Three big mistakes Arsenal have made this season

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The Gunners currently sit fourth in the Premier League table.

Arsenal’s start to the season has been fairly impressive, but that’s not to say that there have not been some rough patches along the way. Here’s a look at what could be the Gunners’ three biggest mistakes thus far this season.

Lack of rotation

A blessing and a curse for Arsene Wenger this season is that he has finally found his best possible team. However, this has left Arsenal open to all sorts of problems; overplaying players, becoming predictable and injury woes have all stemmed from the persistence with the same lineup and it is already jarring the Gunners.

The likes of Santi Cazorla, Nacho Monreal and Theo Walcott have all been affected by injury already in this campaign and, with a squad possessing the size and quality of Arsenal’s, it’s maddening for them to not utilise it more often.

Arsenal’s Santi Cazorla in action with Swansea City’s Neil Taylor

Leaving it late

While they do now boast one of the more impressive squads in the Premier League, it wasn’t always that way; early on in the season there was significant fan unrest due to the lack of activity, with Granit Xhaka the only major incoming signing going into the final days of the window.

This lack of business meant Arsenal were forced to play Calum Chambers and Rob Holding in the first game of the season against Liverpool, and their fragility seeped into the rest of the squad as the Gunners were blown away in a 20 minute spell. It’s certainly worth considering whether, had Shkodran Mustafi arrived much earlier, he’d have been a calm and experienced head in the Arsenal back line.

Arsenal’s Rob Holding

Plan B problems

For the most part, Arsenal’s forward line have been scintillating to watch this season. However, there have been a few occasions already on which they have not clicked and an appropriate ‘plan B’ has not been readily available.

Games against physical and tightly-packed defences such as Burnley and Middlesbrough have proved difficult as Arsene Wenger’s men struggled to find a way through. While they snatched a controversial late goal at Turf Moor, they were totally shut out against Boro and it begs the question whether a more varied approach would have been more profitable.

Middlesbrough’s Victor Valdes saves from Arsenal’s Alexis Sanchez