Per Mertesacker admits Arsenal lack the necessary killer instinct in front of goal after their FA Cup quarter-final defeat by Watford dealt their hopes of securing any silverware this season a major blow.
The FA Cup holders were condemned to a third consecutive home defeat as goals from Odion Ighalo and Adlène Guedioura put Watford 2-0 ahead before Arsenal – who had 20 shots but just four on target – registered through Danny Welbeck.
With Arsenal now facing an exit from the Champions League on Wednesday, currently 2-0 down before the trip to Barcelona, Arsène Wenger has come in for increased criticism while the Watford goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes labelled the Gunners ‘a small team’ after Sunday’s clash.
Wenger reacted angrily to the criticism but Mertesacker acknowledged he could understand the negativity and said Arsenal should be scoring more goals judging by the amount of chances they are creating.
“What we do lack at the moment is we need to score at some point. It looks like we play, and play and play until the opposing team scores,” said Mertesacker. “That is something we need to work on. We had the opportunities and the possibilities when they were 2-0 up to come back and we kept going.
“You have to give credit because we kept going and created chance after chance, but at the moment we lack that killer instinct. We need to work on that if we want to be successful in the Premier League and the Champions League.
“In the box we played and always found good positions, with the man in the right position but we lacked that relaxation, even to hit the target we did not do that sometimes. We missed it too often.
“The desire to play together and to be good at a team is there, you can feel that, even if there is a bit of negativity I can understand. I want as well that we go through here, I think we had the chances and we played in the right way apart from the fact we didn’t score. That is something you need to do in football if you want to be successful. It looks like the longer the game goes, we rush and rush our decisions. It is still a learning process for us as a team.”
After Wednesday’s last 16 second leg at the Camp Nou Arsenal face Everton at Goodison Park in the Premier League on Saturday with Wenger’s side currently in third place, six points behind second-placed Tottenham with the leaders Leicester a further two ahead before their game against Newcastle on Monday night.
“The season is not over. We play in a confident way, we maybe lack that bit at the end. What is really important in football, to be successful we need to score,” added Mertesacker. “We cannot afford to concede [against Barcelona]. We have to go there and try to attack, no matter what. That is the only possibility we have.
“We can be fortunate to have such a big game in front of us. I cannot predict, it is really hard. It is the ultimate team at the minute, so we are straight away under pressure and we have to go away from home.”
