Arsenal's UCL laser focus is hurting their top-5 PL hopes after Bournemouth loss

Neglect the Premier League at your peril, as Arsenal have learnt in these past four weeks.

It started with the 1-1 draw against Everton at Goodison Park on April 5, with Saturday's defeat by Bournemouth the latest chapter of the Gunners overlooking this most unforgiving of leagues.

Evanilson's winner had a slice of luck as he bundled home from the back post off a corner, the goal passing a VAR check for handball with the ball so close to his arm. It looked like there was contact, but the replays deemed it to be inconclusive.

That mattered not. The north London club were not worthy of three points, the result a reflection of the serious issues Arsenal must address this summer to realistically compete for the title next season.

They now face the prospect of being overtaken by both Manchester City and Newcastle for second place. If the north London club completely capitulate in their final three league matches, against Liverpool, Newcastle and Southampton, there is the very slim prospect of no Champions League football next season.

The latter is unlikely, of course, but having challenged Liverpool for pole position in much of this campaign, to even be wrestling with the possibility of finishing fifth is damning of their current quandary — and certainly unthinkable earlier this year.

Even Mikel Arteta admitted afterwards that finishing in the top five still needs to be secured.

He said: 'Well we have a lot to do, yes, because mathematically we are not qualified, we haven't had the right to finish second yet so we still have a lot to do.'

It goes further than this. Take full time on Saturday, for instance, a light smattering of boos heard. Such frustration has not been seen at the Emirates since their 1-0 loss against West Ham on February 22, a defeat which hurt both Arteta and fans at the time.

Their laser focus on the Champions League has been to the detriment of Arsenal's performances in the league, an almost acceptance that domestic matters are not of real importance when the title seemed all but Liverpool's — the Reds were 12 points clear before the Gunners's draw with Everton.

It's a strategy which is now truly hurting them, with a number of teams so eager to qualify for Europe's premier competition.

The dour mood may seem strange with the Gunners going into a Champions League semi-final second leg against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday, yet having finished league runners-up for two consecutive seasons, you can sense the thought of regression starting to seep in; particularly if they now don't reach the Munich final on May 31 after putting so much focus on the competition.

Great footballing sides can prioritise both the league and Europe, and succeed. Manchester City won both in the 2022-23 season, Liverpool reached the Champions League final and finished a point behind league winners Man City in the 2021-22 campaign. It doesn't have to be a total focus on one or the other.

The line-up Arteta fielded against Bournemouth was stronger than expected, with Bukayo Saka, Declan Rice, Myles Lewis-Skelly and Gabriel Martinelli all starting despite Wednesday's crunch clash coming up.

It showed the Spaniard's keenness to get a result, and makes the defeat all the more concerning. From the start of April, Arsenal have dropped nine points across six league matches. That is not good enough.

Injuries have been a huge burden on Arsenal's season. At present, Gabriel, Kai Havertz, Riccardo Calafiori, Gabriel Jesus, Jorginho and Takehiro Tomiyasu are all sidelined.

That would trouble most sides, but the lack of depth in certain areas can't be papered over, the most obvious being at centre forward.

Arsenal were already weak in depth up top before Gabriel Jesus' season-ending injury which he picked up against Manchester United in January. The lack of attacking reinforcement either last summer or in the January window has come back to bite the club time and again across this campaign.

The other two areas are left wing and attacking midfield, the latter so short that Arteta on Friday name-checked 15-year-old wonderkid Max Dowman as a potential option next season for that area.

Getting recruitment right this summer could well be the difference between the Gunners seizing major silverware or falling short once again.

More pressingly for the here and now, the Gunners have a nasty habit of conceding from set-pieces. That cost them on Saturday, Bournemouth's two goals from Dean Huijsen and Evanlison coming via this method to take Arsenal's tally to 12 set-piece goals conceded this season.

Only Wolves (21), Southampton (19), Manchester United (14) and Ipswich Town (13) have conceded more. They've gone from set-piece kings, scoring 20 so far which is the most across the league, to near set-piece paupers in the space of months.

Reaching Munich would be some way of a salvaging season that started with so much promise, yet now seems to be burning out. Otherwise, Arteta risks having to retrieve pieces from a broken campaign.