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Arsenal have reached the Carabao Cup quarter-finals and have a 100 per cent record in their Europa League group so far, but it’s certainly not been a perfect start to the season in the Premier League for them.

The Gunners have won four and lost four at the beginning of the league campaign, which leaves them 11th in the table during the international break.

Spanish manager Mikel Arteta is certainly an exciting man at the helm and appears to be moving his side in the right direction, but they are still a long way off where they want to be.

Here are five Arsenal mistakes this season it was easy to see coming:

Willian halting Pepe’s development

Willian was an Arteta signing in the summer, who was allowed to leave London rivals Chelsea and he moved to the Emirates Stadium on a three-year deal.

The 32-year-old has dropped in form after a quick start and it was obvious that his arrival in North London would limit the development of Nicolas Pepe.

Pepe, who is a £100,000-a-week star (Spotrac) and a £72million signing (BBC), has started just one of the Premier League games so far and Willian’s arrival has blocked his path.

The 25-year-old right-winger is a talented left-footer that has shown some brilliant glimpses and he needs to be starting regularly to try live up to his price tag, but he remains out of favour with the manager.

Overlooking Saliba

After spending the 2019/20 season out on loan with Saint-Etienne, Arsenal fans were extremely excited to see youngster William Saliba linked up with the first-team squad this year.

But the 19-year-old is yet to be given his senior debut for the Gunners and all pre-season excitement from supporters has been ignored.

There is a bit of a surprise that the centre-back hasn’t played a single minute, but it was easy to see that he would have a big task on his hand trying to nail down a spot in the team when there is so much competition in the squad in his position.

Arteta can lean on Arsenal centre-backs such as Rob Holding, David Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi and Gabriel Magalhaes.

Not signing midfield creator

With Mesut Ozil frozen out at Arsenal, it’s so clear that the team is lacking a midfield creator and they need someone to help unlock defences.

They have scored just nine goals in their eight league matches so far, which highlights the lack of creativity in the final third and so many times this season they’ve come unstuck trying to find the killer pass.

It was a strong transfer window with some of the signings that were made, but looking at the squad it looked a mistake that they failed to sign someone with some extra flair.

Tierney’s constant position change

It doesn’t appear like Arteta is yet to nail down a best formation and one man who is a casualty of that is Scottish defender Kieran Tierney.

The 23-year-old is a brilliant player for Arsenal that has looked the part since he signed from Celtic this year, but his versatility is his biggest downfall.

He is a left-back by trade, but it’s been hard for him to get any rhythm when he’s already been used as a full-back, wing-back and centre-back this season.

They should be able to see the very best from him if he gets a settled spot.

Too much reliance on Aubameyang

It was a huge relief when Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang signed a new contract back in September for Arsenal, but his dip in form has seen the entire team drop and they look toothless in attack without him.

The 31-year-old forward has just four goals in 10 games across all competitions this season and it just highlights how reliant they are on him to score at the incredible goal ratio he usually does.

It’s an obvious mistake that Arsenal would continue to rely on the attacker, which is something they should have tried to address in the window.