After Arsenal faded so badly in the second half of Sunday's trip to Manchester City, where they let a 1-0 lead slip and headed back to London with 0 points, many questions are being asked of the players and, inevitably, the manager.
Arsenal were very poor and offered no reply to an upward shift in City's efforts which was presumably sparked by a bollocking from Pep Guardiola at half time. They sat deep and invited pressure, hoping to pounce on the counter-attack as many teams have been able to do against City this season, but the plan did not work out at all.
Fingers have been pointed at Mesut Ozil in particular, as the unquestionably gifted player has had a quiet few weeks by his own high standards. Gary Neville, however, used his pre-match analysis time on Monday Night Football to point out that Ozil, along with Alexis Sanchez who was carrying a knock from the first half, tried, and failed, to get their teammates to move higher up the pitch.
Neville has been widely criticised for "bullying" Liverpool goalkeeper Loris Karius in recent weeks, but when it would have been easy to take a pop at Ozil for not producing the goods, he took a different view.
Rec1106 by kikimusampasoccer
You can see the two players know that unless their teammates are higher up the pitch and can press from there, there is no hope of playing out of trouble.
City's players pinned their opponents deep for the majority of the second half and were able to turn the score around and claim all three points.
With so much discussion about the contract dispute that Ozil and Sanchez are currently in with their club, this sort of frustration with the players around them will no doubt make Arsenal fans feel a bit more nervous, but at least they were trying to change what was happening.
While it would be ill-advised to rule them out of a title race, the tactical approach adopted in the second half on Sunday was not the right one, and in away fixtures at top six clubs their results are becoming increasingly concerning for a club of Arsenal's stature.
