Mikel Arteta provides tactical breakdown amid Arsenal slump

For the Blank of England club, it was another barren trawl and Mikel Arteta looked suitably baffled.

After their 10th defeat – and ninth failure to score – in 23 Premier League games, mid-table Arsenal are on the road to nowhere.

The Gunners press hard enough but so does a rolling pin when you’re making pastry.

Their football is pretty enough but so are the patterns on your Laura Ashley curtains.

Boring, boring Arsenal? No, but this season they are just not scoring, scoring Arsenal – and their lack of ruthless instinct in the box is driving manager Arteta to distraction.

Not since 2005-6, when Arsene Wenger’s side drew 11 blanks in 38 games, have the Gunners suffered so much goalless frustration – and that season, they had the consolation of reaching the Champions League final.

At Villa Park, where they were beaten by Ollie Watkins’ 100th career goal after just 74 seconds, Arsenal had nothing to show for 66 percent possession and 14 shots.

Instead of an assassin’s creed, they brought water pistols to a gunfight.

Arteta said: “I’m not really interested in the possession – it’s the positions that we take with that possession, the spaces we attack and how many open situations we create.

“It’s about the final pass, the final move, the one-on-one situations where of course you have to hit the target, the cut-backs, the deliveries into the box.

“All those things we have to improve because with the numbers we produce in the final third, we have to be hitting the target at least 10 or 12 times.

“And then the fact that Villa had more shots on target as well is because we gave them – apart from the goal – another three or four big situations where they were open to shoot on target.”

Arsenal finished with six attacking players on the pitch and yet none of them could hit a barn door with a muckspreader.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s output – five goals in 19 Premier League appearances – has tailed off since he signed a new three-year contract last September.

Loan signing Martin Odegaard and £72 million disappointment Nicolas Pepe both missed glorious chances at Villa Park, leaving Arteta to groan: “You have to hit target much more consistently to win football matches.

“We should have won the game comfortably but they were better in both boxes – which is how you win games in this League.”

You have to go back to 1983-84, when 10 defeats in the first 17 league games cost Terry Neill his job as manager, since Arsenal turned losing into such a regrettable habit.

Contrast their irritation with Villa, who have already matched last season’s points tally in 21 games, and boyhood Gunners fan Watkins becoming their nemesis again.

Watkins scored twice in Villa’s 3-0 romp at the Emirates in November and Dean Smith, the manager who signed him twice, is not surprised the £28m striker he poached from Brentford has prospered with 12 goals in 24 games.

Smith said: “The football Brentford played last season was often of Premier League standard, so we knew he was ready to come in and do well here.”

Never mind midfielder Ross Barkley’s strop – kicking a water bottle in frustration when he was hooked – if Watkins is not on Gareth Southgate’s radar, the England manager’s sonar system is on the blink.

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