Arsenal take on Olympiacos in the Europa League on Thursday and the Premier League side go into this match at the back of a 1-1 draw vs Burnley during the weekend.
The Gunners looked very much in control at Turf Moor for most of the match but it was an individual error from Granit Xhaka which helped Sean Dyche’s side equalize and eventually pick up a point.
The two dropped points have made this Europa League game all the more important for Arsenal which is why some experts have claimed that Mikel Arteta could ditch the plan of playing out from the back just to negate any unnecessary panicky situation while playing away from home.
Arteta though has made it clear that one mistake will not force him to ditch his plans but at the same time, he’s asked his players to hold their nerves on the pitch.
“I will always do that[play out from the back] as long as we, all the time, follow our principles and the rules that we have,” he said, as per Arsenal.com. “It’s the way we play, when we decide when to play, when not to play, the type of football we have to play with the right distances, the right feet.
“If not, we don’t play. If you don’t have the right structure, you don’t play. It’s too risky. It’s what you gain from the risks that are there, and the rewards have to much bigger than the risks. When it’s not, you don’t have to play. If it’s a no-play zone, you don’t have to play.
“It’s very difficult because a lot is expected in the situation of a football match, but then emotionally we have to be much more calm and much more secure.
“We have to manage the games much better in certain situations and that comes with maturity and that comes from learning, so every time you do that hopefully you learn and it doesn’t happen again to the same player, but then something happens to a different one.
“The positive thing is that I think it’s in our control and it’s not something that the opponents are doing and we can’t control it. I think it’s easier to fix but we have to fix it very quickly because if not the margins are so small and you’re close to losing points all the time.”
As per the club’s official website, Arsenal have conceded the most penalties in the Premier League (23), made the most errors leading to a goal (35) and been shown the most red cards (14) since 2017. And these poor defensive records go onto show just how fragile the Gunners backline has been over the past few years.
Olympiacos knocked Arsenal out of the Europa League last season and the kind of unsteady form that the Gunners have been showing in recent weeks, a repeat of the same is very much possible.
Thankfully, the saving grace for Mikel Arteta is that he has almost no injury absentees so he can afford to make heavy rotations to his starting line-up – if he wants to.
