Arsenal need to wake up, they are light years away from the Champions League

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So far the Mikel Arteta bandwagon has been careering through north London at a pace not dissimilar to that of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang during a counter attack.

But against Olympiacos tonight, however, Arsenal were given an almighty wake-up call about how far they still have to go.

Earlier this week in London we saw Bayern Munich come to town and dismantle Chelsea 3-0 and this performance from Arsenal highlighted how they are light years away from that.

It was pedestrian and sloppy - everything we haven’t come to expect from an Arteta team. In fact, if anything, it resembled a performance from the final days of Unai Emery.

Olympiacos held no fear coming here and the first half resembled a boxing match where both opponents were sizing each other up and afraid to throw a punch.

As soon as the Greek side realised Arsenal were there for the taking, they swung like Tyson Fury last weekend and their goal after the break was no more than they deserved.

How it came about characterised the sloppy nature of the Gunners’ performance as Pape Abou Cisse was able to stroll into the six-yard box unmarked to head home.

David Luiz and Shkodran Mustafi have been two of the best performers since Arteta was appointed, but they were no one to be seen at this moment.

In the end, Arsenal were punished as even a piece of brilliance from Aubameyang couldn’t save them and this performance should act as a reminder to Arteta about the work he still needs to do.

Action Images via Reuters

And perhaps this is, however, just what Arsenal needed given how well everything has gone so far in 2020.

They had been unbeaten so far until now, but this performance exposed some potential problems in the team that Arteta will need to address.

The attack is still struggling to click and like tonight showed it is becoming so reliant on Aubameyang that if he isn’t on song they struggle for goals.

REUTERS

Behind the forwards Dani Ceballos, who has looked assured in recent weeks, showed how at times he and Granit Xhaka as a midfield pairing is seemingly too lacking in dynamism.

These are problems that have been masked in recent weeks, but this pedestrian performance made them abundantly clear to Arteta.

It was difficult to find any positives on a night like this, but perhaps the fact these issues were laid bare to Arteta may be a blessing in disguise in the long run.

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