EFL Matchday 11 | Takeaways from Arsenal’s 1–1 Draw Against Chelsea

Mikel Arteta is sure to be disappointed after picking up only 2 points from the Gunners’ last 4 games in the Premier League, but there’s good news in the fact that his team has seen the return of Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice, two key pieces in how Arsenal will perform for the rest of the season.

That being said, it has still been an underwhelming season for Arsenal, and this game highlighted many issues, just as much as it showed promise.

Where are the goals coming from?

Tonight, it was Gabriel Martinelli, who got on the end of a beautiful lofted pass from Martin Odegaard to open up the scoring in this game, but the Gunners failed to capitilize on numerous other chances — including a last-ditch effort by Leandro Trossard in the last minute of the game.

Unlike last year, where they were scoring with ease with a number of different scorers each game, Arsenal are struggling to find the back of the net through the first 2 and a half months of the season so far.

Kai Havertz is currently the Gunner with the most goals scored this season (4), but has not scored since they met Southampton last month. Bukayo Saka is next with 3, and the rest of the squad have 2 or less.

In comparison to title rivals Manchester City and Liverpool, who have the two top runners for the golden boot so far in Erling Haaland and Mohamed Salah, it’s not good enough from them.

It’s a question that needs answering, but one may not come until the summer when a certain Swede living in Portugal may be made available for a king’s ransom.

Martin Odegaard hasn’t missed a beat

In his short cameo against Inter, it was hard to make out whether or not Arsenal’s captain was ready to regularly start games again, but after a shaky first half performance, the Norwegian silenced all those doubts.

Odegaard assisted the Gunners’ only goal of the game, and it was a beautiful one — lofted above the defense’s heads and floated right down to Martinelli’s boot, who took a touch before smashing it into Robert Sanchez’s near post.

While not able to produce more magic, his performance was promising nonetheless, and he’ll likely only get better from here.

The left side looked shaky, but a solution may have been found

While things would eventually look better as Declan Rice slipped into a more central role, it was clear that Arteta would not be able to mirror what Odegaard and Saka do on the opposite side with Rice and Martinelli.

It was a noticeable trouble for the Gunners as Rice would end up taking up space and not being able to do much when receiving the ball in those positions, and many have pointed to Gabriel Martinelli’s struggles over the past season as not having enough support on that side, especially when he had Granit Xhaka there to help him.

While that may still be the case, as Martinelli had a much better game when Merino was playing on left-side of a three-man midfield, Arteta may have figured that it’s space that allows Martinelli to produce some end-product for Arsenal’s attack.

In that first half against Chelsea, Martinelli received the ball plenty of times, but was unable to do much with it because there were too many defenders in his way — primarily due to Declan Rice, who didn’t much but look around and stand there while only being, at most, 10 feet away from the Brazilian.

When Rice moved into a central defensive role, the game really opened up for Arsenal — almost immediately, Martinelli’s performance improved from what was a nightmare first half.

15 minutes into the second, and Martinelli runs into, what? Space, and was able to receive Odegaard’s pass and take his time before slotting it into the goal.