Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta could have sent on three specific players in the Gunners' 2-2 draw with Sunderland to potentially prevent the Black Cats' late leveller, expert Charles Watts has told Sports Mole.
The Premier League leaders lost their magnificent victorious streak and clean sheet sequence at the Stadium of Light, conceding for the first time in 812 minutes of football when academy graduate Dan Ballard lashed the ball into the roof of the net.
Arteta's men came out a different beast in the second half and turned the tide thanks to brilliant finishes from Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard, but Brian Brobbey sparked pandemonium in Sunderland with an injury-time equaliser in the second half.
The Arsenal boss made just one change during Saturday's game - bringing on Cristhian Mosquera for Eberechi Eze in the 88th minute - but Watts feels that Piero Hincapie, Ben White and Christian Norgaard could have helped to shore up the defence late on.
“They’ve got basically nothing going forward," Watts said. "I've seen people say Ethan Nwaneri should have come in - I didn't feel like that was a game for Ethan. The way the game state had gone, he would have been bypassed. It would have been Sunderland just booting the ball into the box.
“And I don't see Ethan holding the ball up to really be able to ease any pressure. But I still feel that there were subs that could have helped us or get the ball further away from their penalty area. Hincapie, a very experienced player. When he gets the ball on that left-hand side, he can go down that flank.
Mikel Arteta failed to use "options" in Arsenal's draw with Sunderland
Charles Watts YouTube image
“He's strong, can carry the ball, can ease the pressure. It might not lead to anything, but at least it gets Arsenal up the pitch. Ben White could do that similarly as well on the right-hand side. Arsenal players were pretty gassed in that last 20 minutes. It had been a really demanding week.
“Christian Norgaard, could he have come on with 15, 20 minutes to go? Just to get out and close the ball down a little bit quicker than some of the tiring players? Although the options were very limited for Arteta, certainly from an attacking point of view, there were options that he probably could have turned to.
“But I can understand his reasoning as well. Sunderland were just going to be bombing balls into the box. So I didn't really have an issue with the Mosquera sub. I just felt like maybe he could have freshened things up a little bit. There were options there to do that."
Nwaneri, Max Dowman and Andre Harriman-Annous represented Arsenal's only attacking substitutes against Sunderland, as Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus watched on helplessly from the treatment room again.
The trio's absences led to Mikel Merino starting as the focal point of the attack as expected, following the Spaniard's two-goal showing against Slavia Prague in the Champions League, but he failed to make as much of an impact at the Stadium of Light.
Merino did provide the assist for Saka's goal, but he had a last-gasp close-range attempt blocked by Ballard and won just seven of his 21 duels on the day, losing six of his nine ground battles and eight of his 12 aerial contests.
How much did Arsenal miss Viktor Gyokeres against Sunderland?
Arsenal's Viktor Gyokeres pictured on November 1, 2025
Asked if Arsenal missed the presence of Gyokeres up front, Watts replied: “I think so. It was always going to be the case. Arsenal finally started to get used to the way that they can play with Gyokeres. Hit the channel, let him run, stretch the defence, pull them out of position. And they just didn't really have that at all. They weren't able to do it.
“Merino did his job and he did it pretty well. But Arsenal didn't have that threat in behind in terms of getting the ball out, getting down the channels and letting Viktor do what he did against Burnley so well. They were always going to miss him, but that's not the reason Arsenal didn't win the game.
“They scored two really, really good goals. And for half an hour, they played as well as they've played against a low block all season. They were really, really good, pulled Sunderland apart, created loads of chances, scored two good goals. For this Arsenal team, that should be enough to win the game.
“I don't look at what they did in attack as a reason Arsenal didn't win. It was for the first time in a long, long time that we can say it was what happened at the back is why they didn't win.”
Arsenal's failure to cling on at Sunderland allowed Manchester City to cut their lead to four points at the top of the Premier League table, and Arteta's men now face a daunting run of games against Tottenham Hotspur, Bayern Munich and Chelsea following the November international break.
However, the Gunners are hopeful of receiving several injury boosts in time for those fixtures, and two attackers are said to be pushing for involvement in the North London derby.
> Click here to listen to the full reaction to Arsenal's 2-2 draw with Sunderland
ID:585563:1false2false3false: from db desktop :LenBod:collect7321:
No Data Analysis info