Arsenal are a team with five captains but no leaders – unbelievably they look more prone to making catastrophic defensive blunders than last season

“FIVE captains”, according to Unai Emery.

But, it seems, no leaders.

Arsenal’s second half meltdown at Vicarage Road was not fatal, by any means. They even, somehow, walked away with a point. Yet something is significantly awry at the Emirates.

And unless Emery can put it right, quickly, the short-term fury of the travelling fans may turn into a feeling more permanent and damaging.

The manner in which Arsenal were out-run, out-battled, out-fought and out-thought by a Watford side still without a win this season was a reminder of too many Gunners away days over the past few seasons.

Soft mentally. Soft physically. Plain soft.

Two up, without actually playing well, courtesy of a pair of top-class finishes by Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Arsenal should have seen it out.

Instead, they did not so much retreat into their shell, as leave it behind and headed for the hills.

Arsene Wenger’s final days saw fans complaining about what he had allowed his once-formidable side to become.

Supporters yearned for the days of yore, for the likes of Tony Adams, Patrick Vieira, or Thierry Henry. Players capable of taking a game by the scruff of the neck.

It is fair to suggest every team wants players of that calibre. They are not in ready supply.

Emery, though,  was supposed to be the man to bring more composure and discipline to Arsenal. Not oversee more of the same.

Those Gunners fans hailing to deadline day capture of David Luiz are now singing a different tune.

Indeed, Arsenal, if anything, appear more liable to make catastrophic defensive blunders this season than last term.

Arsenal have conceded stupid penalties in each of their last three games, Luiz penalised at Liverpool and Watford, with Granit Xhaka stupidly ploughing through Heung-Min Son in the North London derby.

Those are the sort of mind-freezes that really hurt a team.

Watford had 31 shots on goal, 10 of them on target.

Indeed, according to the latest statistics, the 96 efforts on Bernd Leno’s goal in the first five matches of the season is the most faced by ANY team in the Big Five leagues.

That includes such giants as French Ligue 1 basement side Dijon, pointless Leganes in Spain and Paderborn in Germany.

If you then add in Arsenal’s staggering failure to learn from the mistake that cost Manchester City so dear at Norwich 24 hours earlier and a midfield that simply went missing in action, you get another defensive debacle.

What frustrated so many Gooners was that Arsenal had demonstrated their inability to play through a press at Anfield last month.

A wise man once suggested the first sign of madness was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. In which case, Emery’s footballing sanity might need questioning.

But once Watford were back in the game, Emery needed a response.

So what about those “five captains” that Emery spoke about naming last week?

Xhaka, presumably, is one of them. After all, he was wearing the armband at Watford. He put it on okay, so that’s a positive. Just the only one.

Who else, then? Mesut Ozil, maybe. After all, he is on £350,000 per week. And, one delightful through-ball to Ainsley Maitland-Niles for Aubameyang’s second, contributed the square root of next to nothing.

Maybe not. So, who?

Laurent Koscielny and Aaron Ramsey have left the building, Petr Cech, too. And Nacho Monreal.

Possibly Emery is thinking of Hector Bellerin or Rob Holding. Both still out. Both badly missed.

Indeed, with Bellerin, Holding and summer signing Kieran Tierney - still to make his debut after his move from Celtic - all in the side, Arsenal might look a better unit.

Or Lucas Torreira, although the Uruguayan was overlooked when Emery made his changes, instead sending on Joe Willock and Reiss Nelson - and leaving his team appearing even more unbalanced.

Surely not Sokratis or Matteo Guendouzi. So possibly reward for Alexandre Lacazette deciding to stay when siren voices from Europe attempted to entice him back over the Channel this summer.

Of course, it is only five games.

Despite the desperate performance, and three games without a win, Arsenal are level on points with Spurs, United and Chelsea, the teams they expect to be competing with for top four slots.

And yet, while there are grumbles and doubts, worries and concerns, at Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge and the other end of the Seven Sisters Road too, they always seem deeper and more complex at Arsenal.

The last days of Wenger brought  a sense of gloom and foreboding that Emery has not been able to banish yet.

More displays like Sunday’s second half, and it could start to get very messy.

Doubt does not always arrive with a fanfare. But it can grip with constricting, damaging force.  And it does not leave quietly, either.