In the latter years of Arsene Wenger’s reign and the entirety of Unai Emery’s, defending was Arsenal’s Achilles heel.
A personal glitch here, a collective mental block there… it wasn’t just the defenders who were responsible for the problems, there were issues all over the pitch.
There certainly wasn’t enough protection for the defence from midfield and, as Mesut Ozil found to his cost, it was evident that those further forward offered little to nothing on that front as well.
Add in the fact that seemingly every defender they have signed in recent seasons has a cataclysmic error — or two — in the locker and it has all made for a miserable mix.
Credit to Mikel Arteta, he has changed that.
Not completely, of course, but significantly so.
To such an extent that, remarkably, two-thirds of the way through the season, Arsenal have the joint-third best goals-against record in the Premier League, level with Aston Villa on 26 with only Chelsea, 25, and Manchester City, 15, better.
Still, though, they languish in 11th because, as the goals have dried up at one end, so they have dried up at the other.
Alarm bells were ringing last season when Arsenal managed just 56 top-flight goals — a drop of 17 on the campaign before only champions Manchester City, with 95, and runners-up Liverpool, with 89, bagged more.
Similarly, the season before that one, only City and Liverpool scored more than Arsenal, who were joint-third with arch-rivals Tottenham on 74.
It takes time to sort teams out, of course, and Arteta has clearly been working on the old adage that if you don’t concede you’ll at least earn a point in every game.
That has come at a cost, though, with Alex Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang struggling with just eight goals apiece this season and well off the level both should be at.
It’s not as if there weren’t any strikers available in the build-up to this season, either, with Ollie Watkins and Callum Wilson both going on the relative cheap.
Both have scored two more goals than Lacazette and Aubameyang, and Wilson has done it in a team that is fourth from bottom and massively in a relegation scrap.
And both would surely have opted for a move to Arsenal to fight for a first-team spot over their moves to Aston Villa and Newcastle respectively.
If there is a lesson for Arsenal there, then they will already know that they have to make a move Brentford’s Ivan Toney this summer.
He is tearing it up in the Championship and, while still raw, he’d come at a relative snip and would love to show he has what it takes at the top level.
Even if he cost £20million to £25m, he’d be an excellent investment because, aged just 24, there’s still plenty of time to polish up his raw talent.
Toney’s salary would be a fraction of Aubameyang’s and Lacazette’s but his hunger would be more than a match.
