60 games, 20 defeats - Arteta out? Arsenal boss running out of time and excuses

This is the first time in Arsenal’s 118-year stay in England's top four tiers that they have lost their opening two games of a league season without scoring a goal.

It is the latest in a growing number of unwanted firsts which have been achieved by Mikel Arteta during his increasingly problematic spell in charge of the north London club.

There have, of course, been some positives along the way, the most notable being that FA Cup win in 2020, but right now that victory against Chelsea at Wembley seems an awfully long time ago.

The Blues have gone on to become European champions since then, and on Sunday they showed at Emirates Stadium why so many believe they will push Manchester City all the way for the Premier League title this season.

But the ease in which they brushed aside Arteta’s team raises yet more warning signs about Arsenal’s prospects this season.

Yes, the Gunners were missing several first-team players, with arguably six guaranteed starters absent due to Covid-19 or injury. But that should not mask the clear issues that exist at Arsenal right now.

“It’s really challenging at the moment,” Arteta admitted after the 2-0 defeat. “We are missing nine players - and the majority of them are big senior players. It’s what we have.

“We put out there a team that will probably be unprecedented in the history of this football club.

“Credit to the boys. They are playing with a lot of courage in this situation, which is tough. They are trying their best - but at the moment it’s not enough to win football matches.”

Sunday’s game was always going to be a tough ask for Arsenal.

With Gabriel Magalhaes and Thomas Partey missing through injury, Alexandre Lacazette and Ben White sidelined due to Covid and new signing Martin Odegaard unavailable due to visa issues following his move from Real Madrid, they were always going to find things difficult against a buoyant Chelsea side boosted by the arrival of Romelu Lukaku.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was at least fit enough to start among the substitutes after returning from his own Covid lay-off, but he had only been able to fit in one training session before the game.

So it was always going to be a struggle, and that is exactly how it proved as Chelsea cruised into a two-goal first half lead that they never looked like they were going to surrender.

The boos that rang around the Emirates as the half-time whistle sounded told their own story.

“When you’re 2-0 down at half-time, nobody is going to be happy,” Arteta said, when quizzed on the reaction of the Emirates crowd.

“We’d be fooling ourselves [as] a club with this rich history, if anybody is going to be happy at half-time with that.”

These are increasingly difficult times for Arteta. The season may be just two games old, but the Spaniard’s position is already under real scrutiny.

Arsenal have invested around £130 million ($177.5m) this summer in a bid to claw back the gap that has emerged between themselves and the Premier League’s top six in recent seasons, yet right now they look like a side who will be fortunate to scrape a top-half finish.

With a trip to Manchester City to come on Saturday, there is a the very real chance that the Gunners could go into the international break at the end of the month sitting bottom of the Premier League without a single point or goal to their name.

Things certainly look like they could get worse before they get better.

There is no suggestion yet that Arteta’s job could be under threat at this early stage of the campaign, but he will be well aware of the importance of getting some points on the board as quickly as possible.

“Everyone at Arsenal is determined to drive our club forward,” owner Stan Kroenke and his son Josh wrote in an open letter to supporters that was published in the matchday programme on Sunday.

“There are many challenges ahead, but with your support and encouragement we are confident we will return to competing for and winning the game’s biggest trophies.”

Judging by what we have seen during the opening 10 days of the Premier League season, however, it is going to take far more than just ‘support and encouragement’ for Arsenal to be winning football’s biggest trophies any time soon.

The fact is they are miles off, and Arteta is rapidly running out of time and excuses.

He has been in charge for nearly two years now and the progress has been minimal at best.

Take the FA Cup win out of it and he has two eighth-placed league finishes to his name and overseen a transfer spend of over £200m which has yet to yield any sort of significant results.

But perhaps more importantly, the football his team are serving up on a weekly basis is increasingly difficult to watch.

When Arteta first arrived to replace Unai Emery, David Luiz spoke about how the Spaniard had helped bring the fun back to playing for Arsenal.

But now, little more than 18 months later, you see very few people smiling when they watch Arsenal play football - aside from their rivals perhaps.

“When players get back, I think it will be completely different,” Arteta said in the aftermath of Sunday’s defeat.

“Hopefully we will see a different squad, a different level in the way we can play - and different results. Then the story can change.”

The problem for Arteta, however, is that it is difficult to see things changing, even when the likes of Odegaard, Partey and White are available.

Sunday’s meeting with Chelsea was his 60th Premier League game in charge of Arsenal. He has lost 20 of those matches. This is not a blip brought on by an injury crisis, losing is the norm under his watch.

If that does not change quickly, then he will be out of a job. It is as simple as that

There is no doubt that Arteta is an immensely talented coach, but the question marks over whether he could transform that into being a successful manager remain firmly unanswered.

The period of games coming up after the international break, when Arsenal take on Norwich City, Burnley, Tottenham and Brighton will go a long way to determining the 39-year-old’s future.

Publicly he remains defiant, and he was adamant after Sunday’s defeat that it was only a matter of time before results started to go his way.

“Yes, 100 per cent,” he said, when asked whether things would look different once he had a full squad at his disposal.

Only time will tell whether that will actually be the case, with the uncertainty that currently surrounds Arsenal making almost anything impossible to predict.

There is only one thing that can be said with any certainty, and that is that Arteta needs to turn things round very quickly.

If he doesn’t, then the axe will fall sooner rather than later.