The eight-year season of Arsenal continued after their gloomy 1-0 loss against West Ham on Saturday, leaving their title offer in decks.
The Gunners are 11 points on Drift of Liverpool with a competition in hand, but I hope that the team can withdraw that leadership by the day.
Mikel Arteta will be forced to play the rest of the campaign without a recognized No. 9 after losing Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus to seasonal injuries and is struggling to get some consistency from his team with so many important players who miss.
Mirror Football has selected some of the biggest news and gossip with regard to Arsenal after their defeat against the Hamers.
Piers Slams Arsenal
An Arsenal defeat is never complete without hammering their most controversial supporter Piers Morgan.
The disappointing 1-0 home defeat of the Gunners against West Ham has placed a huge dent in their title ambitions, with Liverpool now 11 points free of them at the top of the Premier League table.
Arsenal still has a game in hand to play, but it still seems unlikely that the men of Mikel Arteta can catch the Reds, who are currently inexplicable and underline their strengths by putting Manchester City 2-0 aside for The Etihad.
The team really struggled without a recognized striker in front, because Arteta's experiment to play Mikel Merino as an attacker this time failed after scoring a brace against Leicester. Morgan believes that Arteta is the fault of their lack of options in the event of attack, and claims that he “refused” to sign a new striker and said the club had deteriorated.
“Dear Mikel Arteta … We are now declining under your term of office because of your bizarre refusal to sign a world -class striker,” he wrote in a destructive message on X.
He also contained photos of a large number of Arsenal's top strikers from the past seasons, including Dennis Bergkamp, Ian Wright, Robin van Persie, Thierry Henry and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.
“To concentrate your mind, we need one with the caliber of these guys below,” he added. “So, for God's sake stop to be so damn stubborn and bring us one.”
PSV sign ex-gunners Vooruit
The lack of Arsenal to a recognized No. 9 will be even more striking in bizarre circumstances when they rise against PSV on 4 March, with a former Arsenal attacker who comes to the Dutch side with a free transfer.
PSV has signed former Gunner Lucas Perez for a short-term agreement until the end of the season after his contract in Deportivo La Coruna was canceled by mutual permission. The 36-year-old comes from the Spanish Second Division, where he scored four and helped four this season.
He joins the existing options of PSV Luuk de Jong and Ricardo Pepi and strengthens their team for the rest of the season. Perez will now be set to a reunion with Arsenal when they lock horns in the Champions League last-16 next week.
The Spaniard came to Arsenal from Deportivo in 2016 for about £ 17 million, but was a large transfer flop because he only scored one Premier League goal in 11 performances before he was lent to his old employers.
He later came for West Ham for a season for spells with Alaves, Elche, Cadiz and eventually ended up in Deportivo. Last season he played in the third level of Spanish football and scored 12 times to help the club win back promotion to the Segunda Division.
There may be a few fans who wonder if they could have let Perez go, since he was available for free and their current options were not suitable for successfully completing the season.
Arsenal received potential title nightmare
If you were a gokman, placing your chips on Arsenal to win the title this season would be a bad move given their current perilous situation.
Liverpool look on nailed to secure their first Premier League title since 2020 this season after obtaining a huge lead that looks difficult.
Even if the Reds from now drop points until May, Arsenal will hope that Liverpool loses more than three games, while Arsenal will probably have to win most of their remaining games – all without a striker.
Arsenal plays Liverpool, but only in May in the third pretext of the campaign, and the title can be done and sprinkled in practical terms at that time.
The men of Arteta have 12 games to play with their game in hand. She would hand over 89 points.
However, Liverpool can reach 97 points if they win their remaining 11 games and there is a very real opportunity that their title can be worked for triumph before they meet on 10 May.
That means that the groomers can be confronted with the painful possibility of giving their rivals a honorary nut for that competition.
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