Arsenal might consider adding experience to Mikel Arteta’s squad in January after the Gunners boss accepted that his players must ‘eradicate’ disciplinary issues. William Saliba received the club’s third red card in eight games when he was given his marching orders against Bournemouth.
The centre-back followed Declan Rice and Leandro Trossard in being dismissed for wholly avoidable reasons. Trossard’s poor back-pass left Saliba in trouble, with the Frenchman hauling down Evanilson, who was deemed to be through on goal.
Arteta has argued out that all three scenarios were relatively different, although red cards shown to Rice and Trossard were for a similar principle – second yellow cards for delaying the restart.
“Playing with 10 men there is obviously an issue,” he stated. “When you analyse the three different actions and the outcomes it’s very different. We cannot continue to play with 10 men. The task becomes almost impossible. We need to eradicate that.”
Arsenal have generally focused on signing younger players with a view to developing them into big stars. However, Arteta and sporting director Edu might want to ditch that plan for January.
In a title race likely to go down to the wire once again, Arsenal cannot afford to lose players to cheap red cards. They might need signings in the mould of Jorginho, an experienced and streetwise midfielder bought from Chelsea in January 2023.
While the Italian is not a guaranteed starter, his leadership has been enormously valuable within Arsenal’s young squad. Arteta needs players able to keep a cool head and not make critical errors in highly emotional moments.
Rice echoed those sentiments after Arsenal’s 2-0 defeat against Bournemouth, telling Sky Sports: “The fact of the matter is that we’ve kicked ourselves in the foot this season, three times in eight games. We’ve got away with it twice, home to Brighton and away to City. it’s not all the time that luck can go your way.”
The midfielder added: “The naivety of it is we need to stop making mistakes because we want 11 players for 90 minutes. That’s what wins you football matches. That’s the way I’m seeing it today.”
January is a difficult window for clubs to make major signings, particularly for older players on bigger contracts. But with Manchester City and Liverpool stealing a lead on them in the Premier League title race, Arsenal need to be almost perfect if they are to finish top this season. They therefore need more experience.
