Why Arsenal are suddenly making costly errors in the title race: How a disrupted 'flow state' is to blame, why experts believe Declan Rice and Co are 'massively different' to the Invincibles and the t

Arsenal have picked up an unhealthy habit in 2026. Self-destruction.

If that seems a little harsh on a team currently five points clear at the top of the Premier League, consider that they are second in another table.

Only rivals Tottenham have conceded more goals from errors this calendar year (five to Arsenal's four), with a streak of costly lapses threatening to undermine the Gunners' momentum.

Had it not been for the emphatic 4–1 scoreline against Spurs last weekend, this dangerous pattern might already have been laid bare. Instead, the winning margin that day masked an issue which has been lingering in the background.

On Sunday, Declan Rice was the culprit, uncharacteristically giving the ball away to Randal Kolo Muani outside of the area, ahead of the Frenchman's equaliser.

Coming from a man who has been so dependable for Arsenal all season long, the error felt significant.

Players are human, of course. Mistakes can happen. But when it becomes concerning is when a trend emerges.

Between their opening match of the season against Manchester United on August 17 and December 31, the Gunners made just one mistake that directly led to a goal — the fewest across the league, and a testament to their brilliant defensive record.

That error came when Martin Zubimendi was tackled in the build-up to Richarlison’s consolation goal against Spurs in November.

It was an isolated lapse, and the big question at the time was whether Arsenal could break Chelsea’s 2004-05 record of conceding just 15 goals in a single campaign. But since the turn of the year, cracks have begun to show.

Rice’s misstep was merely the latest in a sequence of self-inflicted wounds: against Bournemouth, Gabriel’s defensive lapse was ruthlessly punished by Evanilson; versus Manchester United, Zubimendi was caught out and Bryan Mbeumo capitalised.

And in the meeting with Wolves, confusion between Gabriel and David Raya in the area allowed Tom Edozie to convert a stoppage-time equaliser, with his strike rebounding off Riccardo Calafiori and into the net.

To make matters worse, title rivals Manchester City are yet to concede a single goal due to an individual error in 2026. The contrast couldn't be starker.

The margins are razor-thin at the top, yet the Gunners are being hurt by their own avoidable mistakes.

These are not systemic defensive collapses, nor tactical breakdowns. They are concentration lapses, moments that elite sides simply cannot afford, and point towards a psychological battle amid the rising pressure of trying to win the club's first Premier League title in over 20 years.

Sports psychologist Paul McVeigh earned 20 caps for Northern Ireland and played for Tottenham and Norwich.

Having seen both sides of the equation, he is clear on how pressure will be affecting the Arsenal players’ mental psyche.

McVeigh told Daily Mail Sport: ‘When players are in the zone, they call it being in a flow state. This is when players perform at their best because they're not thinking about it. It allows the muscles in their frame for years and years to be able to perform and not even think about it.

‘But once players are aware (of the pressure), it becomes more and more important. And of course, it's very difficult to stop thinking about it now that you're in the zone.

‘This group of players (at Arsenal) have come close and fallen away quite a lot of times over the last few years, so it is very difficult to stay in the subconscious.

‘The players who have won league titles, like the Manchester City players, who have done it a number of times over the last five years, they have the experience of getting over the line.

‘So they might have different strategies they can use. The majority of the Arsenal team, however, don’t know how to navigate the situation of being in a title race, and the Arsenal fans are expecting them to throw it away.’

The culprits of these errors are seasoned players at the top of their games, the mistakes coinciding with a tide of expectation which has continued to build from the outside.

That his given opposition teams, even as lowly as Wolves, a glimmer of hope in matches which Arsenal fail to kill off.

Mikel Arteta’s men are no longer suffocating games once they gain control. Instead, they are offering opponents moments, small windows that top-flight forwards can exploit.

A loose pass in midfield or a split-second of indecision at the back each carries amplified consequence in a title race defined by the smallest of details.

It is this slight vulnerability which has prevented the north London club being at least eight points clear at the top — had they beaten Wolves and drawn with Manchester United — instead of just five. In that scenario, the title race would have felt an awful lot more settled than it does now.

McVeigh, who wrote a book titled It’s Not About You: The Psychology of Leadership featuring an interview with Robert Pires, played against the 2004 Invincibles side when he was at Norwich. That team is incomparable to the current Arsenal side in his eyes.

‘I don't think there's any comparison at all,’ he explained. ‘The team I played against were almost superhuman.

‘When I was playing (against them), not only did Thierry Henry not have to run with the ball at his feet, he was walking with it, as if to say, “Don't come near me because if you do, I'm going to embarrass you”.

‘And so I took him at his word and I didn't go near him, I kept backing off. The difference is, there was a supreme confidence and inner belief that team, especially personified by Thierry Henry, were going to win.

‘By that stage, Henry, Patrick Vieira, Pires, all these guys were World Cup winners, absolute serial winners, and they were all coming together with another group of players in that team who had all won significant prizes. That is the massive difference.’

The good news for Arteta is that the issue can be fixed. In terms of what Arsenal can do to cope with pressure and iron out mistakes, McVeigh added: ‘They could be doing things like visualisation, affirmations, setting goals, psycholinguistics, working as a group and having discussions on all of this. There's so many different things.

‘Whether players are actually good at this, working on their psychology, I would highly doubt. In my 30 years in professional football, I would say less than one per cent of people in professional football utilised sports psychology, which for me is just an absolute crutch.

‘They (Arsenal) have sports psychologists. The difference is, does anyone actually use them? That's always the question: how much trust does a player have in a psychologist that the club provides? Potentially, the player might doubt that there's going to be complete trust between them and the psychologist.

‘The psychologist could be having conversations with the manager, which is always the difference. It is why, even as a player, you might struggle a little bit (to trust them).’

Despite some of the recent errors, it is not as though Arsenal’s defence is meek or weak. From August through December, their remarkable solidity was the backbone of their good form, with their backline the envy of Europe.

A fearsome centre-back partnership of Gabriel and William Saliba, aided by defensively sound full backs in the shape of Jurrien Timber and either Calafiori or Piero Hincapie, is a mean defence on paper.

When asked about why his team were conceding such few goals earlier in the season, Arteta replied: ‘The right level of organisation, but especially with the desire to play, shown every day, and the commitment that they show to do all the duties necessary for us to be a team that is very difficult to play against and to score against.’

He views defending as an element the whole team has to buy into, a non-negotiable even.

Since January, that sharpness has dulled just enough to tilt tight contests in the wrong direction. Arsenal have conceded eight goals across nine league games in 2026. Before the turn of the year, it was 13 conceded across 19 games.

The nine-match sample so far this year includes conceding two goals each against bottom-placed Wolves and mid-table Bournemouth, as well as shipping three at home to United. Clean sheets have given way to recovery jobs, and authority has been replaced by anxiety.

The data shows a rise in goals conceded, but the eye test reveals hesitation where there was once conviction. And at this level, hesitation is costly.

If Arsenal are to go the distance, the mistakes must stop — and immediately.

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