After a fine season, the Premier League campaign ultimately ended in disappointment for Arsenal as they missed out on the title.
Mikel Arteta will be proud of what his Arsenal side produced this season.
The Gunners remained in the Premier League title race until the bitter end. Keeping pace with Manchester City throughout the campaign was an achievement in and of itself, even if the North London club were ultimately unable to prevent Pep Guardiola’s side from claiming their fourth successive title triumph.
Arteta is still convinced that silverware is on its way to the Emirates Stadium in the future. However, the Spanish coach will now reflect on this season and where things went wrong for his team.
Arsenal Insider writers have now had their say on which moments will particularly haunt the manager.
Where things went wrong for Arsenal this season
Arsenal shocked by Fulham
We have to go back a long way to pick out truly disappointing moments for Arsenal, but a result very early on in the season is one which I look back on as a pivotal event in the title race. Arsenal were 2-1 up and cruising at home to Fulham, who were also down to 10 men as Calvin Bassey was shown a red card.
In a season where Arsenal would become the best set-piece side in the league, to concede directly from a corner in the 86th minute to drop two points, felt like a highly avoidable moment, which disrupted our momentum in what was a shaky start to the season, and ultimately stopped us from breaking the 90 point barrier.
Mikel Arteta’s side derailed in December
It is possible to select a few results which cost Arsenal the 2023/24 Premier League title race, but four days in December were truly disappointing. The Gunners welcomed West Ham United to Emirates Stadium on December 28 with a chance to go top but spurned the opportunity.
A 2-0 defeat at home to the Irons put a huge dent in Arteta’s bid to win Arsenal’s first title in 20 years. But their gloomy end to the year was not over as the Gunners fell to a 2-1 defeat at Fulham. Bukayo Saka even put Arsenal in front after only five minutes at Craven Cottage.
West Ham stunned Arsenal in N5 with a ruthless display after scoring twice from just three shots on target. The Gunners had chances to score throughout, as well, after fashioning 30 attempts. Yet only eight found the target as Saka hit the post and Gabriel Jesus fired over.
Another chance for Arsenal to go top of the table also awaited at Fulham on New Year’s Eve. It seemed like Saka had set up the perfect response to losing to West Ham, as well, when he hit home early. But Arsenal ended the day and the calendar year sat only fourth in the table.
Bobby De Cordova-Reid gave Jakub Kiwior the run-around after Arteta entrusted the Poland centre-half with playing as a makeshift left-back. And while the experimented only lasted 45 minutes, Fulham had already punished Kiwior when Raul Jimenez struck home the equaliser.
Mikel Arteta will regret Kai Havertz experiment
Kai Havertz took some time to settle at Arsenal following his £65 million arrival from Chelsea in the recent summer transfer window. The German was clearly low on confidence and had plenty of doubters. However, Havertz was not helped by Arteta’s attempt to reinvent him as a midfielder.
The 24-year-old never looked comfortable in the middle of the park, and the team as a whole lacked cohesion with him in that part of the pitch.
Following the turn of the year, the 44-cap Germany international was given a run of games of upfront and hasn’t looked back since. Arsenal fans were blown away by the form Havertz produced over the course of the run-in. He chipped in with a number of valuable goals and consistently produced impressive performances. Arteta will surely now wonder what might have been had Havertz been the Gunners’ first-choice striker since the start of the campaign.
Arsenal blow trophy chances beyond the Premier League title
Deviating away from the title race, one moment that really disappointed me this season was Arsenal’s early FA Cup exit against Liverpool. Looking back, it’s still extraordinary how Arsenal managed to lose that game having dominated in possession and having so many chances to put the tie to bed in what would have been another statement performance from the Gunners.
Whilst this season has been an almighty success in terms of the title race and our run in Europe, there’s still a feeling that more could have been done in the domestic cup competitions, with the FA Cup defeat to Liverpool a game that could have springboarded us to a record 15th title in the competition.
