Arsenal must sort out their recruitment before Mikel Arteta can challenge top sides like Man City

Tight purse strings: Mikel Areta
PA
Alan Smith17 July 2020

Manchester City were less than impressive against Bournemouth. They could easily have drawn. Following on from a five-goal display at Brighton, the drop in form was surprising but also typical of a team secure in second place and looking ahead to more important matters.

An FA Cup semi-final is one of them, of course, though nowhere near as attractive as their Champions League challenge coming up next month.

For that reason alone, Arsenal possibly go into this one with more motivation. Despite beating Liverpool on Wednesday, their chances of qualifying for Europe through a League place look fairly slim. As a result, winning the FA Cup looks like their best chance of using passports next season.

And that is fairly crucial for the club’s finances. Missing out on Champions League money had already hit hard. Denied Europa League cash would box the Gunners into a tighter corner. Mikel Arteta knows that only too well. That’s why he’s been vocal about the club’s spending policy.

How frustrating for him to see vast amounts spent on someone like Nicolas Pepe without a decent return on the pitch. He must wonder what’s going on in the recruitment department.

And that side of things has got to get sorted before Arteta can start to make progress. Closing the chasm in quality between Arsenal and the top sides is hard enough without getting hamstrung by bad decisions from others.

So, what can we say since these teams met in the first game of the restart? Has the gap closed a bit? Well, yes, it probably has, due to Arteta’s work on team shape.

Ignoring that slip up at Spurs, Arsenal look much more capable of sitting in to frustrate opponents. We saw that against Liverpool and we’ll need to see it at Wembley when Pep Guardiola’s boys start pinging the ball around.

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