The Gunners great was less than impressed by what he saw at Emirates Stadium on Sunday, with the hosts slipping to a 3-0 defeat
Ian Wright says the display of Mikel Arteta’s team in a 3-0 home defeat to Aston Villa on Sunday was “as bad a performance as I’ve seen from an Arsenal side”.
The Gunners great has pulled no punches in his assessment of an abject outing at Emirates Stadium.
Arsenal had headed into a meeting with Villa buoyed by recent results at home and abroad, however, consistency is proving to be an issue for the north London outfit once again.
One step forward continues to be followed by another in the opposite direction, with Arteta’s team still very much a work in progress.
That was highlighted against Villa, with Arsenal taking in an evening to forget as they were made to look distinctly average by Dean Smith’s side and saw big-money summer signing Thomas Partey pick up an unfortunate injury.
“It's as bad a performance as I've seen from an Arsenal side when you consider only two of them were playing in midweek,” former Gunners striker Wright told Match of the Day.
Arteta had made a number of changes for a Europa League victory over Molde, but reverted back to his tried and tested versus Villa.
“It was poor in every department,” added Wright. “They need to break the lines, they need space to hit the ball into, they were dithering on the ball.
“It was a million miles away from the performance against Manchester United [where they won 1-0]. They were streets ahead of us.
“The effort and work rate from a team that was rested was nowhere near good enough.
“You need to impress your game upon them.
“There's a lack of a central midfielder that can create what [Arteta] needs, but you can't go into a game like that.”
Wright would appear to be suggesting that Arsenal are lacking guile in the middle of the park, having seen Ghana international Partey bring much-needed graft.
Arteta does have plenty of creativity at his disposal, but the World Cup-winning talents of Mesut Ozil have been cast aside and many have questioned the decision to omit the former Germany international playmaker from domestic and continental squad lists.