Arteta needs to provide evidence of ‘a better haven’ to justify Arsenal trust as Villa visits the Emirates

The club is fasting losing her DNA under the Spaniard. Fast disappearing from memories are the times when even when losing in a game, Arsenal still dominate the possession and dictate the play in entertaining fashion.

Nowadays, the Arsenal you see are ten players chasing down opposition and struggle to complete four to five passes when they eventually have the ball in the opposition half of the pitch.

Even the teams that are known to not dominate possession have fair share of the ball against The Gooners, and these are not the signs you want when you entrust your club to manager on a long term.

After failing to win in their last two games, it can be concluded that the three straight wins Arsenal managed in the league are against teams who are also very poor and having a bad game against Mikel Arteta’s side.

Norwich for instance are without a win in 13 straight premier league games before facing Arsenal. They are also on the back of concedeing five against Manchester City, three against Liverpool and two against Leicester, yet, Arsenal were able to win by a lone goal, scored in a very messy circumstance.

Against Burnley, who were fresh from concedeing three against Everton, they needed a Martin Ødegaard free-kick to earn a laboured win and in the North London derby, Tottheham were on a run of two losses in the league, hence The Gooners capitalize and made it three.

The scenes so far has not been encouraging. The loss of Granit Xhaka has also been a big blow for them, but Arteta will have himself to blame for signing players not capable of filling in for his regular players in the summer.

But regret will not solve anything at the moment. The former Everton player needs to develop a winning formula and that should be expected to kickstart when they host Aston Villa on Friday night.

Dean Smith side completed the double over Arsenal last season and have arguably better squad now despite losing Jack Grealish with a host of other fantastic players that came in the summer.

Moreso, Villa have won each of their last three games against Arsenal. All the wins have come against Mikel Arteta, right after Arsenal have won seven straight against them before Arteta’s appointment.

An unwanted record which will put the manager under pressure to change when the sides meet on Friday night. Knowing well this could be his chance as Villa have also lost each of their last two games.

For a manager who has never served at any level apart from as an assistant manager, before being appointed, Arteta needs to start presenting the evidence that he could lead the side to a better haven sooner rather than later.

As the competition in the Premier League gets tougher season in and out, Arteta may soon lost the trust of the Arsenal faithful and rightly so, if the poor performances continues.

Only Granit Xhaka is the major absentee for Arsenal while Villa are also expected to be without Trezeguet, who scored the only goal in Villa’s first of the three wins against their opponent.

Bukayo Saka returned to training after recovering from the injury sustained in Monday night draw with Palace and will be in contention to start again at the Emirates.