LONDON — Maybe Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and set-pieces are not enough to win the Premier League after all. Arsenal have more about them than that, of course, but much of the frustration over Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Everton will likely be channelled toward the club’s approach to the January transfer market.
The Gunners were not planning to spend big next month despite the sense of title possibility created by Manchester City’s return to Earth. City are making it known they will back Pep Guardiola in the market as they seek to arrest their alarming decline, but Arsenal are presently of the view that only injuries or an exceptional, unexpected opportunity will push them to commit a considerable sum in January.
Mikel Arteta’s first stop in this conversation is usually to point to the options he has and the internal improvements they can make. The good news there at least is that there is plenty of room for it.
Odegaard, Saka and Arsenal’s set-piece prowess — marked by a mural of specialist coach Nicolas Jover the distance of a back-post corner away from Emirates Stadium — have proved a wonderfully potent combination of late. But they have perhaps masked the lack of game-changing options Arteta can turn to in moments like this, where a team sets up to defend and is deeply entrenched in a conservative shape.
Everton had 10 days without a game due to the postponement of last weekend’s Merseyside derby and were therefore well-rested and well-drilled compared to Arsenal, who played twice more in the same period. It is an unusual imbalance that no doubt contributed to the result, but while the final 20 minutes were frantic, this was the sort of controlled chaos Arsenal are able to create at their best when chasing a game.
Too often, misplaced passes or the wrong choice in the final third disrupted the sense of momentum that Arsenal usually create to overwhelm opponents in these circumstances.
Arsenal’s substitutes didn’t help, and that is on…
