With his hood raised over his head and his hands placed firmly inside his pockets, Unai Emery certainly had the look of a man in the middle of a storm as his Arsenal side showed little to suggest they are on the cusp of a return to form.

The relentless downpour in Portugal felt fitting, given the circumstances of this match and the events of the past few weeks at Arsenal. The Granit Xhaka saga will rumble on, no matter how much Emery hoped to end it by stripping him of the captaincy, and Arsenal’s patchy performances are clearly not going away either.

For the fourth game in a row, Arsenal surrendered a lead and transformed a victory into a draw. It is a troubling habit for the defenders to develop, especially when the forwards are barely creating a chance of note between them at the other end. Once again there was a lack of coherence in attack for Arsenal, and once again there was a flakiness at the back in the moments that mattered most.

A point in Portugal was at least a minor step forward in Arsenal’s attempts to qualify from their Europa League group. Even that, though, will not have felt like much progress given the nature of this ugly match and the way in which Vitoria were able to cancel out Shkodran Mustafi’s 80th-minute header.

“We want to improve,” said Emery, who pointed out that Arsenal are where they want to be, at the top of their Europa League group. The table will not appease those supporters who are growing increasingly frustrated by the team’s lingering flaws, though, and Emery was forced for the first time to respond to reports of Jose Mourinho’s supposed interest in the Arsenal job. “I am the coach,” was the response in full.