Take a glance at Arsenal's recent form and you would be forgiven for wondering whether anything really was wrong. Before Sunday's loss at Newcastle there was the late rescued draw at CSKA Moscow, and prior to that Arsene Wenger's men had won six games on the bounce. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has hit some form, Aaron Ramsey is back to something approaching his free-roaming best and Danny Welbeck has at least temporarily overcome his persistent injury problems. But there is a truth in there, masked by the fact that Arsenal played - and won - five home games in a row. On the road, it has been a different story. Europa League wins at fallen giants AC Milan and Swedish minnows are Arsenal's only away wins in all competitions in 2018. In the league, they have lost every away game this year. Astonishingly, Arsenal are the only team in the top four tiers of English football who have yet to register a single point away from home this year. Away points in 2018 And it gets worse. This is the first time since December 1984 that Arsenal have lost five successive away league games. Sunday saw their 11th away defeat in the league this season, their joint-worst tally under Wenger. Arsenal have now dropped 14 points from winning positions away from home, which is the most in the Premier League this season. And Arsenal are three points closer to West Brom at the bottom of the table than they are to Manchester City at the top. Points dropped from winning positions away from home There is the important caveat that Wenger is focusing his efforts on winning the Europa League, Arsenal's only remaining route back into the Champions League. It was around this time last season that Manchester United went five games without a league win and finally fell away from the top four, but it worked out elsewhere, as they won the Europa League. With a tough semi-final draw against Atletico Madrid and all of their eggs in that basket, Wenger could have done with turning a fairly comfortable 1-0 lead at St James' Park into a first away win in months, if only to maintain the momentum of those recent wins. Using these games does indeed seem like a good chance to give youngsters like Joe Willock a chance, as Wenger did on Sunday, and you can see the reasoning in resting Mesut Ozil and Hector Bellerin. But it was still important to arrest this slide. There have been ongoing problems away from home for months now, with bright starts rarely built upon like they are at the Emirates. Momentum matters At home, Arsenal seem able to gather momentum in a way they cannot on the road. The team is buoyed by something as insignificant as a half-chance, and once they get going they are hard to stop. The 2-2 draw with Chelsea is the only league game this season they have scored first at home and failed to win. Arsenal scored three goals in the final 15 minutes against Stoke recently - which is typical of them at home Credit: Getty images Arsenal score in waves at home. In nine of their 17 league games at the Emirates this season Arsenal have scored twice or more in the space of 10 minutes. They have scored three in the space of 15 minutes on five separate occasions. Away from home, meanwhile, they have scored more than one goal only twice - in the 5-2 win at Everton and the 3-2 win at Crystal Palace. They simply don't build on positives in the same manner. Alexandre Lacazette's opening goal at Newcastle on Sunday suggested there could be life in his partnership with Aubameyang, but there was no onslaught after going ahead. Instead they retreated, inviting pressure that a central defence of Shkodran Mustafi and Rob Holding could not withstand. No joy on the break Opportunities arose on the counter, but that remains an aspect of their game that seemingly isn't trained. Arsenal are one of five teams who have not scored a single counter-attacking goal this season, along with Swansea, Burnley, Bournemouth and Brighton. Arsenal, though, with plenty of pace and passing ability in their ranks, have had more shots from counter-attacking situations than all four of those teams combined. Counter-attacking goals Counter-attacks, especially away from home, provide the chances to kills games off once you go ahead. The instructions under Wenger seem to be to simply continue as before, even when the complexion of a game is palpably changed by the first goal. Psychological issues Is there a problem with the psychology of Arsenal's players? Arsenal fell to pieces at Newcastle after Lacazette's early goal Credit: Getty images There was a time when a physical approach and red-hot atmosphere was needed to wrestle a win from Arsenal. On Sunday, however, it wasn't as though St James' Park was rocking and the visiting players cowered under immense pressure. It ended up a run-of-the-mill win that Newcastle didn't even have to work that had for. Arsenal's players went into themselves once they were ahead, losing any swagger they had shown earlier on, and as soon as Newcastle had a sniff, Arsenal withered. It was a similar story to defeats at Bournemouth and Swansea back in January. There's no doubt that Arsenal's squad is no longer good enough and improvements are needed across the pitch, but the team that played on Sunday included four players signed for more than £30m and a host of internationals. They still had more than enough to hold onto their lead. This is a side which amounts to far less than the sum of its parts.
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