equaliser at the Emirates

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It’s now a blip that could become an alarm. A 1-1 draw at home to Brentford means Arsenal go into their biggest game of the campaign so far without a win in two Premier League games for the first time, having now failed to win in three in all competitions. If that extends to four, at home to Manchester City on Wednesday, this race could really change.

Much depends on how the champions react to the Premier League’s biggest ever controversy against Aston Villa on Sunday. Arsenal just didn’t respond to anything well here.

Mikel Arteta’s side were as laboured as they were in the 1-0 defeat to Everton last week, struggled to match Brentford’s physicality, and then immediately allowed the one positive of Andreas Trossard’s first goal to fritter away. For that, a deserved Ivan Toney equaliser, it was as if they just couldn’t deal with a Brentford bombardment.

This still needn’t be a cause for too much concern, especially if City really don’t manage to go one of those runs. It is the sort of thing that happens to first-time challengers, and Liverpool went through worse at the same period in 2018-19.

It’s just you don’t want to let a likely eventuality develop into another City inevitability.

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Arsenal seem to have temporarily lost some of their spark. Perhaps some of that is the circumstances and where we are in the campaign.

It instantly had the feel of one of those games where the reality of a title race was taking hold. Arsenal weren’t just coming out and playing, in the exhilarating manner that has characterised their season. They had to go and produce, in the pressurised way that characterises title challenges.

Brentford were almost precisely the wrong opposition in this regard, especially after two games without a win. They were so well organised at the back, and usually highly congested there, but so adept at breaking.

Arsenal really struggled with the force of Brentford’s two forwards in Bryan Mbuemo and Ivan Toney. The former bullied William Saliba in a moment when Arsenal were lucky it was called in a foul. Toney then hit the crossbar from a brilliant Mbuemo run down the left, before Mbuemo himself narrowly shot wide.

These were for a long time the best chances of the game, as Arsenal inevitably left so much space in behind as they tried to open any in the Brentford box. It was so difficult to get through. You couldn’t have a better indication of that than the fact the only openings they actually managed were to cut-backs for half-chances around the penalty area. Both Oleksandr Zinchenko and Gabriel Martinelli skied over.

Eddie Nketiah gets on the ball for Arsenal

It wasn’t completely their fault here but there was an element of predictability about the Arsenal attack at this point. It was many of the same movements, that Brentford had worked out how to disrupt. Martin Odegaard, most tellingly, wasn’t finding the space to do anything special.

There’s an argument that was precisely why Arsenal needed a big attacking signing in the window, or at least something different.

So, Arteta reached for a signing that many felt perhaps represented depth rather than any of that.

It did immediately look like Andreas Trossard was offering more of what Gabriel Martinelli did, as he ran into bodies. Within four minutes, though, he had got around them.

Arsenal, meanwhile, had finally got in behind Brentford. Odegaard of course ensured that with a through ball for Bukayo Saka. It was the first time any of their players could hit a straight cross across goal. Saka naturally did so in the manner needed, allowing Trossard to easily score.

It still wasn’t easy for Arsenal, though.

In the manner that sometimes happens on these sorts of occasions, it was as if Arteta’s side suddenly decompressed, allowing Brentford to get at them. There was a looseness, and a chaos. In what was Brentford’s first real set-piece attack, Arsenal just couldn’t seem to clear it, and there was Christian Norgaard to lift the ball back over for Toney to nod in.

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It was immediately back to the same pattern. Arsenal couldn’t break it. They finished the game trying to aerially bombard this Brentford. Another mistaken response.

It means this 1-1 draw has broken the pattern of the season. Arsenal’s previously relentless momentum is broken – and at precisely the wrong time in terms of what’s next.

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