Arsenal have arrived in the Netherlands to find that spring is here. Whether Mikel Arteta and his players are capable of moving forward into the light remains to be seen.
It was not long ago that the Champions League represented merely a single strand of a multi-dimensional season for Arsenal.
Less than two months ago, Arteta’s team were alive in four competitions. Now, arguably, just one remains.
Find a way past PSV Eindhoven — second in the Dutch league — over two legs in the coming nine days and Arsenal can still save this season. That would take them into a quarter-final tie next month against Real Madrid or Atletico Madrid.
With not an awful lot else to distract them given Liverpool’s 13-point lead at the top of the Premier League, Arsenal may once again sense opportunity and that would be a shift from where they are right now. Because the Arsenal of recent days has been an Arsenal on the back foot.
Long since gone from the FA Cup, Arsenal’s Carabao Cup hopes were wrenched from them by Newcastle last month before dismal back-to-back performances in the league against West Ham and Nottingham Forest turned a title race in to a procession that looks as though it will begin and end on Merseyside.
Arsenal will take on the reigning Eredivisie champions PSV Eindhoven in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16
Mikel Arteta’s side have been often criticised for their recent lack of goals in matches
The Gunners have been forced to deploy midfielder Mikel Merino up front due to injuries to their attacking options
So this feels like a defining week in Arsenal’s season. It feels as though the options now are either some renewed emphasis or a brick wall and all the questions that would come with that.
Arteta has thus far dealt with all the hand-wringing about Arsenal’s various problems with equanimity and, yesterday at least, a smile. How long that will go on if they don’t manage to move forwards in Europe is a different matter.
Can an Arsenal season really be over by the second week of March? It seems unthinkable. This was supposed to be a season of more progress, a year to build on all they had learned over two years of chasing Manchester
City in the league. Instead, a recruitment policy that looks flawed and an injury list nobody saw coming has left the Gunners treading water.
The challenge facing Arteta ahead of the first leg, against a team that have suffered their own recent problems, is maybe psychological as much as anything else.
‘I have been trying to explain how we’re going to do it and why we do things,’ said Arteta when asked how he has attempted to motivate his players.
‘We still have gears, even with the players we have. We still have other gears to take the game to a different level. When it comes to this stage, it’s about lifting the level and the standards.
‘Every individual has to be at their best. And when we do that, with the team we have and the connection we have between us, we are a really strong team.’
The Champions League remains one of the only tournaments where Arsenal’s hopes are still alive following their elimination from the Carabao Cup against Newcastle in early February
Following two consecutive winless matches in the Premier League, the Gunners are now 13 points behind league leaders Liverpool
For all that Arsenal have drifted recently, Arteta remains an impressive and progressive coach. Whatever happens between now and June, there should be no questioning of his position.
Before Arsenal took off for the blue skies of the Netherlands yesterday, Arteta spoke at the club’s training ground with owner Josh Kroenke. It is to be hoped the messaging was supportive.
The margins between success and what is seen as failure at the top of the English game are tiny and Arsenal are threatening to fall down on the wrong side of that divide following a brief spell of poor football and a longer period of bad luck. It happens.
Looking forward, there is not an awful lot of brightness on the horizon in terms of the fitness of key attacking players. The wide forward Gabriel Martinelli is believed to be closest to a return.
In terms of this tie, Arsenal need not be too anxious. Questions put to Arteta by the Dutch media at the Philips Stadium were largely about PSV’s faltering form that has seen them win just once in their six games in the league and cup over the last month.
Arsenal should beat them twice, really. Certainly, Arteta’s team will sense an opportunity from the fact that PSV’s attacking traditions will almost compel them to take the game to Arsenal over the two legs.
That is something that doesn’t happen very often in the Premier League. The last time it did, Arsenal demolished City 5-1 at the Emirates.
‘We have been much more consistent in Europe, we’ve been much more honest,’ said Arteta yesterday. ‘We have scored a lot of goals. We haven’t conceded almost anything. I think we’ve conceded three goals and have the lowest expected goals in the group phase, which is great.
Arteta’s team finished third in the Champions League group stage, behind Barcelona and Liverpool
The Spaniard has admitted his side have been more consistent in Europe this season
‘So that’s a big platform. So we have those resources at the disposal of the team, and that’s something the team has already done. Now, we have to continue to do it.’
The game on Tuesday is not necessarily the biggest event taking place in this part of the Netherlands. March 4 marks the final day of the annual Lampegat carnival that sees the streets of Eindhoven awash with fancy dress costumes.
Arteta must hope his team present a version of themselves that is more recognisable to him. Since that thrashing of City on February 2, Arsenal have scored in only one of four subsequent games in all competitions.
It is a problem Arteta must solve without his star men up front if a season of opportunity is not to be lost deep within a muddle of regret.
