The defence improved. Thirty-nine goals were conceded in the league against 48 the previous season; third-tightest defence after Chelsea and Man City as opposed to eighth-best in 2019-20. Twelve clean sheets were two more than during the previous league campaign and fifth-best in the league (ninth-best in 2019-20). Yet, the improvement was not consistent enough to prevent 13 league defeats and 18 in all competitions.

Better organisation, fewer, though far from no individual mistakes, and the rediscovery of a capacity to dig in and defend when backs were to the wall were the key. Without turning this into a stats-fest, the numbers show the defence got better at defusing attacks while the double pivot protected the back line more securely.

On average, Bernd Leno had 30% fewer shots to deal with each game than the previous season. Consequently, we conceded one goal or less in 47 of our 59 games in all competitions.

The defence also became more comfortable playing out from the back to break high presses — even if that was not necessarily true of those watching them doing it. It still looked vulnerable to counterattacks when run at directly and at speed. When the backline got pulled out of shape, it could quickly look extremely ragged.

Thirty-three-year old David Luiz and Gabriel, ten years his junior, settled as first-choice centre backs with Holding and Mari as backups, following the January clear out that saw Sokratis and Mustafi released. David Luiz’s various absences meant Rob played the most games. He benefited from regular football, settling into Arteta’s way of playing and improving all-round, particularly in forward passing.

At full back, neither Bellerin nor Soares could make the right-sided position their own, providing an unexpected opportunity for Calum Chambers to grab. On the left, Tierney, when fit, was an automatic first-choice, but Arteta had to make do as best he could for the frequent periods when KT3 was out, especially after Kolasinac was shipped out on loan. Xhaka was fine there defensively, but at the cost of midfield stability, just as using Saka meant less attacking creativity.

With David Luiz gone, whether Arteta brings in an experienced centre back to partner Gabriel will indicate how much he trusts Holding as the senior right-sided centre back and how much opportunity he will give Saliba to establish his credentials. The manager can probably box and cox his way through another season at right-back if necessary, depending on whether Bellerin and Soares leave. Still, an upgrade would be welcome now and essential at some point. Buying cover and competition for KT3 is an urgent priority.

Goalkeepers

1. Bernd Leno — A couple of howlers that cost goals and some rough spots, especially early in the season, reopened the argument about whether selling Martinez and keeping him had been the right decision. But he consistently produced crucial saves, and his overall performances improved as the season progressed. The final record shows 48 goals conceded in 49 games in all competitions and 16 clean sheets. With ter Stegen injured, Leno will be Neuer’s backup for Germany at the Euros, which speaks to his quality and recovered form.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	35	0	2	3,132
All comps	49	0	6	4,422

13. Alex Rúnarsson — Precious little was seen of the Icelander, which was for the best. An underwhelming if emergency signing that should be undone in the summer.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	0	1	21	15
All comps	5	1	27	465

33. Mat Ryan — On-loan from Brighton since January, the Australian international looked good enough to be competition for Leno, not just an experienced backup. He should be signed permanently or at least secured on loan for the full season.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	3	0	11	270
All comps	3	0	12	270

Out on loan

Dejan Iliev — At 26, he is too old for the U-23s, but the closest he has got to a first-team appearance is sitting on the bench three times. Likely be let go this summer or next when his contract runs out with better-regarded prospects coming up.

Coming up through the ranks

Arthur Okonkwo and Karl Hein, who will likely be keeping for Estonia at the Euros, look the pick of a herd of young keepers at the club. Both 18-year-olds trained regularly with the first team and will be looking to be the ‘third keeper’ next season if Rúnarsson goes.

Full backs

2. Héctor Bellerín — Improvement on the previous season was there but mixed. Hector was still short of his pre-injury best. The conviction grows that he always will be, having lost the half a yard of pace that was crucial to his attacking and defending. Unable to make his old spot his own again, he may leave in the summer after ten years with the club. A fresh start may rejuvenate him.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	24	1	9	2,093
All comps	32	3	14	2,775

3. Kieran Tierney — A player of commitment and character, KT3 was one of the first names on the team sheet when fit. However, injury again restricted his minutes, even if he is the embodiment of Irn Bru — made from girders. Our attack was a more dynamic threat on the left whenever he played. Few defenders in Europe matched his attacking and possession stats, but his defensive ones were disproportionately down the pack. He needs cover and competition.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	26	1	0	2,301
All comps	32	6	3	2,927

17. Cédric Soares — A touch error-prone, but did well enough when called on, including to fill in at left-back. His defensive stats were better than Bellerin or Tierney’s, although worse than his previous season’s. He fell from Arteta’s graces for reasons obscure towards the end of the season. His long-term contract makes it likely the club will try to move him on in the summer if Arteta is not going to play him.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	3	0	11	745
All comps	19	5	20	1,779

21. Calum Chambers — Last summer, who would have expected him to end the season as first-choice right-back, or even when he returned from injury in December? His experience at CB and DM helped him play the way Arteta wants of his right-backs, and he crosses better than Bellerin or Soares. At 26, he is yet to establish himself in the side. With a year left on his contract, next season will be make-or-break.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	8	2	8	752
All comps	11	5	13	1,306

Emergency cover —Xhaka and Saka filled in competently at left-back but at the cost of weakening the team in other areas. A backup left-back is a priority summer signing.

Out on loan

31. Sead Kolasinac — Shipped out to Schalke in January to no one’s dismay, despite being the only cover for KT3, which says it all. He is likely to be sold or given away this summer even though he still has a year left on his contract.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	1	0	3	unknown
All comps	8	2	3	unknown

15. Ainsley Maitland-Niles — Possibly cheating to include him as a full back, but most of his appearances before going out on loan were in that position and he had the potential to make it his own if he had followed Lauren’s example and overcome his misgivings about being converted from a central midfielder into a full back. Hard to see him not being sold unless he has a conversion on the road back from the Hawthorns.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	5	6	8	485
All comps	13	8	10	1,183

Coming up through the ranks

Ryan Alebiosu and Daniel Oyegoke on the right and Joel Lopez on the left appear to be the nominated up-and-coming full backs, but none is ready for prime time. The U-18’s Brooke Norton-Cuffy is a longer-term hope.

Centre backs

6. Gabriel — The pick of our defenders across the season, despite only turning 23 in December, playing his first season in the Premiership and contracting Covid-19 mid-season. A big, burly defender, he was powerful in the air but skillful enough to carry the ball out off defence. The flip side was some ungainly challenges and newbie decision-making. Improvement should come with experience. The raw material of a top-class centre-back is there.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	22	1	11	1,996
All comps	31	1	15	2,806

16. Rob Holding — A solid season re-established Rob in the team after injury. With David Luiz’s missing many matches, he ended up the fourth most used player, with performances improving as the season progressed. He is an unflashy but determined defender first and foremost, but at 25, he still has to make himself an automatic first choice for Arteta. That may happen next season, absent new arrivals, but he will be looking over his shoulder at Saliba’s progress.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	28	2	5	2,557
All comps	36	3	11	3,321

22. Pablo Mari — Like Soares, a loan signing given a permanent contract. Injury restricted him to a handful of games before February. Calm and mostly assured, he paired well with Holding. He is a better defender than he is often given credit. Yet, it is hard to see him displacing Gabriel as first-choice left-sided CB. He will remain a quality backup.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	10	0	7	900
All comps	16	0	13	1,470

23. David Luiz — An influential and enthusiastic figure on and off the field, but missed many games because of injury. However, unlike another Chelsea pensioner, he justified the high price paid for his experience and leadership. One of the best long-range passers at the club, but his defending could be as erratic as heroic. Not renewing his contract was the right decision, and at 34, he leaves the club in good standing.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	17	3	2	1,396
All comps	27	3	5	2,281

Out on loan

4. William Saliba — A rocky first half, mainly with the U-23s when he would have been better out on loan. Once he got to Nice in January, his season picked up, earning increasingly good reviews. Will get a fresh start with Arteta in preseason to determine whether the 20-year old super-prospect is ready for a first-team squad place.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	0	0	0	0
All comps	2	0	2	0

Konstantinos Mavropanos — A second season-long loan in Germany at Stuttgart, was blighted by injury but earned decent reviews when he was fit. The 23-year old Greek last played a senior game for us in December 2019. It is difficult to see him playing another one.

No Arsenal appearances

Released

5. Socrates Papastathopoulos — Left out of the Premier League and Europa League squads at the start of the season and given only a couple of U-23 games. He was released in January, joining Olympiacos with whom he won the Greek Super League.

No Arsenal appearances

20. Shkodran Mustafi — Another frozen out by Arteta as a suspected member of the Özil cabal. Joined Schalke on a free transfer in the January window. With Schalke relegated and his six-month contract expired, he is now without a club.

	Starts	Sub	Unused Sub	Minutes
PL	0	3	6	43
All comps	6	3	7	534

Coming up through the ranks

Daniel Ballard won plaudits and promotion with Blackpool and inclusion in the Northern Ireland squad. Of the young centre-halves at the club, he looks to have the best chance of breaking through to the first team. The U-18s’s Zane Monlouis and Alex Kirk are longer-term prospects. But it is a long time since an Academy centre back made the grade.

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In the business world there is an entire industry devoted to managing change within organisations. Most large organisations now have a Change Management function within them. I find the linguistics of this fascinating.  You will notice that the term used is “Change”.  Not “Progress”.   It is almost as though there is acceptance at the outset that the end result might not be for the better, an implied management downwards of expectations of outcome.  There is a school of thought within the strategic change literature that in order to bring about large-scale change there needs to be an existential crisis, focusing minds on the near future in order to ensure the necessary changes can be brought about within the organisation.   Arsenal, as an organisation as well as a football team most certainly has both needed and is undergoing that change process.  So how are we doing and where do we go from here? 

Organisational Change

Given the years of stasis towards the end of Mr Wenger’s reign, I don’t think anyone underestimated the size of the task at hand.  The implementation of a more modern approach off the pitch to spread the load in terms of squad management, signing, developing and selling players and separating the coaching side from these other activities were all required.  To date, I think it is fair to say that the popular opinion is that we have seen mostly change rather than progress. And there is plenty to be unhappy about.  I suppose that the passing of 2 administrations- those of Gazidis and then the Sanllehi-Edu-Emery triumvirate – can be seen as a good thing given the dysfunctionality and lack of genuine direction that each engendered.  Both of these groups to my mind had, to borrow the immortal words of Ann Widecombe when talking of Michael Howard, something of the night about them.  Even their demise can hardly have been said to have been in any way planned rather than necessary, as a result of what can kindly be called a haphazard approach to running the club.  Of course, in an organisation with a functioning board and some form of external executive level oversight, these fault lines might well have been spotted and dealt with earlier. The policy of not- terribly-benign neglect followed by the owners is ultimately to blame here.   

Over the last season there have, however, been some signs of a change of approach in terms of the off-pitch running of the club.  Having discarded all the internal custodians with so many years’ experience and tacit knowledge both of football and of the club itself, the owners last summer belatedly took on an external adviser, in the form of Tim Lewis, a senior partner at Clifford Chance with a background in corporate law and M&A.  I’m not clear as to his credentials in terms of post-transactional restructuring.  However, he seems to have arrived with that as his remit as he immediately set about a review of the off-field setup, resulting in several high-level changes, most notably the departure of the Howardesque Sanllehi.  He has also been involved in the hiring of Richard Garlick from the Premier League as Director of Football Operations.  Garlick comes with a good reputation in football administration and is, like Lewis, a lawyer by trade.  We can only hope this change is reflected in better oversight of transfers than the last administration showed.   Of course, Edu and Vinai are still at the club and time will tell for how much longer.  Both have some markers against them and a good summer in terms of the ins and outs will need to be had to give them any security of tenure, I would have thought, especially with the arrival of the aforementioned Garlick.

We have also witnessed a restructuring of the sales and marketing side and the spectre of redundancies at the lower levels of the commercial side.  Never pretty but this is the way of the world. I seem to remember a statistic being bandied about that while Manchester City had around 300 permanent members of staff in the organisation, Arsenal’s was over 500. Given the radical difference in business model between the two clubs, and the fact that Manchester City doesn’t have a business model as it is clearly not run as a business at all in any meaningful sense, this just didn’t stack up and so I can understand the need to slim down, notwithstanding the odious human impact of the loss of jobs.  The optics of this couldn’t really have been much worse though, given the pandemic and the performance of some of the more egregiously overpaid members of staff, both on and off the pitch.

I would venture that the structural and organisational changes at the club have ultimately, although belatedly, been very much for the better.   We have now a structure which is beginning to look as though it is approaching fitness for purpose, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple more changes with a view to weeding out underperformers over the coming year.  To my mind, this should be a natural feature of a well planned and run organisation with the executives held to account and not simply kept in place irrespective of their performance.

The Football Side

The football side of the club has clearly undergone considerable upheaval. As on the organisational side, this was necessary.  However, I would posit that the changes on the footballing side are far from being as advanced as those off the pitch. The state of the first team squad, the detail of which I will leave others to discuss in detail, is still well short of where we need it to be.   This was in no way mitigated by the club’s appalling contract strategy, to aggrandize the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey approach seemingly followed up until the season before last.  Allowing players to run down contracts; over-rewarding others with a history of fragility and caprice with respect to performances; signing others for at best opaque reasons; This all has to end.  It is as yet far from clear that we are out of the woods, but we can hope and expect that having cleared out some of the dead wood at executive level and with the eagle eye of Mr Lewis around the club, these mistakes ought not to be repeated.  We saw the first signs of what we hope will be a professional approach towards squad management at in the New Year with the departure of several of the lower and indeed non-performers.   Unfortunately, far more of this is needed simply to rationalize the playing staff without even thinking of then improving the quality, although I dare say the former will of itself lead to the latter.  There are several positions which I think most supporters would agree we need to improve including most obviously right back and central midfield where we are way short of what we used to and indeed want to see.  The extent to which these positions and others can be strengthened will be determined for the most part by the amount we can reduce the wage bill and pull in from transfer fees for the outgoing group of players.  I can count off 10 players, loanees and signings, whom I would happily see leave the club, of whom only Luiz is out of contract in the summer.  I expect to see the great majority of these players go. I wish them well.  But I wish them gone.

The outstanding success of the last year or so has been the breakthrough and development of 3 players in particular. The two from the academy are the source of greatest pride and pleasure.  We all dreamed of being that player, and through them we vicariously live our dreams. Both Saka and Smith-Rowe have come to the fore this season and it has been a pleasure to watch them.  I can’t remember the general level of excitement about the development of young players being higher since the mid-late 80’s saw the youth setup throw up Davis, Adams, Keown, Thomas, Rocastle and Merson in quick succession. 

The other one is Martinelli.  I can only hope that his non-appearance this year has been down to learning from mistakes of the past in terms of overplaying youngsters and nothing more sinister.  It would be churlish not to mention that he was an Edu signing, and under Sanllehi’s watch, so credit where credit is due.  

The re-signing of Balogun, when until the new year it really looked as if we would lose him, was, I think, a genuine sign that we may be beginning to get our house in order. From the admittedly small sample size I have witnessed, he looks to be a genuinely excellent prospect combining lethal finishing with speed, physicality and nous.  We are led to believe there are several others capable of making the step from Walthamstow to London Colney and on to the first team next season and this is a genuine reason for hope.

Much of the groundwork for these players development was done years ago, so I am not sure how much credit the Academy administration under Per Mertesacker can rightly receive.  Clearly though the Academy has been doing something right, notwithstanding this year’s poor performance for the U-23’s.  It should be said that a large number of players who would have expected to play at that level were loaned out this year which will have led the poor overall showing in the league. Steve Bould it would appear has fallen on his sword.  Its always a shame to see a club legend go, but on the understanding that his successor will be an improvement rather than just a replacement, I am happy to postpone making a call on that one.

Which leads on to the performance of the manager.  Let’s put this into context.   A first-time manager, managing a club in disarray off the pitch and sharp decline on it, during a period of global crisis. I don’t know about you, but I think I might well have wilted quite a while ago.  Given the performance in the second half of last season, culminating in very good performances to win both FA Cup and Charity Shield against two of the best sides in the country gave us hope for real development this season.  Unfortunately, the first 15 games of the season gave us a metaphorical kick in the nethers as far as those hopes were concerned.  At times during that period, and even since, we have appeared as incoherent and plan-less as at any time under Emery or the later days of Mr Wenger.   The second half of the season saw a spectacular improvement in terms of points gained if not necessarily performances.  I think Arteta can rightly be criticised for overplaying some players, one in particular, quite outrageously.  Also tactically there have been times when he seems to have outthought himself.  Playing Xhaka at left back works to an extent but really shouldn’t be contemplated beyond anything other than the most extreme of circumstances.   He has to learn from these mistakes, not just so as not to repeat them. He also needs to develop a coherent style.  There are just too many games when it is just not apparent what he has asked the team to do on the pitch beyond maintain possession of the ball.  This is all very well and I’ve yet to see the team that scored when they didn’t have possession.  But for too many games we have had to witness aimless “Horseshoe Football”.  Next season, with (deity of choice willing) the crowd back in the ground, I don’t think this will be tolerated.  There are times this season when I think the chorus of disapproval which has sadly been present for much of the 5 years or so would most likely have made its presence felt.  I hope he appreciates this and uses what will be his first genuine off-season period to reflect accordingly.

To return to where I started, I am hopeful that there are signs of progress off the pitch. More, much more, of the same please. On the pitch, we’re still in the change rather than progress state for me. I do however see the green shoots of recovery. Certainly, enough to look forward to next season and get behind the club and manager.