Watching Arsenal struggle to create a single shot from the 7th minute on against Albion, it was clear that Arsenal have a creativity problem and that Emery’s “tactics” and changes after half-time exacerbated that problem rather than fixed it.

Arsenal’s top creative player from open play (not counting corners and free kicks) is Lacazette with 18 key passes this season. That’s just under 1 per game. Aubameyang has the same number. Mesut Ozil is second/third and he has 16 key passes from open play and 1 throughball key pass. Aaron Ramsey also has 17 key passes. Granit Xhaka is also in the top players, he has 12 key passes from open play (plus another 8 from corners).

Just to make this a little clearer: Arsenal’s leading creator last season was Mesut Ozil. From open play, he made 2.8 shots per game, 3.0 per90. His numbers are down to 1.7 per90. And he’s not alone. All of Arsenal’s numbers are down in terms of chance creation: key passes are down from 11.7 to 9.6, shots are down from 15.6 to 12.7, big chances are down from 2.5 per game last year to 1.9 per game this year, and the xG per game is down from 2.0 last year to 1.5 this year.

And here’s the thing, there are players who have gotten better under Emery: Kolasinac is up to 1.8 key passes per90 from 0.8 last year. Ramsey is up from 1.4 per90 to 2.2 per90. Leaps and bounds from those two. But those are the only two.

And while those two have grown, some players have stayed the same: Lacazette is basically stayed the same, Aubameyang the same, Xhaka the same, Mkhitaryan the same and so on.

But some players have taken a major beating in terms of chance creation under Emery. Ozil is down from 3.5 per game to 2.1, Iwobi is down from 1.8 to 1.1, and even Bellerin has dropped from 1 key pass per90 last season to 0.4 key passes per90 this season.

I’m not saying that Ozil is going to be able to play at his best for 20 years. There is an inevitability to his career for sure. But the problem is that no one is, as of yet, filling his shoes. Someone on this team needs to step up and take over the creator role and Unai has to allow that to happen, no matter what the contract costs or how he personally feels about that player.

For example, Aaron Ramsey is the closest player to replacing Ozil but for whatever reason, Unai won’t play him. Ramsey has 6 assists, he tackles, and he works hard for the team. He could have wrapped himself in cotton wool this season and basically refused to play or feigned injury all the time while smoking at nightclubs. But he’s played whenever asked, in a position that’s unfamiliar to him, suffered kicks, and still helped the team.

I’m not just talking about this one match that we saw yesterday, that was unique and I’ll get to why in a second, I’m talking about in general, all season. This club has been scoring goals at an unsustainably high rate – and when they don’t fall, because we don’t create enough chances, there are going to be matches like yesterday against Albion where the club can’t create chances and we drop points.

I think Arsenal have several major problems.

First, constant changes. I get that a club needs a backup plan, a plan B. But does a club need a plan B, B.1, B.1.2, B.1.2.4, and B.2.1.7 all in the same match? If it works once or twice then I guess it’s ok, but over the long-haul, constantly chopping and changing the lineup is going to hurt morale. Lacazette is already publicly fed up with the constant changes and I agree with him. Lacazette and Aubameyang are a great strike pair. By themselves, they aren’t quite as good. One wide, while the other plays the middle is OK. But both through the middle is exactly what this team needs. I have no idea why Emery has dropped Lacazette this season – pushing him to the bench sometimes, and taking him off in other matches. But him being dropped is the kind of mistake that ends up costing managers respect in the dressing room.

We are 6 months in to his tenure and I can’t tell is he knows what his best lineup is yet. I get that we all want a plan B and maybe a plan C or D but at some point, I’d like to see a plan A. This is not about injuries. The injuries are almost exclusively to the defense. This is about a plan A in attack.

What is Aubameyang’s position? Who is the #10? Do we play with a 10? Where is Ozil’s best position? Why can’t Ramsey get more time? And in the last few games he’s even starting to chop and change his midfield, yesterday wasn’t the first time we saw a midfield three of Torreira (high up the pitch), Guendouzi (carrying the ball and dictating play), and Xhaka as some sort of pass outlet who only plays sideways balls but also doesn’t DM. Who is his favorite starting midfield duo and why have we needed three player in midfield to control games?

And worse, he made another half-time change. At some point, these half-time changes – which were quaint last month – have to stop. It’s ridiculous to change your players at half time every other game. It makes me wonder if he doesn’t know what he’s doing and again, like above, players will be acutely aware of these changes and will not be happy about this over the long run.

If you don’t like Ozil’s work rate, don’t start him. Why should the sub-player have a half-game because you’re cow-towing to start Ozil? What is going on here? Is he under orders not to play certain guys? Is he being ordered to play certain guys? Or is he just picking players to assuage their ego? It certainly doesn’t look like tactics are driving these choices, if they were, you wouldn’t need to change things at half-time.

And these changes are highly risky. Best case scenario, the player who comes on does a great job, and the guy who goes off just says that he had a bad night. Worst-case scenario, both players are mad because they are both made to look poor.

The other major problem I see here is that the squad has a ton of problems. And this is not Emery’s fault. Nor are the injuries his fault.

The fullbacks have been rocked with a combination of injuries and maybe a little bit the transfer niggle. Despite his good run of form I don’t think Kolasinac is a long-term replacement for Monreal but even if you do, who’s his backup? Monreal’s legs have gone. On the right, The Lich isn’t even remotely a good enough replacement for Bellerin and Maitland-Niles looks more raw than my knee after my first ever skateboarding accident.

Without those wide players playing at peak efficiency, Emery’s system doesn’t work. Midfielders end up drifting left and right looking for someone to pass to and then passing sideways in frustration (happened a lot to Guendouzi yesterday).

And outside of the attack, we have to say that despite the ticker-tape parade for Torreira, the center mids are not shoring up the defense like we had all hoped. And that’s at least partly down to a really poor attitude from some of these players. Guendouzi traipsed back and let Locadia just run right past him for the Albion goal. I’ve been an Arsenal supporter for 20 years and if there is any one thing that I know gets Arsenal supporters in a tissy it is that: play CM and fail to track a man who runs right past you.

Virtually everyone on my twitter feed was calling for him to be subbed off at half-time. It doesn’t matter how good you are as a creative player (his pass for Aubemyang’s shot was one of the best I’ve ever seen from deep in our own half) but it’s irrelevant if you play CM and let attacking players run right past you like he did against Albion. It’s a cardinal sin, sloth. I fully expect him to be called Guendenilson from now on and someone needs to just take him aside and tell him that even Ozil, the second/third* best midfielder I’ve ever seen at Arsenal, gets stick for lax defending. He needs to step up this part of his game, like immediately. Can’t let that happen again.

And for this match against Albion, the changes Unai made were just atrocious. Xhaka and Guendouzi had plenty of the ball – Xhaka made 99/101 passes but they almost never had anyone in a forward position to pass to! That’s because Unai took off Ozil, who is one of the best players in the world at finding space and retaining possession and put on Iwobi, who turns the ball over a lot and requires overlapping fullbacks to help him create. And then Emery compounded that error by taking off Lacazette, who was the only guy up top dropping to collect, and putting on Ramsey – a willing runner and midfielder who just doesn’t know how to play #10/9 quite yet. And in order to provide some width and pace, brought on Maitland-Niles who looks as raw as a bucket of foamy freshly squeezed cow’s milk.

Unai is allowed to make mistakes and especially because he’s been so good at getting the best out of this batch of players up until this latest run of form where he’s taken 4/9 points from Southampton, Burnley, and Brighton. But at some point, and I think we are getting very close, we have to ask whether his half-time subs are a sign of a manager who is brilliant or one who is just flailing around because he doesn’t know what else to do.

Qq

*Obviously Bergkamp is #1 but I can entertain debate