- Arsenal have fallen 15 points behind runaway Premier League leaders Liverpool
- The Gunners failure to sign a striker has been blamed for their challenge fading
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Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has come under fire from a former club captain with their Premier League title bid set to fall short again.
Arteta’s side have fallen 15 points behind runaway leaders Liverpool and have just 10 league matches remaining this season.
The Gunners look poised to finish as runners-up for a third consecutive season having twice fallen short in title races against Manchester City.
With their title bid set to fall short, Arteta and Arsenal have faced criticism from supporters over their failure to sign a striker in recent transfer windows.
Kai Havertz has largely been used as the spearhead in Arsenal’s attack, with the German their top Premier League goalscorer with nine this campaign.
Havertz’s season ending hamstring injury last month came off the back of Arsenal’s failure to recruit in attack in the January transfer window.
Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has come under fire from a former captain of the club
The Gunners title challenge has fallen away with the club set to finish runners-up again
Arsenal’s failure to sign a striker was exposed following an injury to Kai Havertz last month
Former Arsenal captain William Gallas, who made 142 appearances for the club between 2006 and 2010, has placed the blame at Arteta’s door.
Gallas claimed the failure to sign a striker for the last two seasons has been ‘completely unacceptable’ and said it was evidence Arsenal is ‘not the right guy for Arsenal to win the league’.
‘He had that opportunity to do it, he didn’t do it,’ Gallas told Prime Casino.
‘The simple truth is that the best managers make the right decisions at the right time. The best managers, the world-class managers, they do whatever it takes to win the Premier League.
‘Signing a striker seems to be a blind spot for Arteta, that’s why Arsenal have finished second for two seasons running.
‘Arsenal should have signed a big striker in the summer of 2023, but they didn’t. They should have signed one in the summer of 2024, but they didn’t.
‘Top managers don’t make that same mistake two seasons running, that is completely unacceptable.
Ex-Arsenal captain William Gallas claimed Arteta is to blame for failing to sign a striker
‘It’s unacceptable for Arsenal to be making the same mistakes year-after-year with the same manager.’
Arsenal have suffered in attack in recent weeks with the likes of Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Gabriel Jesus on the sidelines with injuries.
The Gunners have failed to win in their last three Premier League matches, drawing against Nottingham Forest and Man United, as well as losing at home to West Ham.
Arteta’s side, however, are poised to reach the Champions League quarter-finals having crushed Dutch outfit PSV 7-1 in the first leg last week.
