Nerves, poor signings: Five reasons Arsenal’s title challenge has fallen apart…again

If there were any doubts in the last few weeks, there can surely be no more any longer – Arsenal are wobbling and quite possibly throwing away this title.

If Manchester City win their game in hand then Arsenal’s lead at the top of the table will be just two points. Given that Pep Guardiola’s side have themselves had a few setbacks over the winter period, a few better results could easily have seen the Gunners go nine points clear, but that opportunity has been wasted.

DOWNLOAD THE OFFICIAL CAUGHTOFFSIDE APP FOR ALL THE LATEST & BREAKING UPDATES – STRAIGHT TO YOUR PHONE! ON APPLE & GOOGLE PLAY

The reality is, Arsenal are now on a run of just two wins from their last seven Premier League games, including the worst of all, last night’s 2-2 draw from 2-0 up against bottom-of-the-table Wolves.

So what’s gone wrong for Arsenal when this finally looked like being their year?

Poor recruitment

In the summer, it looked, on paper at least, like pretty much a 10/10 transfer window by Arsenal, as they added depth in numerous positions, and much-needed goals and spark in their attack with Viktor Gyokeres and Eberechi Eze.

This was where Arsenal had really fallen short the year before, when only Mikel Merino and Riccardo Calafiori joined, and the team simply couldn’t cope with the long list of injuries, particularly in attack.

With hindsight, however, Arsenal’s summer signings look woefully inadequate, with Gyokeres in particular simply looking out of his depth at this level despite tearing it up in Portugal, while Eze, for all the quality he’s shown in the Premier League throughout his career, hasn’t adjusted to the new demands he faces in Mikel Arteta’s side.

Noni Madueke is another questionable purchase considering the other similar players who have moved either in the summer or in January, with Bryan Mbeumo or Antoine Semenyo clearly superior to both Madueke and Eze, whilst costing similar prices. Instead of Gyokeres, any one of Hugo Ekitike, Joao Pedro, or Benjamin Sesko surely would’ve performed better.

Arteta’s lack of rotation

As much as Arteta has enjoyed having a bigger squad to work with this season, he hasn’t exactly made the most of it on a week-to-week basis.

Players like Jurrien Timber and Martin Zubimendi in particular are now looking tired after being run into the ground by Arteta, who has barely used Ben White or Christian Norgaard as alternatives, despite both being very solid options for any top six club.

This lack of rotation has also arguably also played a part in Eze’s struggles, with the England international recently having a long run left on the bench when he surely could have had a few more minutes here and there to give him the chance to find a bit more rhythm in this team.

Defensive record worsening

It seems like a long time ago now that we were talking about Arsenal breaking Chelsea’s record of conceding only 15 goals in an entire Premier League season.

AFC started superbly on that front, conceding only three goals in their first ten league games. They’re now on a run of 17 goals conceded in the 17 games they’ve played since then. From seven clean sheets in their first ten games to just six in the following 17.

Injuries have undoubtedly played a part, as the team would surely have benefited from having William Saliba available in the recent draw at Brentford, while at one point the central defensive partnership was Jurrien Timber and Piero Hincapie.

Still, over a long enough period of time you have to start asking questions as what was once a well-drilled and organised side now looks nervy and error-prone, with their opponents taking full advantage.

Raya conceding worldies

One curious side to Arsenal’s defensive struggles could also be the contribution of goalkeeper David Raya.

While the Spaniard has made some stunning saves and mostly been a solid and reliable performer throughout his time with the club, he does seem to have the unfortunate habit of conceding some absolute worldies, such as the first Wolves goal by Hugo Bueno yesterday.

See below as James Benge sums up this strange phenomenon of Arsenal’s opponents getting a lot of good fortune from low-quality chances, which could point towards Raya having a bit of a weakness when it comes to long shots…

Arsenal have conceded 19 goals in the Premier League this season. Six of them have been from shots worth 0.04 xG or less.

No team has conceded more low value shots.

— James Benge (@jamesbenge) February 18, 2026

There was the Bueno goal yesterday, but also Dominik Szoboszlai’s free-kick for Liverpool at Anfield earlier in the season, plus great long-range strikes by Patrick Dorgu and Matheus Cunha in Man United’s win at the Emirates.

Again, it could be coincidence and bad luck that so many of those unlikely shots ended up being struck so well against Arsenal, but when it happens that often then perhaps the goalkeeper has questions to answer about his positioning, anticipation, or reflexes.

Nerves

It’s become a cliche almost to the point of sounding pretty meaningless, but are Arsenal bottling it?

Injuries derailed their unexpected title challenge in 2022/23, while their incredible winning run to take it to the final day of 2023/24 can hardly be called a bottle job by any stretch of the imagination. Then last season Arsenal weren’t really that close to Liverpool at any point, so it seems daft to argue they could bottle a title race they weren’t actually in.

This season, however, they started brilliantly and had opportunities to go further ahead of a stumbling Man City. The fact that they put in some decidedly nervy displays in games such as Liverpool and United at home is surely the very definition of bottling it.

Arsenal got a lot of their toughest games out of the way early, their squad is now mostly back to full fitness, and yet they’ve still just not played with any real conviction in games that should be easy victories if not for a nagging mental block coming from the fear of losing everything.

Arteta himself addressed this publicly, urging his players to turn the temperature down and enjoy this title race more. From the looks of it, it hasn’t worked. Can he now do anything to spark a turnaround in this form before City do what they usually do and run away with it?

The post Nerves, poor signings: Five reasons Arsenal’s title challenge has fallen apart…again appeared first on CaughtOffside.