Laurent Koscielny: Arsenal's problems are 'just mental'

Arsenal defender Laurent Koscielny admits the team has been struggling with confidence lately and says they must get back to "basics" to turn things around.

Arsenal's loss to Barcelona on Wednesday was their fifth in eight games across all competitions, with just one win during that stretch -- against a second-string Hull side in the FA Cup.

The Gunners now only have the Premier League to play for, but have fallen 11 points behind leaders Leicester during their recent slump.

"It's difficult because the results are not there and we are frustrated with this," Koscielny told the Arsenal website. "We didn't fight like we did during the first six months because we lost a little confidence in ourselves. Then it's harder to win some games.

"We need to get back to our basics, to help our teammates more with defending and attacking. Play simple, with controlled passes and movement. We didn't lose our capacity physically and our technique. It's just mental. We need to do more."

Arsenal are out of the Champions League after a 5-1 aggregate defeat to Barcelona.

Arsenal travel to Everton on Saturday for a crucial game, where a win would give the team a needed boost ahead of the international break.

"When we get a win it will be better, and after that we can play with more confidence, with more movement and some players can try things that before they weren't doing," Koscielny said. "We need to get back to this, and when the results are back we will be stronger."

Midfielder Mesut Ozil also conceded that the Gunners "have to work harder than before" in their remaining nine games.

Arsenal took 25 points from their final nine games last season, but Ozil said the team can't look to history for inspiration.

"Last year we won those last eight games, but we don't care about that now. What's important is what happens now," Ozil said. "I know the teams playing us will fight to take the points against us, so the games will be tough. We have to fight on the pitch and we have to think from game to game, not that we can win eight games in a row."

Ozil is just two assists away from equalling the Premier League assists record of 20 in a single season. However, only two of his 18 assists have come in 2016, as the goals from his attacking partners have dried up.

But the Germany international says the going forward is to keep believing in the team's title challenge.

"We have to work harder than before," he said. "If you see the whole season, we've played very well. We've lost some points because we weren't concentrated or we didn't score. Now we have to fight for each game to take the points."

Koscielny still worried about Arsenal’s confidence

Arsenal had an excellent start to the season, and by the New Year after winning five games out of six they were right behind Leicester and looking like hot favourites to open up a gap on the chasing pack. Then in January the Gunners collapse began. Liverpool gained a last minute draw, Stoke held us to 0-0 and then Chelsea took all three points (as usual) but Arsenal were still in the title race due to our rivals also dropping points right, left and centre.

Early February saw us rally with wins over Bournemouth and League leaders Leicester and we were back on track. Then the great collapse started. The defeat to a decimated Manchester United was hard to take, but the following home embarrassment against Swansea reserves was the final nail in the coffin. The draw at Tottenham and the defeat in Barcelona have seen the Gunners playing well, but there are still not many points forthcoming. The confidence levels this year seem to have dropped away, which is hard to understand after our excellent start to the campaign.

Laurent Koscielny thinks that we now have to try and work harder to get that confidence back, but with 11 points between us and the leaders we are running out of time to regain our mojo. “We are frustrated because the most important thing in a game is to finish with three points, which we have not done [much],” Koscielny said on Arsenal.com. “We haven’t been fighting like we did in the last six months because we lost a little confidence in ourselves and it is harder to win some games.

“We need to come back and help our team-mates with defending, attacking and a controlled passing movement. We didn’t lose our capacity physically or our technique, we just need to do more.

“We also need to come back to our basics, be simple and then the confidence will come back.

“When we get a win, it will be better and after we can play with more confidence, movement and try things we didn’t do before. We need to get back to this and when the results come back, we will be stronger.”

That win will have to come tomorrow against a mid-table Everton, but the Toffees had a confidence boosting win themselves over Chelsea last week and will be keen to build on that. If Koscielny thinks we still haven’t got our own confidence back then tomorrow’s game could be very, very difficult.

So where and how did it all suddenly go wrong?