New superpowers, old kryptonite
How the 2023 overhaul was designed to propel Arsenal past City; why it’s past time to treat Newcastle-style blocks with the same ferocity in the market; and where we go after all the fucking injuries
Arsenal went to the Etihad in April 2023 with a five-point lead in the table. It was as precarious as a late-season five-point lead could be.
The unexpected pace-setters had lost William Saliba and dropped points in three straight. An early 2-0 advantage was surrendered to an Anfield onslaught; then-opponent Declan Rice played the spoiler at London Stadium; early mistakes against Southampton were never overcome. City, lurking in plain sight, had beaten Arsenal in eleven straight league games, and on the split screen, they were unlocking the inevitable late-season power-up. Oh, and they had two games in hand.
Hope springs eternal, but there is a thin line between optimism and delusion.
Pep’s side killed any suspense early.
The opening minutes were ominous. One moment featured a cheap giveaway, a lost 1v1, a Ramsdale spill, and a near-penalty.
From there, City regrouped and played out from the back. Arsenal responded with the “door hinge” of pressers you were likely to see back then: Jesus high, Ødegaard taking hybrid responsibilities, Xhaka blocking lanes, and most others man-to-man.
City then worked it into a cul-de-sac to Stones, and I have a feeling you remember what happened next.
Stones flipped it up to Haaland, which was where the real mismatches came into play. Holding was isolated, and while he basically did fine in this moment, City were running an NFL-style called play here, with Haaland tapping it to an onrushing De Bruyne. Partey thought he was guarding against a typical second-ball situation, but De Bruyne sprinted past his blind spot in an arcing run.
Xhaka, Holding, and Partey were essentially discarded from the picture. Gabriel then overcompensated in his coverage of Holding — to be fair, there is no foot you can show De Bruyne to — and KDB hit one of those rare finishes.
That was perfectly executed, but it’d be a mistake to think it was aberrational. City kept running these rotations, kept exploiting these matchups, and kept finding joy.
It was a comprehensive drubbing.
“The analysis is clear: the better team won the game,” said Arteta afterward. “In the first 30 minutes, we didn’t do all the basic things that you have to do against an exceptional team, in terms of competing, winning duels and understanding what the game requires. We got punished and we could have been punished even more.”
👉 A defining loss
What were some of the conclusions we could take from such a weighty defeat?
Arsenal players could not close the spaces to the degree that the aggressive press required against a top buildup team like Man City.
It wasn’t exactly news, but: the gap between Holding and Saliba was stark.
You saw it elsewhere, too: while Xhaka was brilliant at coordinated defending, he lacked the athleticism to snap into final, decisive interruptions. He averaged 0.15 advanced tackles per 90 that year. That’s one every 6.67 games.
As with Xhaka, if Zinchenko got sucked upfield, he lacked the recovery pace to return and impact the play.
White can usually compensate, but he lacks the lateral agility to be a truly clamping 1v1 defensive presence against certain wingers.
Especially with all these personnel advantages for City, Arteta probably erred in pressing too aggressively and leaving the spaces too big.
This all impacted second balls and moments of contested possession.
Arsenal were simply second-best on the day.
While these issues were put into stark focus against City, they had a lengthier throughline. Arsenal had well-known struggles against top-six opponents.
From Transfermarkt:
Not only were Arsenal being beaten, they were being taken apart. A 6-0 defeat to Chelsea. A 5-1 loss to Liverpool. A 5-0 drubbing to Man City. Between 2017 and 2023, Arsenal lost by three or more goals to just Liverpool and Man City nine times in the Premier League alone. Watching pundits criticise Arsenal's lack of a backbone seemed to become a formality that followed the Gunners in big games … When Arteta took charge, Arsenal hadn’t won at Old Trafford in the league for 13 years. They hadn’t won at Stamford Bridge for eight years. They hadn’t even taken a point at Anfield for three years.
That City loss, at the tail end of such a promising campaign, loomed large.
👉 The summer of reckoning
It would probably be an oversimplification to say that the following summer’s business was merely a direct response to the issues we saw at the Etihad. But if that were the case, it wouldn’t have looked much different.
It was an all-in window.
However you want to phrase it: Granit Xhaka was allowed to exit.
In Declan Rice, Arsenal secured the best space-covering defensive midfielder in the world.
In Kai Havertz, Arsenal deferred some other qualities — metronomic passing, dribbling, finishing — for length, space coverage, duels, aerials, physicality, and work-rate.
In Jurriën Timber, Arsenal went for a blend of technical aptitude and agile 1v1 defensive ferocity. This would also improve the depth behind Saliba, both directly and in aggregate.
In David Raya, Arsenal boldly invested in a more assured presence between the posts.
Basically, there was a Man City-sized closed door between Arsenal and their ambitions, so Arteta and Company bought a battering ram.
The results showed immediately.
By the time of the Community Shield that August, Arsenal had a few new entrants into the lineup: Timber replaced Zinchenko at left-back, Rice replaced Xhaka at LCM, and Havertz was up top. Oh, and Saliba was back.
In addition, Arsenal kept spaces more compact, more likely to show a meaty mid-block instead of going all-out on the press for 90 minutes.
But really, the simple difference was this: a new capacity to win the physical battle.
Arsenal won on penalties.
That fall, Arsenal again looked a little more physical and pragmatic. Instead of trying to overwhelm the opponent with an onslaught of pressure, they deployed a high-block. This is where Jorginho is not a good defender, but a great one.
City found it increasingly frustrating to play through. By the second half, Rice was untethered from his side of the pitch, running amok. This was the kind of play that Arsenal simply didn’t have the physical capacity to perform the year prior.
…and the game was won here, with Arteta running a predetermined play of his own. Grasping upon a weakness in the City shape — in which the left-back could ghost behind the CB pairing, only to be tracked by the opposing right-winger — Tomiyasu went sprinting up into the box.
Havertz then won the physical battle for the second ball and Martinelli slotted it home.
The next two matchups were a little less interesting to dissect for external reasons:
Last March, the two sides fought to a rigid 0-0 draw. It was the first time City had failed to score at home in years.
Last September, there was the 2-2 draw that our old friend Michael Oliver featured in.
Still: neither was a loss. Progress.
👉 Revenge
This time, we heard the satisfying sound of a plan fully clicking together.
Without the two current-best players on the pitch (Rodri and Saka), Arsenal were the ones who sensed blood in the middle of the park. The press was immediately turned up to the hilt. Those space-eating acquisitions, Havertz and Rice, played pivotal roles, and Arteta rolled out some interesting tweaks to the normal responsibilities up top.
Whereas the 2023 version of City physically stormed Arsenal off the pitch, it was Arsenal’s turn this time. Stones hit it past the pressers to Akanji, but it wasn’t the easiest ball to receive, and Akanji’s awkward gather was jumped upon by Trossard.
Trossard had one touch, Rice had one touch, Havertz had one touch, and Ødegaard scored on one touch. The goal came within 104 seconds.
And just as that early De Bruyne goal was fully in line with the proceedings in 2023, so too was that Ødegaard goal. Rice, signed specifically to level out games like this, hook-tackled Kovačić and set up that beplattered Havertz chance. I’m sorry for writing beplattered.
After that opening period, things tightened up, the Arsenal press was turned down, and Haaland was eventually able to level the score.
But Foden gave it away through the middle, and Partey hit a shot off Stones for the second goal. It was pandemonium from there.
After Lewis-Skelly hit one of the more riotous goals in recent memory, the wheels came off the City Machine. As if to underscore the difference that the last two years have made, City lost the ball through the middle in the 75th minute; there was no Rodri in the “rest” shape, and the aging De Bruyne was too slow in closing down the space.
Within two passes and roughly two seconds, Martinelli and Havertz were off to the races in a clean 2v2 against the beleaguered City CB duo. Havertz knocked it into the side netting.
Both have since injured their hamstrings. Fuck it all.
As far as the other Summer 2023 signings go, Timber was able to keep the left side of City’s attack in check. Neither Omar Marmoush or Sávio completed a successful dribble on the day, and Sávio only found his moment when he floated to the right half-space. Raya, meanwhile, had several key saves.
That April 2023 loss against City? That wasn’t just the last time City prevailed in that matchup, it was the last time Arsenal lost to any so-called “big six” team in the league. This span of nearly two years neatly coincides with the additions of Rice, Havertz, Timber, and Raya.
If Arsenal sought to purchase a pricey Top-Six Battering Ram in that transfer window, the investment has proven mighty successful. That summer has helped Arsenal keep up the momentum despite toughening circumstances, with the team racking up the most points of any Premier League team since August 2022. The club’s Elo rating is now the highest in the world.
Still, conceptions of a top-six are overly simplistic, injuries have gotten calamitous, and some old problems still fester, unaddressed.
👉 Newcastle: A familiar stumbling block
…and so the troubled version of City were vanquished, for the moment at least, but the modern schedule moves fast. It only took three days for a reminder that all was not sunshine and rainbows. In a game that was always a longshot, old foes Newcastle dispatched Arsenal at St. James’ by a score of 2-0, bringing the aggregate to 4-0.
It all felt too familiar.
Newcastle have had Arsenal’s number. This was, after all, the same opponent who kept Arsenal from a Champions League place in late-2022 in one of the more deflating losses of the last few years. Depending on how you decide to add it up, they’ve made up 13%+ of Arsenal’s “lost points” across competitions since the start of 22/23.
All five times that Arsenal haven’t won against Newcastle, they’ve been held scoreless.
But as you scroll through the results, you’ll be reminded of something else: how concentrated these losses and draws seem to be. While there are some explainable (and/or flukey) results to the likes of Southampton, PSV, and Forest — and a couple of the aforementioned tough opponents like City and Liverpool, in which the arrow is pointed solidly up — there is a collection of other results with similar characteristics. This includes the likes of Newcastle, Porto, Moyes’ West Ham, Dyche’s Everton, Villa, and Fulham. (Though Brighton are on the list, too, I think there are some mitigating circumstances there.)
We are mostly talking about Arsenal’s remaining scourge, aside from the injury bug: the well-coached, physical, mid-to-low block.
Here it was against Porto.
Here was a frustrating game at Chelsea.
Against Villa.
Or Everton.
At Lens, a 5-4-1.
…and finally, for now, the Newcastle look we saw: a similar 5-4-1, with the highest levels of Premier League physicality.
We got an inevitable clue about Eddie Howe’s gameplan with the prematch lineups: he’d start three big centre-backs (Botman, Schär, Burn), flanked by two full-backs, behind a two-man pivot of Bruno and Tonali. As always, they stayed huge and close.
What makes an opponent like this so difficult for Arsenal?
There is simply an upper limit to how physical a team can be. If the spaces are kept small through mid-to-low-blocking, there is not really a way for your team to reliably be bigger/stronger than an opponent like Newcastle. You can only really hope to be on their level, which is hard enough.
With a bank of five defenders and a bank of four defenders, there are two difficulties facing an attack: central access is almost entirely cut off, and wide areas are consistently doubled. There are just a lot of big bodies standing in the way of shots.
When teams go long, the Arsenal press is essentially skipped.
Bouncing balls and delayed games will increase the impact of variance. Even if you play perfectly, there is a chance of certain bounces going their way. Because of how the spaces are occupied, the more defensive side’s mistakes are less likely to be punished because of all the coverage surrounding them. Meanwhile, the aggressor’s defensive mistakes are likely to happen in open space with less support around. This all benefits the underdog.
All these factors combine to essentially turn the game into a finishing competition. In such a contest, Arsenal are likely to have more chances, but they will be taken in packed boxes. On the other, a Newcastle will have fewer chances, but they will be taken in more open, transitional moments. (And, crucially, Newcastle have more natural finishers — one in particular.)
The first goal looms large.
The last point is a key one. It feels like a lifetime ago now, but Arsenal beat Newcastle 4-1 last February, ripping the rival to shreds in a barrage.
The largest difference, perhaps? Arsenal opened the scoring on a set piece.
After that, gaps lengthen, and there is more of a chance to pounce. Game-states rule over everything.
It should also be noted that the dynamics of the three Arsenal losses to Newcastle this year are slightly different in character:
In November, Arsenal lost 1-0 at St. James’ Park. Arsenal’s structural dynamics were weak (Partey RB, Timber LB, no Ødegaard) and the team looked stagnant after conceding an early goal.
In January, Arsenal’s underlying dynamics and overall play were fairly spectacular: 70% possession, 23 shots, 6 big chances, 0 goals. The story there was entirely one about finishing.
This time, it wasn’t really about structure so much as individual performance levels. Arsenal just looked off from the opening whistle.
You can’t really provide an accurate summary of the most recent game without mentioning that many of the players just didn’t look right. We can speculate as to why, and Newcastle played a part, but you’ll rarely see corresponding Saliba and Raya touches look like this.
We saw this in even smaller moments. Look at the uncharacteristic weighting and placement of this Saliba backpass.
These little things compounded into a feeling of harriedness. Arsenal never felt at their best.
👉 Going long
Much of the story, too, is about the Arsenal press (or lack thereof). So many of Arsenal’s best performances, after all, are opened up via pressing or set piece.
This summer, instead of adding shiny new qualities to the forward line, Arsenal mostly doubled down on the physical advantages gained in the summer of 22/23. Late against PSG, Arsenal had a top-five (top-three?) global presser in every single upfield position. The gaps that could open in the old days were now closed for business.
Despite some of the game-state fuckery, Arsenal are still excellent at disrupting opponent buildup, and often rely on the “press as a playmaker.”
But Arsenal’s most difficult opponents deprive Arsenal of this opportunity.
In the three matchups this year, Newcastle have sent 31/34 (92%) of goal-kicks long.
There are big correlation/causation effects here, so don’t read too much into the next graphic. But you’ll see that Arsenal’s record is poor when their opponent is racking up the launches:
After his side’s deserved 1-0 loss in the FA Cup against Plymouth Argyle, Liverpool coach Arne Slot expanded upon these difficulties.
“I think during the season we have seen a few times already that this is a gameplan [from Plymouth], a style which is difficult for our starters but also for the players who started today. So constantly long balls, second balls, long balls. It's difficult for every team. We had this with Manchester United earlier in the season, and it was the same, going into a low block, kicking every ball long and we played with our starters in that game.”
👉 Four moments
The League Cup tie was summed up in four telling moments.
In the 28th minute of the first leg, Martinelli was free on goal and drilled a nasty rip off the post.
Within ten minutes, Newcastle went long, the ball spilled out, a bit of randomness ensued, and Isak kicked it in on his weak foot.
In the second leg, there was a similar situation — in which Martinelli got hit and the ball spilled out right to Ødegaard. He hits it with his weak foot, and it hits the post and bounces wide.
Just as the cameras returned to the action, Newcastle had gone long to Isak. He stepped around Saliba, spun him, and hit the post as well — except his shot careened over to Jacob Murphy, who calmly dispatched it.
That moment may have triggered some flashbacks to the Man City clips we opened this piece with. In truth, the circumstances are different: there are no massive structural deficiencies or qualitative differences here. This was just a great player beating a great player when the latter had a rare off-day. It happens.
While Arsenal finishing woes are overstated — the numbers show a team that doesn’t get off enough shots, but shoots with plenty of quality — it’s hard not to see the quality of strike from Isak and compare it to all the missed opportunities on the other side. There is another aspect of “finishing,” too: getting the shot off in the first place.
Arteta echoed those Slot long-ball comments.
“Yeah, we were very [unsettled] in 50-50 balls, on clearances, we have to take touches, we give them another chance as well from one regain in our last line as well. So yeah, that’s things to improve and today in that aspect we weren’t our best.”
Those are moments, and moments are important, as they decide games. But looking back, there isn’t much you’d change about how that Isak-shot-turned-Murphy-goal was defended schematically, hindsight and all. I’d stick Saliba in the exact same spot and hope for the best.
👉 So, what makes Newcastle so difficult?
To answer this, we can look at a wider picture. I pulled the stats for the three Newcastle games this season, then compared them to the rest of the season in aggregate. Here’s what stood out:
Raw possession is nine points higher against Newcastle (64.9% to 55.5%).
Shots are more likely to be off-target against Newcastle (12.9% on target to 43.1%).
There are more total duels against Newcastle (198.7 to 186.21).
Arsenal are way more cross-heavy against Newcastle (27.7 to 15.21).
Arsenal are likely to pass it backward against Newcastle (61.3 to 78.9).
Tempo and passes per possession are both lower.
Fouls are higher (12 to 9.9).
This tells a pretty cohesive, if obvious, story. Facing Newcastle, Arsenal have accumulated advanced, crowded possession. This results in a heavy reliance on crosses, fewer shots on target, and more blocks. The games are way slower and more interrupted.
In standard situations, these wide quartets have been brutal to face.
This next clip shows the right way to penetrate them: stretching out the bank of defenders, rotating quickly, and snapping passes into them. But this moment is also instructive for the wrong reasons: Ødegaard passes up the quick shot for a few touches, some slick interactions, and … a tougher opportunity.
Next, Ødegaard drops low and provides the exact kind of line-breaking central access that is hard to come by in these games. Timber makes a smart third-man run to receive, but turns down the opportunity to press the advantage and play Havertz into space.
An underrated factor this year is that Jorginho is very helpful in these situations — with those deft clips between the lines — but he is playing the fewest minutes of his career.
👉 How to beat a tough block
Last year, I wrote How to Make a Mid-Block Mid, which was designed to be a guide to winning those tough games against Porto and the like. While Newcastle can definitely settle into a block that is more “low” than “mid,” the points still apply.
Here’s a summary of some of the points we covered then.
👉 Personnel is key
You need passers, occupiers, and runners. The best teams have specialists who can flip it through the lines (Jorginho, Busquets, De Bruyne) and attackers who can arrive in key spaces at the right moment, with haste.
👉 Attract the lean, switch quickly
Mid-blocks stay compact, meaning if you overload one side, they’ll shift toward the ball. Fast switches — low, driven passes rather than floated ones — create immediate openings before they can reset.
👉 Exploit the space between the backline and keeper
It’s a trap, but a calculated one. Smart movement across zones, or disguised passes into the half-space can open up high-value cutback opportunities.
👉 Have the widest player drop, then attack the space behind
Dragging the opponent’s full-back forward creates an opening to run in behind. This works best when paired with midfielders who can pick their passes correctly.
👉 Slip through the middle with riskier play
Most teams go wide to avoid losing the ball centrally, but playing through midfield — either with direct passing or dribbles — can unbalance a mid-block. It requires midfielders willing to take risks.
👉 Let CBs join the attack
A CB stepping up forces a defender to engage, opening up new passing lanes. Inter do this aggressively.
👉 Whipped crosses and half-space deliveries
Crosses can be very inefficient, unless the situation is purpose-built for success. A deep full-back curling in a cross to the far post can be hell to defend.
👉 Get your best players the ball. A lot.
The best way through a mid-block? Have a player like Saka, Hazard, or Vinicius who can create something out of nothing. Give them the ball over and over again.
Perhaps most importantly, you need to score in crowded situations on half-chances. It helps if you can shoot on the first touch with either foot.
The hope in the meantime is that Arsenal find a breakout scorer — be it Trossard, Nwaneri, Sterling, Merino, Rice, or Ødegaard — who can carry the baton for now.
👉 Revisiting the early-summer objectives
Before last summer’s window swung into action, I also wrote Five Ways to Improve Arsenal, a longer piece that sought to identify specific areas of improvement, both tactically and with regard to signings. Here’s a quick recap of some of the points raised:
1. Improve Plan B
More continuity, better width-holding from LB/LCM, and an attacker who thrives in tight spaces. Improving this balance can create “Plan 1A and 1B” rather than over-relying on Saka.
2. Increase Risk Tolerance in the Middle
Let Rice dribble more, introduce a midfield carrier, rely on a more defensively stable LB to protect against losses.
3. Boost Team Speed
Sign a high-level runner to increase counter-threat and break mid-blocks more effectively.
4. Add Ball-Striking
More deep shots from Rice, Saka, and Ødegaard. Ideally, sign a midfielder or forward with elite ball-striking ability.
5. A Few More Big Passes
Allow Rice, White, and Saliba to switch play when advantageous. Speed up right-to-left transitions. More whipped back-post crosses for Havertz.
Where does that leave us?
👉 I Know What You Did Last Summer
The thesis underpinning all of this was shared last week on Bluesky.
My working theory is that the Arsenal decision-makers were dramatically (and successfully) responsive to the 4-1 Man City loss in 2023, but insufficiently scarred by the Newcastle/Fulham/Porto games in the last couple of years.
Those can be more easily explained away. “We were the superior team,” “it just wasn’t our day,” “we were missing X player,” etc. In reality, Arsenal struggle because they’ve been light on certain qualities (speed, ball-striking, killer balls). And they're still light on those qualities.
By now, it doesn’t feel controversial to say that they’ve fallen short on addressing the issues that have dogged these familiar matchups. It’s just conjecture, but my belief is that the brain trust is focused on addressing structural superiority, and Man City were clearly superior on the day; against Newcastle or Fulham, though, you can convince yourself that Arsenal were structurally superior, and that’ll usually find support in the possession or xG numbers. But I don’t really think it’s the case, as that was the game they’re looking to play. At best, it’s too close to a coin-flip.
I shared most of my thoughts on the summer business last time. These thoughts were typically long and defy easy summary. I am still broadly supportive of the work that did happen, aside from the goalkeeper shenanigans, which remain a single point of failure. I fundamentally believe that going into the season without a new left-back or a space-eating midfield presence would have been foolhardy, and Calafiori and Merino are both good players and values, who are still early in their tenures. As I said then:
I maintain that our frustration with the summer window is not that it was a left-back and Merino; it’s that it wasn’t a left-back, Merino, and Eze (or whichever attacker you fancy most). And that’s not on Merino — that wasn’t his decision, and he’ll never clear that expectation.
With the ascension of Nwaneri, who addresses so many of the “5 Ways to Improve Arsenal” himself in the mid-term — ball-striking, risk through the middle, snappy athleticism — we’re really just talking about one different decision: signing a difference-making attacker either last summer, or at the very least, reinforcing with somebody in January.
I’d still have gone for an Eze-type, if not a Minteh-type, but I’m amenable to the argument that the stars didn’t align last summer. Exits had to be the focus, at last, and just from a timing perspective, many of those weren’t assured until the very end of the window. Maybe top targets weren’t readily available, and there was enough depth on paper: Arsenal had just as many forwards as Liverpool, for example.
January was much more disappointing.
👉 “Inconceivable!”
Here’s an excerpt from the last newsletter, written before the window closed. This was before we saw Martinelli go down, and before we learned that Havertz would be out for the year with a torn hamstring.
Whatever you call it — fatigue, fitness, sharpness, injury management — it permeates everything like a fog, and it feels like it’s getting thicker every year.
The point? The season is not going to plan for Arsenal, but it will have some more twists and turns. We have our tactical thoughts, we have data on their production, we have (incomplete) injury lists and explanations. But we have very little view into how a player is actually feeling when they play, outside of inferences and conjecture. And that's about as important as anything.
The reality, though, is that we don’t currently have a clearly identifiable reason why things should magically improve more than our rivals. While I anxiously await the return of Ben White and perhaps a mini-Dubai type trip in a couple of weeks, there are now more single points of failure, not less. Injuries beget injuries, fatigue begets fatigue, Saka isn’t coming back any time soon, and there hasn’t been some dastardly, secret plan to explode in the final months. We’ve just been getting through.
Issues with form and fortune, after all, don’t even out as a matter of course, especially over a short time horizon. Sometimes it can compound, put pressure on other stuff, and worsen.
Last year, Arteta went pragmatic for much of the first half, was patient about easing players in, and then had a long break. There was a reason to expect health to improve. Now: shorter squad, shorter break — yes, worse luck — and wiped, overextended players.
…and again.
Look, have Arsenal signed anybody? No. But if you really look at it, is there enough attacking depth left on the squad? Also no.
…and finally, before the Havertz news:
The universe of players who can impact Arsenal is much smaller than fans typically think it is. The universe of players who can impact Arsenal is still larger than Arsenal seem to believe it is. I know this because a wiped Havertz just played 90+ minutes in a totally finished tie.
None of this was particularly groundbreaking #analysis. The injury luck has been abominable, but the resulting issues haven’t been unforeseeable — this was not written post hoc — and it’s not exactly prescient if you’ve been watching the players this month.
Here was Havertz in the dying moments against Wolves. The window was still open.
(…aaaaand I’m angry again.)
I don’t think there are many sustainable critiques against Arteta’s usage of players this year. He’s turned down the press, rotated, played teenagers, delayed games, and played pragmatically. I’d like him to get Martinelli and Saka walking a bit more, but that’s about it. It’s just been an accumulation, and not just in club games.
In the market, Arsenal’s discipline is the right impulse. Fans want shiny toys and tend to underestimate how narrow the corridor is — how good you have to be to immediately impact a team at this level, especially under a manager as demanding and detailed out-of-possession as Arteta. We should keep the expectations for immediate impact in check, whatever we remember of Trossard. One knock, one slow period, and the rest-of-season impact is heavily limited. Because the Premier League loan slots were filled, any incoming loan would have to leave a situation in which they weren’t thriving, and then jump up leagues to the toughest one. That is no guarantee of immediate success.
Here’s a list of attackers who moved this January.
I see several deals on that list that I would have done, with Kolo Muani being the most obvious. I’d also make two more points about this:
There’s been a little too much reliance on the idea that “nobody was available.” For one, it’s clear that players were available; see above. But also, as I’ve said elsewhere: the universe of players who did move isn’t the same as the pool of players who could have moved. Part of the job at a big club is making things happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
Likewise, there is no guarantee that the terms of the deals that were done are the same ones that Arsenal could have achieved. The loan fee for Mathys Tel, for example, got silly. But he had turned down Tottenham before those terms were solidified. I was very open to some kind of loan-to-buy for him in principle, and probably more comfortable with a sizable purchase option than most, mostly based on his longer-term potential.
There’s another issue (sorry!). Headed into the season, Arsenal weren’t as thin at forward as is typically thought, but injuries piled up. Arsenal were thin at on-ball, creative, attacking #10s, entering the season with basically Ødegaard and Nwaneri. Nwaneri, now, is being relied upon as a forward, at a time when Ødegaard is not looking his physical best. The lack of frontline enforcement will stress the midfield, too, and I’m quite worried about Ødegaard cover.
Look. Everyone knew Arsenal needed an attacker. That was obvious at the end of last season, was abundantly clear after losing Saka and Jesus, and is even clearer now. It is not narrowly a short-term need, either. It was true a year ago, a month ago, today, and will be true again next summer. It wouldn’t have solved everything, and it certainly wouldn’t have guaranteed that others didn’t get hurt. But it’s not an excuse for inaction.
Another attacker should have been brought on at some point in the last two windows, even if it was just a January loan. The end.
👉 Where we go from here
I set out to talk about the contrasting performances against City and Newcastle, which have much wider implications. It’s not uncommon for great teams to have a bogey opponent. Even the best-built sides of the era have their stylistic kryptonite. But Newcastle aren’t just a one-off problem for Arsenal; they fit into a wider trend alongside Porto, Fulham, Moyes’ West Ham, Dyche’s Everton, and a few others.
This summer, that means finally attacking this problem with the same clarity Arsenal showed after the Etihad loss. In that case, Arsenal refactored the squad with a clear purpose: better athletes, better duel winners, better defenders in space. Now, the next phase of adjustments have to come in the summer: more variety of passes, better dribblers, more speed, more attackers who can nail home a half-chance.
In the meantime, the team will have to be steely and creative.
Here is where my brain goes. It’s a mix of preferences and expectations.
My thoughts:
This is, essentially, a box midfield — similar to what we saw against Liverpool last year, and with Trossard/Havertz up front this year. There is no true #9, but a swirling cast of characters up front; this is really more of a “twin-10” situation than “Merino at striker” situation.
This is because my thoughts drift to the remaining strengths of the squad list. Especially with White returning, the team will be deep with full-backs and those who can play midfield. In midfield, there are the usual suspects, plus a cast of emergency options. That entire list includes Rice, Partey, Ødegaard, Merino, Jorginho, Nwaneri, Lewis-Skelly, and Zinchenko; emergency options include Calafiori, Timber, White, Trossard, and even Saliba or Kiwior.
The most glaring weaknesses of the current team are a) forward depth and b) depth in general. It’s unlikely (or inadvisable) that Nwaneri and Sterling can sustain repeat full-90s as attackers; as such, running out a formation with only two true “forward” positions, leaving one on the bench for rotation, seems to make sense to me.
I also believe this would decrease the amount of running those two wide forwards have to do. You can treat them like Liverpool treats their wingers, and basically leave them up there while the back-four and four midfielders do their work. As the play advances, you’d like Trossard and Nwaneri to get as close to goal as possible; that means the full-backs going wide as default. I think White is a big upgrade on Timber for wide work.
On Merino, this really amounts to a “pinning #10” role that isn’t out of his wheelhouse. To be clear: he is not a true striker and there would be a dropoff; Trossard is a better #9 option than him in a vacuum. Still, Trossard can rotate in, and here’s what I wrote in the original Merino scouting report, from before he signed:
I think it’s helpful to take a more expansive look at squad lists, and look less at “positional cover,” and more at “profile cover.” A player doesn’t need to slot in at the exact same position to effectively cover a starter; their qualities need to be covered, however. For instance, Jorginho and Zinchenko were essentially spelling each other last year … at different positions. If Saka misses time, Arsenal will be light on 1v1 gravity, dribbling, and playmaking — that needs to be offset somewhere, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be at RW. As such, Merino is great Rice cover, even if he never plays in the #6. With Jorginho and Partey in the squad, Arsenal are perilously light on midfield space-eaters. Without Rice, you feel bad about the physicality of a Jorginho/Ødegaard/Vieira midfield, for example. Merino basically fixes that. Jorginho/Ødegaard/Merino is all good, and so are some other permutations.
He is also, in his own way, Havertz cover. Especially down the line, it got hard to picture lineups without Havertz in them — especially when you’d like to go long or take advantage of set plays. Merino covers that, too. In many ways he’s the more practical version of what Arteta sought with Havertz last year.
I’d floated him as an “oddly good false-9” back then, too. Merino is a helpful, expansive mover, a target man, and can have quick reactions to balls in the box. Regardless of how he’s deployed, I expect to see him play a greater role in the months to come.
While a frontline of Sterling, Trossard, and Nwaneri is workable, and the more obvious (likely?) solution, it will be underphysical for long-balls, set plays, and pressing.
The above wouldn’t represent a sea change in tactics. The broadstrokes of this have been done before.
The big issues are that you’d like to ruggedly defend and set up the counter, but Arsenal essentially have no speed left. I’m not sure there’s much you can do about that, except keep some players higher than you would otherwise.
While it looks awfully defensive, that can get turned up and down on a match-to-match basis. But I’d expect it to be fairly disgusting in the Champions League. Bring it.
I may spend some time writing about Hale Enders who could potentially eat a few minutes.
I don’t dismiss suggestions of a back-three out of hand. Calafiori is very, very good at that.
Yes, Tierney can and should rotate at left-wing.
In any case, I expect to see a lot of rotation, plugging-and-playing, and figuring it out. The most exciting options include Nwaneri and Trossard getting a lot of shots through the middle. Some new associations may reveal themselves.
Tactically, I would put a huge responsibility on Rice: more long shots, more whipped crosses, and as much attacking ambition as possible. Ødegaard could break out again, of course, but I am cautious about his physical levels. Nwaneri’s whipped crosses should also be platformed with abandon.
White also offers reason for hope. I did a miniature dive on Timber’s year so far, and while his defensive work has been as stellar as can be conceived, I became more measured about his attacking impact to date. I readily have a bias in his direction — his mix of “slick on the ball” and “dog off the ball” is everything I like in a player — but the numbers represent an attacker who has shown more potential than production so far. This was supported by a recent ESPN article that gave him poor grades for passing under pressure and crossing. I think it’ll all improve, and hope to see him dribbling at the block more often in the months to come. But I also think Sterling/Nwaneri will perform best when a full-back pushes them into the half-space, and White is great out there.
There are big, justifiable questions about how the team has treated the attack in the transfer market. The decision-making hasn’t felt crisp. There is a need to address the shortcomings against a Newcastle with more ferocity, and expectations for the summer should rightfully be through the roof. I am just sad about the injuries; those players have given their all. Some positions are hanging on by a thread, if that.
There are some reasons for hope-slash-delusion, too, but they’re hard to find. The schedule finally looks manageable, top-four odds still look good, and the team is consistently well-coached through tough periods — there also should be more time to drill in tactics. The luck has just been rotten, and our recriminations only go so far to explain all that. Meanwhile, the teenagers might be even better than we’d envisioned, and this team is still standing. Mostly.
But we know that all requires some grasping. A range of outcomes are on the table. It’ll be hard.
Let’s see.
Thanks for hanging tight over the last couple of weeks. It was an inefficient period for me, too: I got awfully busy, and then kept writing huge scouting reports on potential targets, getting 90%+ done before inevitably learning that they weren’t going to happen. I’ll be publishing some of them ASAP anyway. Stay tuned.
I understand the restrictions of the January transfer window. And I get that there is a plan for the summer, but surely after the injury to Jesus, there should've been a tactical look at players, who while may not be long term solutions could have played a role this season and in the next few seasons to come. It is looking far more likely that there is going to be a big exodus out of Arsenal this summer. Trossard, Jorginho, Partey, Sterling, Zinchenko, Tierney, Neto, and possibly Kiwior might all be heading out the door. Even if we look at the possibility of getting a 80 million striker, a 70 million winger, and a 60 million midfielder, that still doesn't cover the exits. We will need an additional 2 players to round out the depth for this squad, especially if the club is looking at next season as going for broke (and they absolutely should be, as we are squarely in the middle of that proverbial "window" to win big trophies).
There was business to be done. Perhaps they would've had to spend an extra 10-20 million from their targeted original expenditure to have to go out and get an attacker this January, but the risk was, and now the situation has become existential. I know people decry the "warm body" narrative. But looking at the outgoings, surely we needed an option. I look at the likes of Eze, Kudus, Mbuemo, and I think that spending 50-60 million on one of those, while maybe would've pushed us over in the summer in terms of what we were trying to do, would've maybe paid dividend right now, in this season. Even if its as simple as getting past the round of 16 in the UCL, or maybe even making a semi finals. We would've recouped those monetary premiums.
I think for the transfer window was that cliché that I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. The summer window and this January window has been a harsh one for Arsenal fans because I think it has been reminiscent of those transfer windows under the latter years of Arsene Wenger's tenure. There are glaring issues, everyone knows what they are, and yet we don't fix them.
Sigh...After all this, I know there will be an opportunity to do something this season. I know Liverpool are going to lose games in the final run in. I just dont think we are in any shape to take advantage of it anymore.
Sublime.