I would say there’s a lack of consistency in the set piece taking, corner routines especially…they are either very good or fail to beat the first man.

I agree that I wouldn’t set it out as the most important thing when as you say we could be a lot worse off if not for the goals from set piece routines.

Finesse seems to be the most lacking thing. And although I don’t hold much faith in XG, the fact that we have lost the last three games despite having a greater XG count than our opponents does suggest that something is not quite right when it comes to pulling the trigger. I find the whole “Arsenal just want to walk it in” a lazy and tired cliche, but it’s also not without merit…I think we are too often trying to look to set ourselves or pass responsibility when players could take the shot on. There is a bit of an issue of luck given we’ve hit the post and the bar quite a few times this season (more so than I can remember in previous seasons) but it’s relevant in that…when this happens it plays into a players confidence.

Whilst I think we are not creating the chances we did last season, sometimes we are playing with fine margins. The same accusation of being wasteful is something we all voiced at times last season (games where we scored three and four, we could have got five and six). And the deep block is not just something that was used against us last season, take for example the home game against Everton where we won 4-0 but it took that moment of individual brilliance from Saka to score and open the game up…they kept us at arms length before that and we created very little and we looked like we were out of ideas.

Now don’t get me wrong, we clearly have needed a striker but Arteta seems not to like out and out strikers, opting instead for players like Jesus and Trossard who want to be involved in play in midfield. But I think there’s an argument also that our goal scoring issues are as much a case of fine margins as regression in style of play (we are not leaving ourselves any more open to the counter this season than last season)