Our expert panel casts its eye over Arsenal and wonders what they need to change to become Premier League champions - and whether they can win the Champions League.
Watch the full video on www.shotstv.com.
Watch the full video on www.shotstv.com.
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00:00Hello, I'm Matthew Gregory and welcome to the Premier League panel. This week we're going to
00:08take a look at Arsenal and figure out why they fell short of a serious title challenge in the
00:12Premier League, whether they can win the Champions League and what they need to do this summer to
00:16catch up with Liverpool. To help me work out what the Gunners need to do to finally become
00:21champions again, I'm joined as always by some expert guests. London World's Dylan Oakley is here,
00:27as is the Sunderland Echo's Jason Jones. Dylan, I suppose in order to work out what Arsenal need
00:33to do over the summer, what they need to do to improve, we need to figure out what went wrong
00:37this season. I know what went wrong is relative, they're still second in the league as we talk,
00:40look likely to finish runners-up the third time in a row, but they will be disappointed by the size
00:45of the gap to Liverpool, you would think. So when you watch them play, where do you think the flaws
00:50are? What's not quite right? Yeah, it's interesting because I think this season was such a big chance
00:56for them to win the league, especially with the likes of City falling off, you know, quite a lot
01:02from the past two years. And actually, I think in the way that they play, there's no reason why they
01:07can't be Premier League champions, in my opinion. I mean, their defence is the best in the league,
01:13realistically. Obviously, Gabriel's injured now, but for the most part of the season, having the
01:17partnership between Gabriel and Saliba, you know, they're well set up there. And then the likes of
01:24Timber and Lewis Skelly, obviously Lewis Skelly sort of emerged this season, but
01:29on the sort of planks and defence, I think they're pretty well set there. I think midfield relatively
01:35good as well. Declan Rice has obviously been fantastic. Odegaard's received a lot of criticism
01:40this year, but you know, he's not, you wouldn't say he's had a bad season necessarily. He's maybe
01:45just not quite scored or assisted as much as in previous years. And so it does come down to the
01:52attack really. To be honest though, I think the season was almost lost for them when Saka got
01:57injured, I think, because without their, obviously having, they don't have that sort of firepower up
02:04front, apart from with Saka in the team, you know, because of his creative abilities. He had 15 assists
02:11before he got injured. And I think he was still the third highest assist leader in the league by the
02:17time he came back. And he obviously hadn't kicked a ball since December for about three months. So
02:22I think losing him was a massive, massive blow, especially for the amount of time that he was
02:26out for as well. I'm going to try and stay away from mentioning the striker position for as long
02:32as possible. I was going to say, I'm sure it'll take up plenty of our time. But yeah, I think in
02:40terms of attack, which is, I think where their weakness lies, I mean, I was just looking at the
02:44stats beforehand and Liverpool have scored 75 goals this season. Arsenal have scored 61.
02:49That's a massive gap for a team that are trying to win the Premier League. So I just think, again,
02:54the loss of Saka, I think was huge. And I think actually people probably were downplaying the impact
03:00that Havertz had before he got injured as well. You know, he's not, he wasn't that out and out
03:04striker, but he was popping up with goals for them. And actually he was creating chances too.
03:07So I think that's obviously where the weakness lies. And, you know, it's a huge opportunity missed.