The story of Arsenal’s 2023/24 season
My sense is that I am writing an article on a season that has not fully concluded. We have theoretically lost the league (for the second consecutive season) to a team facing 115 charges and they must soon face the scrutiny that those charges will bring. So any analysis of our season has an element of an unfinished piece of business. Certainly any assessment of our performance must be viewed in this light. I wrote a summary of our first half in January and should have added..… ‘to be continued’.
So, let us resume our assessment of the season following on from that piece in January. When I wrote that, we had just lost three successive games. We had fallen from first on December 23rd after drawing at Anfield to fourth after a second successive league loss at Fulham. We had also exited the FA Cup at the third round stage losing 2-0 at home to Liverpool in a game that we dominated .
Conclusions on our first half of the season were inevitably coloured by that dip in our form but there were other misgivings when we interviewed a number of GHF posters a few weeks before. There was a feeling that our form had not touched the levels we had reached the season before; there were serious reservations about the decision to replace Ramsdale with Raya; and opinion was divided about whether Kai Havertz would come good and what his best position was. But there was no division of opinion on Declan Rice who impressed everybody with his seamless transition to a new club and his ability to adapt to different roles – a 6 or 8 without a mis-step. What we hadn’t necessarily factored in was that Arteta had realised that to deal with the intensity of a full season you had to build up to your best form and that our performances would improve over the season whereas last term we had started like a rocket and struggled to maintain that form as the campaign wore on.
Mikel decided to take the team to Dubai in the mid-season break and whatever he did or put into the water or into our meals on that trip it had an incredible effect.
We returned with a home fixture against Crystal Palace. One assumes that we had been practicing set pieces (and certainly Rice started to take all corners on the left wing) and we brushed Palace aside 5-0. Two late Martinelli goals embellished our performance and Gabriel scored one and forced an own goal from corners in the first half. It was all too much for Roy Hodgson who disappeared from the Palace hot seat shortly afterwards. We followed this up with a 2-1 win at Nottingham Forest, the late goal we conceded being the last conceded away from home until deep into April. It was also the last time that Gabriel Jesus scored for us although his campaign was heavily disrupted by injury.
When we welcomed Liverpool back to Ashburton Grove on February 4th it had the feeling of a very significant game. We played similarly to how we had performed in the FA Cup but Saka’s early goal gave us an advantage squandered by a bizarre defensive mix-up that allowed Diaz to level on halftime. That was not to be the biggest defensive mix-up of the game however as midway through the second half Van Dijk and Allison presented Martinelli with a gift in front of a highly grateful North Bank and a late Trossard goal confirmed an excellent victory. It felt like a Rubicon had been crossed as Liverpool were carrying all before them up to that point and it seemed to set off a confidence and flow in the Arsenal team that was quite thrilling. After match celebrations massively wound up Jamie Carragher so it was a highly productive day for us all!
We started to illustrate our increased confidence with a 6-0 win away at West Ham, going 4-0 up by the interval. This was a team that had beaten us a few weeks before at home! Declan Rice capped off the performance with a majestic strike for our sixth goal. The following week we trounced Burnley at Turf Moor 5-0 with consummate ease and we began to see Havertz grow into the false 9 role in a highly effective manner.
Then the Champions League resumed. It was a rude shock to lose a tight game 1-0 with a last minute goal in Porto who proved themselves to be a very canny and well-organised team. That result underlined that even this Arsenal team was occasionally prone to moments of inexperience. More normal service was resumed in the League at home to Newcastle. A comfortable 4-1 win illustrated the increasingly influential role that Havertz was playing and the excellence laced with extreme diligence that Ødegaard brought to the team.
Our next game was away to the seemingly doomed Sheffield United. I only caught the second half live by which time we were 5-0 up! It represented the biggest mismatch I have ever watched in the Premier League. Ben White scored the pick of our goals illustrating how effectively he has reinvented himself as a right back with an ability to invert and get forward into scoring positions.
The following home game against Brentford saw the temporary replacement of Raya with Ramsdale as the Spaniard couldn’t play against the Bees. Unfortunately with Arsenal coasting following a Rice goal, Ramsdale allowed Wissa to close him down and charge down his clearance…into the Arsenal net. Ramsdale later redeemed himself with two superb saves and a late header from Havertz ensured Arsenal clinched the three points. Porto were our next visitors in the second leg of the Champions League tie. Trossard put us level on aggregate after a wonderful Ødegaard pass. But the sides had to settle things with a penalty shootout as no further goals were scored. Raya emerged the hero on the night with two fine saves and we netted four quality penalties to progress to a last eight tie with Bayern Munich.
We then travelled to the Emptihad for the summit meeting with C115y. With the benefit of 20:20 hindsight a number of people, including Rodri, are claiming that our 0-0 draw revealed a lack of ambition. I recall it slightly differently based on my recollection of the game a year before when we attempted to cross swords with C115y and came off worse. Our defensive performance was a masterclass and given that we had a better goal difference than C115y it left us at the end of the game in a better position than they were. It was also the most powerful illustration of how much progress we had made as a team in the last twelve months both in psychological and in football terms. We returned home for a comfortable midweek win over Luton, the only game in which Arteta rotated in the likes of Smith Rowe and Nelson as starters. We followed this with another comfortable away win at Brighton, a team that had caused us problems last season. A Saka penalty and second half goals from Havertz and Trossard saw us win with very little stress, a good thing given our next game was a Champions League quarter final against Bayern Munich! The first leg was at our place and brought home to everyone what we had missed during our exile from the competition. We went into the game as marginal favourites and Saka’s early strike gave us a wonderful start . But Raya and Gabriel’s misunderstanding let in Gnabry to score and Sane’s pace, which was too much for Kiwior, forced a penalty, coolly despatched by Harry Kane. Arsenal rallied in the second half and Trossard slotted home to equalise. A late, controversial decision to ignore a penalty shout for a challenge on Saka by Neuer, was ultimately to prove very significant.
This was the moment when our form temporarily dipped. Our next game was at home to Aston Villa and it followed hot on the heels of a shock home defeat for Liverpool by Crystal Palace. Two late goals after Arsenal had dominated the first half gave Villa a victory that was so harmful to our title challenge. We moved on to Munich and played a sound, tight game against Bayern which was settled in their favour by a diving header from Kimmich, the only goal of the game. It was a game that illustrated that we were not as dangerous in the crunch matches against top teams. We had scored freely against most Premier League sides and had a huge goal difference. But we drew blanks at Newcastle , Villa and C115y as well as in Europe against Porto and Munich. Yet, despite going out in the last eight, our performances in Europe had been encouraging and hugely educational and we looked excellent defensively during most of our European campaign.
This was a crunch moment in the season. Out of Europe and beaten by Villa would we see Arsenal’s league challenge tail off? The answer was an emphatic ‘No!’ We travelled to Wolves, winning a scrappy game 2-0 with goals by Ødegaard and much to the delight of Anne Hathaway, Leo Trossard. Three days later, we pulverised Chelsea 5-0 at the Grove. It was a dream moment for Kai Havertz who scored two and for Ben White who also notched a brace. Trossard had opened the scoring a few minutes in.
This was great preparation for our biggest derby game, the North London Derby, at the Toilet Bowl. It was a supremely eventful game. Sp**s started well but found our ability at set pieces hard to nullify. We scored first when Højbjerg notched an own goal and then after Van de Ven had a goal disallowed and a weak penalty shout was dismissed, we caught them with a classic break and Saka finished beautifully from a superb Havertz pass. When Havertz headed in from close range before half-time we looked home and hosed and probably would have been had Raya, under little pressure, not chipped a pass to Romero and then Declan Rice volleyed Sarr’s nether regions (accidentally!) for a clear penalty. We held out to win 3-2 in a game where we had clearly looked tactically and technically superior to our North London neighbours (not that they agreed!) but we had inflicted pressure on ourselves.
We were now dependent on C115y dropping points and at the same time needed to be faultless on our run-in. This began with a home game against Bournemouth which we handled very well. A Saka penalty on halftime gave us the lead and Trossard and Rice clinched an important win. Our next game came after C115y had won effortlessly at Fulham and reduced our advantage in goal difference. The pressure was relentless but we withstood a deluge (of rain not football) at Old Trafford. That was more disconcerting than anything United threw at us after Trossard again put us ahead in the first half. Our hope was that Tottnumb would be able to continue their excellent record at the Toilet Bowl against C115y. The build-up to the game revealed the huge inferiority complex that they have in relation to Arsenal. Over half the Sp**dz fans surveyed indicated that they wanted their team to lose and some claimed that they would prefer relegation rather than an Arsenal title success. In reality, their team performed decently and although falling behind, they missed a golden chance to give Arsenal a huge helping hand when Son, clean through, shot straight at Ortega. Their eventual 2-0 defeat was fatal to their chances of making next season’s Champions League. Had they won, they would have qualified for the Champions League at the expense of Villa. Mr. Levy that’s about £50 million of income you’ve written off! Cry me a river!
And so, to the final games . The Emirates bouncing with atmosphere and emotion was flattened by the news seeping through from the Emptihad as Foden’s goals gave C115y a stranglehold on the title, but Arsenal recovered after trailing to a wicked free-kick deflection to take a last victory (their 28th of the season, a record for us in the Premier League) with goals from Tomayisu and Havertz.
The pride in what was a magnificent effort was tangible around the ground. 91 goals scored, only 29 conceded, four points taken against each of our two main title rivals and we went unbeaten against top six sides all season. This was a stunning campaign that compares to almost any in the rich history of our club. We await with considerable interest the outcome of hearings that may yet determine the outcome of the title and what may be the future for C115y in the next few years.
Putting your best team on the field
It was amusing to Arsenal fans to see Manchester United, the team that poached our Medical Director struggle with a season-long series of injuries whilst we were able to keep our best team on the field for a large part of the season. Most notably we kept William Saliba fit, so fit in fact, that he played every second of every Premier League game. It does make one wonder how significant that injury was that he sustained last season and the effect it had on our final points tally.
It would be wrong to conclude that we had no injuries this season. We suffered a desperately important one in the very first league game when Jurrien Timber damaged his ACL in the first half and reappeared only in the final minutes of the season against Everton. He looked capable of filling both full-back roles admirably. Ben White had an exceptional season at right back but we struggled to fill the left- back role optimally. Zinchenko inverts but isn’t a great defender and is injury-prone, Tomayisu is a fine one on one defender but is also very injury prone and missed several chunks of the season while Jakub Kiwior is a natural left-sided defender but lacks attacking flair and as Sane illustrated, he also lacks pace .
Thomas Partey began the season at right back but again succumbed to injury and was not able to resume his place in the team until near the end of the season. Watching him in Manchester and against Everton, it was hard not to feel that he doesn’t now provide the defensive steel that we need in the 6 role. He is certainly a player that there may be interest in moving on to be replaced by a more robust model. Fabio Vieira also missed several months with injury and was never really seen back in the team in 2024. His lack of impact and physical fragility suggest he may not be with us next season although that may be because he is sent on loan. If that is to be the case it would be instructive to see if he can cut it physically in the Premier League.
Gabriel Jesùs is the other injury prone member of the squad. He is a highly skilled player with a ferocious work ethic but worries about his recurrent knee injuries coupled with scepticism about whether he is capable of delivering the number of goals we need from someone in his position might threaten his future. Personally I like his flexibility, flair and ability to play so effectively in Europe, allied to his colossal work rate. He is arguably the best pressing forward in the Premier League.
Aside from players who did struggle with injuries, we had a series of players who were ever present or virtually so. Raya didn’t miss a game through injury and the injury records of White, Saliba and Gabriel were excellent. Declan Rice was virtually ever present, Jorginho was regularly available as was Ødegaard and Saka also started regularly despite being kicked from pillar to post for most of the season. Havertz was always available as well, apart from suspension. Martinelli picked up some understandable niggles and was the one player who failed to recapture his form of the previous season although he showed no lack of effort or application.
One huge benefit was that we only had two players sent off last season. Tomayisu (in farcical circumstances) at Palace and Vieira against Burnley. We also had only one suspension (Havertz) from a totting-up of yellow cards which showed admirable discipline and continued a trend which began last season. It represents a big change from Arteta’s early days and reflects the fact that he is a manager who improves incrementally by absorbing knowledge and positive habits and imbuing his team with discipline and common sense .
Player of the season
This is a fierce area of debate. It is possible to make very valid cases for a number of players, all of whom have contributed massively. At the game on Sunday a number of us discussed this and cited White, Gabriel, Saliba, Rice, Ødegaard and Saka as worthy contenders. After chewing it over we reluctantly dropped Saka who we deemed less effective than he was last season. That’s harsh because he is a wonderful player but the bar this season is incredibly high. Ben White has been a revelation. He has improved and reinvented himself every season that he has been with us. He was one of the finest centre backs in the country and is now not only a fine defensive full-back but is a superb attacking one too. He is a consummate crosser of the ball and he earns merit points for undoing Vicario’s gloves and being a highly inventive irritant at corner kicks!! Saliba and Gabriel have been a magnificent partnership. Gabriel was out of the team at the start of the season but as soon as he returned, played consistently well. He is one of the most dangerous attacking centre backs and complements Saliba brilliantly. Saliba is an absolute Rolls Royce of a player. I cannot believe Didier Deschamps prefers Upamecano and Varane to him. Saliba has the capacity to become even better after two superlative seasons. He is mobile, a great footballer and has three times made Haaland look like a floundering , awkward Cabbage Patch doll.
Yet he has (hopefully) still more levels to rise to. My choice for our player of the year comes down to Declan Rice or Martin Ødegaard. I was thrilled when we signed Rice and it is fair to say he significantly exceeded my expectations. He has played equally well as an anchor in front of the back four or in a box to box role. He has been a marvellous example of a mature and supremely professional player. He fits perfectly into the Arsenal brand. The song is right – we did get him half price! But notwithstanding all of that, I’m going to choose Martin Ødegaard as player of the season. He is a superb player, a brilliant passer, a fine, mature and committed captain and he has a marvellous work ethic. It is hard to believe that even a side like Real Madrid can part company with a player of his quality. As the players circled the pitch after the Everton game and despite intense disappointment his bearing was impeccable. It is also important to note that if Kai Havertz had begun the season like he ended it he too would have been in contention. I unreservedly withdraw my allusions to Nosferatu when describing his game, Arteta reinvented him and he became a massive attacking asset. We are truly fortunate to have players of this quality. They have all been outstanding this season.
We’ve got super Mik Arteta
Recently searching for a post by our great leader I looked back at the debate about who should succeed Unai Emery. I then scrolled forward to some of the moments when Arteta came under pressure, particularly when we lost three games in 2021/22 at the start of that season. I am proud to report that this blog never lost faith in him. Although we harboured lingering doubts these were soon dispelled and since then season on season we have, pretty unanimously, rejoiced in his development. Not every part of the Goonerverse can say that .
Arteta is, with the possible exception of his Basque friend, Xabi Alonso , the hottest emerging coach in world football. He has shown the ability to learn from his mistakes, he never ducks a tough decision (e.g., Ramsdale/Raya, Aubameyang and Ozil). But he is more than just a coach. He has built a marvellous connection with the fan base that hasn’t existed since the Invincible season. Perhaps most excitingly, he is aware that he can improve and I think Guardiola knows that he was very lucky to finish ahead of him this season. We are in very good hands. Get that new contract signed Mikel, there is no adequate Plan B!
We also have excellent owners (something I never thought I would say while the Kroenkes were in charge). The emotional intelligence of Josh Kroenke has enabled him to recognise and support Arteta and Edu, who deserves great credit for the work he did in the summer transfer window. I hope he can orchestrate our sales as successfully this summer!
Tim Lewis appears to be a very safe pair of hands and most Gooners are more confident with Richard Garlick in charge as he takes over from Vinai. The balance achieved in the key appointments underlines the experience KSE has in running sports teams. Perhaps most significantly Josh Kroenke stated publicly that the jewel in their sporting crown is ‘in London’. I found that reassuring and satisfying in equal measure.
So what else do we need ?
We are in an incredible position. We’ve made ground season on season and our Nemesis faces a very public examination of its credibility and integrity. No one doubts their quality but there are huge questions to be asked about how they got there and how they can maintain that position given the League’s stricter governance rules .
We have a fine squad but some improvements might be made and with Arteta in charge, he will not be afraid to make them. While I have some reservations about Raya, I accept he is Arteta’s man although I suspect he won’t necessarily be the long-term goalkeeping solution. But Ramsdale will leave and we need an experienced number two. Szczesny would be perfect and despite what I said before I would consider Jordan Pickford if Everton have a fire sale. He would seriously challenge Raya. Left-back has been a problem area but if Jurrien Timber stays fit he would be a great solution there. I’m not totally sold on Kiwior and should Diomande of Sporting Lisbon become available, he ticks the left-footed box and would give us three of the best centre backs in the world. If he is not available, then Guehi of Crystal Palace is a fine, flexible defender.
We are strongly linked with a Turkish left back (Ferdi Kadioglu) who can play on both sides so he might be our defensive recruit this summer freeing up others to cover at centre back
In midfield, I suspect Partey will leave and we will seek someone who can play the holding role. Zubimendi is affordable but seems reluctant to leave Real Sociedad. If he doesn’t come, I wonder if we could persuade Palace to sell us Wharton. I would prefer him to Onana at Everton. Gibbs-White of Forest is a fine young player but woud we use him. Rice would revert to a holding role if Gibbs-White came to the Arsenal.
I think we will buy a flexible attacker who can play wide or through the middle and I think we will look for a young player like Zirkzee or Sesko rather than Toney. Gyokeres is a fine finisher but is very expensive and we might lose the Havertz effect having just brought it to the boil. Those purchases will set us back around £170 million given that we must buy Raya, but we might raise something like £120 million in sales and trim our wage bill. A number of our players will have to leave but I do hope we will keep Smith Rowe. I’d love to see him succeed at the Arsenal.
Arteta has understandably been reluctant to blood young players in a title chase but I expect to see Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly and possibly even Martin Obi join the first-team squad next season.
Exciting times after a wonderful season, one that has filled every Gooner I know with immense pride and enjoyment. It’s tempting after a long season to sit back and forget about the game for a few weeks but I can’t wait for 2024/5 to start. I really do believe it can be a special season!
