“This is what we’ve been talking about for months”

Micah Richards has suggested that the reason behind Arsenal’s recent wobble is that they are not creating enough chances, insisting that they have been reliant on scoring from set-pieces.

Arsenal suffered a shock 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday, leaving the door ajar for Manchester City in the title race. Following Saturday’s loss to the Cherries, the Gunners now hold a six-point lead over City, who have a game in hand.

Speaking on The Rest is FootballRichards disagreed that Arsenal are ‘imploding’ but instead attributed their recent poor performances to inadequate creativity and added that their display against Bournemouth was ‘very poor’.

“We’ve had this conversation and I feel like I repeat myself all the time, Arsenal are not creating enough chances,” Richards said. “That has been their problem for a while and this is not reactionary; this is what we’ve been talking about for months now.

“Set-pieces have been getting them over the line. When they get a set-piece, they grow into a game and they have confidence. That is one aspect of it. Yesterday (against Bournemouth), they were very, very poor.”

Mikel Arteta’s side are winless in three of their last four matches across all competitions. With only six league games remaining, they face a challenging task as they prepare to face a revitalized Manchester City side in their next Premier League match, which could potentially determine the title.

Gary Lineker agrees with Richards over Arsenal’s lack of creativity

Gary Lineker, who is also a co-host on the podcast, stated that Arsenal completely lacked creativity in their home defeat to Bournemouth. Throughout the encounter, the north London side managed only three shots on target and took 52% possession, a statistic that laid bare their dip in form.

“Nothing, did they? No creativity whatsoever,” Lineker added. “Didn’t seem to be any belief. They weren’t even very good defensively, and that has generally… they’ve been able to be guaranteed that they were pretty strong defensively.”

Speaking after the match, Gunners boss Mikel Arteta described the defeat as a ‘big punch in the face,’ admitting that they performed ‘extremely badly’. The Spaniard also added that the performance was far from their standards and stressed the need to improve.

It remains to be seen how the Premier League leaders will respond to their latest setback. They will look to end their near misses in the league, having finished runners-up in each of the last three seasons.