Arsenal's defense is brilliant. The attack Arteta picked is not good enough, and Saturday proved it. One shot on target in the whole match, against a team that hadn't scored at home in five games in all competitions and sits in the relegation zone. Forest were too toothless themselves to punish how bad Arsenal looked going forward.
Arsenal had the ball for long stretches, as much as 75 to 80 percent of it at points, and strung together 629 passes. None of that produced anything like a clear chance until Arteta had already made wholesale changes. Madueke came on at halftime for Eze. In the 66th minute, three more: Timber, Gyökeres, Merino. The goal arrived in the 80th minute, Madueke cutting in from the left and driving a shot that deflected off Jair Cunha past Sels, Declan Rice getting the assist. It's a manager admitting, with his own substitutions, that the first hour of his selected attack had nothing to offer, and going to the bench to fix it.
The defense is carrying this team every week. A clean sheet on the road, and a goalkeeper barely tested. The back line does its job every week while the forwards stand around admiring the possession stats. Arsenal fans will point at the final score and say three points is three points, and in a title race you bank what you can. Fine; nobody's arguing the result is bad. But you can't build a title push on center-backs and a goalkeeper bailing out an attack that manages one shot on target away from home. Eventually a team doesn't miss two big late chances the way Forest did here. Eventually the deflection doesn't fall your way. Then what does Arsenal's attack create on its own?
Glasner said after the game he thought the result felt unfair given how his side played, and that Forest's defensive effort was top level. He's right, and it should sting more than it has. A team sitting in the drop zone, on a run of defeats, with a manager still finding his feet, nearly held Arsenal scoreless. It's an indictment of Arsenal's attack.
Arsenal are back up to second, three points off Manchester City as of this weekend's results, but getting there took a deflected goal in the 80th minute and a front line Arteta had to overhaul by halftime. A Champions League trip to Bayern Munich is next, three days from now, against a team that won't spend 80 minutes missing chances the way Forest did. If Arteta's starting attack shows up in Munich the way it showed up at the City Ground, the defense won't be enough to cover for it, and everyone will finally stop pretending the possession stats mean something.
