Arsenal suddenly look broken – now Mikel Arteta must fix their biggest problem

Mikel Arteta told supporters to bring their dinner – but was left apologising to them because Arsenal ended up leaving far too much on the table. There is now a considerable possibility that Manchester City will be back on top in 11 days’ time. That’s why the boos that followed this 2-1 defeat to Bournemouth were about more than the dismally tepid performance, of which Arteta himself said the team did some “very basic things extremely bad”.

Fans can now see failure opening up in front of them. In this match alone, they could see a team that couldn’t respond to what Andoni Iraola did, that didn’t have the urgency or gumption you would expect from prospective champions. There’s a reasonable question over how much that booing helps a team who are still nine points clear – albeit with two games more played – but so much of the response stems from a team not helping themselves.

In this match, Arsenal played the ball back to goalkeeper David Raya 38 times, and he had their second-highest number of passes. You can surmise a lot about how they played from that alone, not least as regards how it signifies Bournemouth’s territorial domination. While most of the aftermath to this will focus on Arsenal, and especially now the grand discussion about “bottling it”, there should be recognition for Iraola.

He followed Pep Guardiola’s Carabao Cup display in doing a number on Arteta , while also following a tactical lead. Arsenal found themselves penned in for so much of the game, with that all the more of a worry given how it was Raya in goal and not Kepa Arrizabalaga. When the Spanish international tried to play it long, then, Viktor Gyokeres couldn’t even get close to it.