Arsenal\u2019s 1\u20131 draw at Brentford left their lead trimmed to four points with 12 games to go and underlined persistent issues as the season reaches its business end. Gabriel Martinelli\u2019s late opportunity, created by Jurri\u00ebn Timber\u2019s stoppage-time lofted pass, might easily have produced a different narrative had the effort cleared an onrushing Caoimh\u00edn Kelleher.<\/p>\n
First, the result keeps Manchester City, described here as a flawed team, within reach. The Gunners have missed several chances to add pressure in 2026 and dropping points at the Gtech Community Stadium is a recurring obstacle for title challengers. It was the texture of Arsenal\u2019s display in west London rather than the scoreline that will worry supporters ahead of the run-in.<\/p>\n
Second, the squad\u2019s fitness issues are acute. Kai Havertz had hit the ground running after returning from a long-term knee injury at the start of the calendar year, but suffered a further setback in the lead-up to Thursday\u2019s game. Havertz is expected to miss the rest of February with a muscle issue. Mikel Merino, who helped cover for Havertz earlier in the campaign, is also out after foot surgery. Those absences forced Mikel Arteta to hand Eberechi Eze a rare Premier League start in the No. 10 role.<\/p>\n
Third, the centre-forward question remains unresolved. Viktor Gy\u00f6keres returned to the starting lineup and arrived in good goalscoring form, yet offered little in combination play apart from the neat pass to Timber that created Martinelli\u2019s chance. He was comfortably marshalling by Sepp van den Berg and finished the evening with a 47% pass completion from 17 attempts and 29 touches, the fewest among all starters, per FotMob. Gy\u00f6keres can kick the ball really hard, but he\u2019s anything but a title-winning centre forward. There are just too many flaws that are unlikely to be improved at this stage of his career. He is what he is, and teams, realising that, don\u2019t need to pay anywhere near as much attention to him as they may have done at the start of the season, thus inhibiting the rest of Arsenal\u2019s attack.<\/p>\n
Havertz\u2019s ability to ghost in the box, compete fiercely in duels and press efficiently is sorely missed. Arsenal will hope to have him back in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Arsenal’s 1\u20131 at Brentford leaves a four-point lead with 12 games remaining and raises concern. more<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6849,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[192,728,969],"tags":[1312,1359,767],"class_list":["post-6850","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arsenal","category-brentford","category-premier-league","tag-arsenal-fitness","tag-arsenal-injury","tag-caoimhin-kelleher"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}