Will Arsenal gamble on Marcus Rashford transfer? Plus Gunners impressed by wonderkid, title race latest & more

Arsenal summer signing didn’t add anything against Everton, Mikel Arteta should’ve made *this* change…

Saturday’s draw against Everton was incredibly frustrating, especially with it coming off the back of the Champions League win against Monaco.

I really expected that success in midweek to lift Arsenal at the weekend, but it just didn’t happen. Everton arrived with a game plan and Arsenal never really looked like having an answer to it.

You can talk about fatigue and point to the fact that Everton had ten days to rest and prepare for the game, but Mikel Arteta’s side should still have been able to find a way to get past them.

They had so much of the ball and so much territory, but to be honest they never really looked like scoring and that was the disappointing thing. It just didn’t look like they had an idea how to break Everton down.

I actually liked the look of the starting XI when it was announced. It looked well balanced on both sides, with players all playing in their natural positions. But I just think too many players had an off day.

It must be noted that Everton played well. They were extremely well drilled and you could see they had spent the past ten days working on exactly how they were going to frustrate Arsenal.

They denied them space, especially down the right hand side and kept things so tight in the central areas.

But it was just as much as Arsenal playing poorly than it was Everton playing well. Martin Odegaard just didn’t look right and he hasn’t for the past few games and we know how much of an impact that has on this Arsenal side.

When Odegaard is on it, Arsenal are a completely different proposition. That’s just undeniable. But when he’s absent or he’s struggling for form, they just don’t have anyone else who can replicate what he does.

Mikel Merino played alongside him on Saturday and you can see he’s still working his way into this Arsenal team. He didn’t do anything wrong against Everton, but he didn’t really add anything in an attacking sense.

He was never really a threat and you never felt like he was going to be the person to prize open the Everton defence.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but I would much rather have seen Mikel Arteta replace Merino with Ethan Nwaneri when the youngster came on early in the second half. Having Nwaneri and Odegaard operating next to each other in those pockets in front of the Everton back four would have given the visitors something a bit different to think about.

Instead it was just all very predictable and in the end they looked very comfortable. There was no real late siege on their goal, in fact Jordan Pickford was barely tested in the final half an hour. Arsenal just ran out of ideas.

I can’t see Arsenal gambling on Marcus Rashford transfer

Marcus Rashford’s name always seems to pop up when it comes to Arsenal these days.

He always seems to be part of the conversation, certainly amongst fans anyway, and that might be the case again as we head towards January given what’s going on with him at Manchester United at the moment.

Do I think he could be an opportunity for Arsenal? I don’t think so to be honest. I’m just not sure he’s what they need.

If he was still the Rashford of a couple of years ago then my thoughts would be different. But if that was the case then he would be playing week in, week out for United right now.

But he’s not and there’s a reason for that. So if Arsenal, or anyone else, were to move for him in January then they would be doing so in the hope that he could rediscover his best form again.

It would just be a bit of a gamble. Similar to what Arsenal did with Raheem Sterling in the summer and that’s certainly not been a gamble that has paid off. Rashford would be a far more expensive one as well.

I do think that Arsenal have to pull something out of the bag in January. It’s clear they need at least one other viable option in the final third, even if it’s a loan deal to get them through to the summer when they can really push for their main targets.

This season has shown they need more. It felt in the summer that they had left themselves at least one attacker short and that was with Sterling’s late loan move factored in.

The fact that Sterling doesn’t even seem to be considered for minutes now, even when the team is desperately in need of a goal, really shows that the squad is probably two attacking players short in terms of where it needs to be.

So January does feel crucial for Arsenal and their ambitions over the second half of the season. It won’t be easy to find what’s needed, but they have to give it a good go.

Are Liverpool and Chelsea reaping the benefits of Man City and Arsenal burnout?

It does look a bit like the last two seasons have caught up a bit on Arsenal and Manchester City.

Both seasons have been so demanding and both teams pushed each other so hard, that maybe they have taken their toll.

From Arsenal’s point of view the effort they put in, both physically and mentally, to try and get past City was huge. And to do all that and not get over the line must have been incredibly tough to take.

It must take a look to pull your sleeves up and go again, so maybe that has been a bit of an issue for them, especially coming off the back of an international tournament summer which meant so few could get a rest.

But it is what it is and they have to find a way to get themselves going again, otherwise this season could simply slip away and that would be massively disappointing.

There is still plenty of time to salvage things in the Premier League and Mikel Arteta’s side are well placed in the Champion League and have a Carabao Cup quarter-final to come this week.

So their season is far from over, even if they are lagging behind Liverpool and Chelsea right now.

Chelsea have been impressive and have to be considered as contenders. They have so much attacking talent given the money they have spent and the midfield is now looking very strong, which is no surprise when you have two players in there who cost over £100 million.

They have the momentum right now and that can be a powerful thing, so they have to be in the conversation when it comes to the title.

Arsenal’s latest wonderkid impressing staff

There’s a lot of excitement at Arsenal about Myles Lewis-Skelly.

I think the rise of Ethan Nwaneri has taken some of the spotlight off Lewis-Skelly a bit and that has allowed him to go under the radar, which could be a good thing for a young player.

But when you look at it, it’s Lewis-Skelly who has now been given starts in the Champions League and Premier League, not Nwaneri.

That says a lot about how Arsenal and Mikel Arteta view him. It’s not just his ability that has got him where he is, but it’s his brain as well. He’s seen as someone who can take everything on board and can play with a maturity well beyond his years.

That is something that has impressed the staff at Arsenal. They appreciate how calm he is and how clearly he thinks things through. I think you can see that by the way he plays as well.

Obviously Arteta has seen something in him that makes him see him as an inverted left-back in the system he plays. It’s still something relatively new for Lewis-Skelly, who has come through the academy as a midfielder.

But the way he has taken to it shows how good a player he is and I think that’s certainly the position we are going to continue seeing him operate in over the next couple of seasons.