Arteta says one huge Arsenal problem was there before he arrived

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Arsenal’s biggest problem this season is scoring goals – or not scoring goals, as it were.

So far, Mikel Arteta’s side have found the net only 10 times in as many Premier League games.

And even worse, three of those came in an opening-day win over Fulham at Craven Cottage, which means they have scored seven in their last nine matches in this competition.

For a team with ambitions to break back into the top four, it just isn’t good enough for the Gunners.

Even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang can’t seem to buy a goal these days and has only found the net once in the Premier League since his lucrative contract extension in September – and that was a penalty.

The 31-year-old has scored 56 times since arriving in England’s top flight nearly three years ago and when he’s on song, Aubameyang is one of the division’s best and most ruthless strikers.

But when he isn’t scoring, nobody else at Arsenal is either and Arteta – who was appointed as Unai Emery’s successor almost a year ago – claims that there’s nothing new here, arguing that the Emirates Stadium side have been too reliant one on man ‘for years’.

He said on the club’s official website: “If you look in the last few years, how the team has shared the goals in the Premier League, it’s been quite limited. That’s not an issue that is happening now, it’s an issue that’s been happening for years. That has to be resolved. To put almost 80 per cent of that responsibility on one man is not fair. As a team, we have to resolve that.”

Arteta is right to some extent, because without Aubameyang’s goals Emery would have spent a lot less than 18 months in charge of the North Londoners.

But even still, it’s now his responsibility to resolve it. It doesn’t matter if Arsenal have had this problem for one year, two years or five years – Arteta is the man in charge and he’s the one who ultimately suffers if he can’t find the ‘resolution’ he’s talking about.