At a Glance:
- Arsenal can win the Premier League title by beating Burnley and Crystal Palace.
- The Gunners will certainly lean into their defensive solidity in these games.
- However, Adrian Clarke has highlighted an area of the game where Mikel Arteta’s team are vulnerable.
Arsenal need to beat Burnley and Crystal Palace to be crowned Premier League champions in the next two weeks, and while this may seem like a very doable task for Mikel Arteta’s side, pundit Adrian Clarke has raised concerns about one particular aspect of the game for the Gunners.
The North Londoners edged past West Ham United on Sunday afternoon, courtesy of a late winner from Leandro Trossard. The result moved Arsenal to the brink of winning the title, although the job isn’t quite done yet.
Already-relegated Burnley and a Palace team dreaming of European glory await, and as shown by Arsenal’s erraticism in the past during title run-ins, anything could still go wrong for Arteta’s men.
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Adrian Clarke highlights Arsenal vulnerability
Arsenal are one of the most defensively resilient teams in world football, if not the most resilient, and thus, there are few ways that teams can exploit the Gunners. William Saliba and Gabriel Magalhaes dominate at the back, while Declan Rice sweeps up in front of them, creating an imperious defensive unit.
However, after closely observing Arsenal’s game against West Ham on Sunday, Gunners expert and analyst Clarke highlighted an area where he feels Arteta’s team are somewhat vulnerable.
The former Arsenal player suggested that this is something that Burnley and Palace could easily exploit if they’re not careful.
“It wasn’t plain sailing,” Clarke explained on his YouTube channel.
“Arsenal had some issues, I thought, in the game, particularly in the second half. A lot of those came from long balls, and I just want to explain what happened and where we need to improve on with dealing with long balls.
“Burnley and Palace will go long on occasion in the final two league games of the season, particularly if they look at the video of this game and see where West Ham got a little bit of joy.”
Clarke then drew upon a clear example of Arsenal struggling aerially against the Hammers.
“Okay, so here we pick it up. It’s a long ball. I think it might have been from the goalkeeper, actually, who clips it high, [Mads] Hermansen. Saliba goes up with it, with Pablo. Now Declan Rice has tracked the run of Jarrod Bowen there. Okay, that’s just diligent play.
“He doesn’t want to let him go. So he’s effectively a third centre-back. But what that means is that there’s a bit of a dead zone where the red square is.
“And this is the payoff for bringing on [Martin] Odegaard and [Kai] Havertz – two super attacking midfielders. They’re not always going to be alive and bright to the second balls and the knockdowns.”
Burnley and Crystal Palace have the tools to exploit this Arsenal issue
While Arsenal will be overwhelming favourites against both Burnley and Palace, they need to be wary of the threat both of these teams pose. It’s not unfeasible that the Gunners buckle under the pressure and become more susceptible to these sides’ attacks.
Burnley boast an array of physical forward players who are effective in the air. While the Clarets may not possess the most technically proficient players who can intricately play through a press, they can evade Arsenal’s pressure by launching the ball long to the likes of Zian Flemming and Jaidon Anthony.
Meanwhile, Palace have similar aerially dominant players up front. Oliver Glasner is likely to rest Jean-Philippe Mateta for the Eagles’ Conference League final game a few days later, but Jorgan Strand Larsen is still impressive in the air.
Ismaila Sarr will also be kept on the bench, but the likes of Evann Guessand and Brennan Johnson, both of whom can be aerial outlets, will come in. Mikel Arteta must take note.
