The Arsenal

Arteta was quite revealing in that traffic metaphor when he said, as clearly as possible, 'I want to go 100 miles an hour,' and then described us as currently unable to get past the roadblocks of opposing sides/

He doesn't to play slow and endlessly recycle the ball with sterile, peripheral possession; he wants to rip straight through opponents.

The questions, as you say, are how to do that, and why we're not doing that.

Some of it certainly has to do with facing constant low blocks (the lowest average opposing defensive line in the PL). But that's not, as you say, simply a matter of opponent strategy.

When we're moving the ball slowly, and mostly on the outside, not creating central threat, and just nibbling around the edge of the box, that allows opposing teams to organise a low block as conveniently and effectively as possible. They are happy to let us get all the final third and edge box entries we can rack up, as long as we're doing it slowly and confined to those low-percentage areas.