What did we learn from the friendlies, if anything?
Emptying the notebook for a BBQ side-dish on Vieira, Nketiah, Sambi, Holding, Ndicka, and more
I’ve still got a full BBQ coming later (in the form of a West Ham tactical preview), but in the meantime, I had some notes lying around from the friendlies.
I don’t think anyone should draw too many conclusions from this slate of games, but in the absence of judgment, I thought I’d empty out the notebook.
Beware, less measured analysis and more conjecture/editorializing to follow!
Vieira may be ready
During the World Cup, this thread on positional vs “relationist” play got me thinking about Fábio Vieira.
If you saw Spain shine, and then Spain stall out, you'll see what Arteta is trying to achieve (and avoid) this year. He wants some tenets of Enriquean positional discipline and possessional dominance, layered with a wily unpredictability: players unlocked by tactics instead of players serving tactics. What was clear from the signings this year (focusing on Jesus, Zinchenko, and Vieira) was that Arsenal wasn't bringing on players to occupy a narrow piece of grass.
Which brings us to Fábio Vieira, who we covered in a recent long-read. Particularly early in a player’s career, it can be difficult to distinguish a flexible positioning genius from a confused maniac. At times, he's probably confused himself.
If it is to work, though, it's a two-way street, requiring both self-awareness from the player and buy-in from his manager and teammates.
Jesus has seen both sides: a system that enabled him but didn't give him quite enough playing time (at City), and a system without any deference to his unique skillset (at Brazil). He came to Arsenal for minutes, but he also came for managerial support and the tactical support that came with it. He arrived with a sense of gravitas with a young team that looked up to him and his trophy-winning ways. They bought in to his unexpected ideas without much prodding, and were willing to rotate like hell to enable them.
For evidence, you can look at Jesus’ last two starts, one for club and one for country:
Looking back at Vieira’s year at Porto, it tells the story of a team’s gradual realization of similar, unique qualities. He got to play with increasing flexibility and untetheredness (the squiggly red line tells me that’s not a word) as games went by. As his teammates supported and rotated better, he got more dangerous.
But he had to miss preseason at Arsenal, and didn’t come with the same authority (or solid minutes) that Jesus did. Because of this, the burden of adaptation has been mostly on him, and it’s been equal parts promising and awkward. He’s been great in some games — at Zürich, or playing with the starters at Brentford — while showing himself, perhaps surprisingly, to be a plus defender in the press. He’s also looked unmoored at times, and been pushed around with his back to the net.
Looking at the two PSV matchups, in particular, it was sometimes less about him, and more about what his teammates did with him. There were times when others made the same runs as him, or they didn’t notice a weird move he made, or didn’t rotate around with him. Or there was that time that Jesus blocked his shot.
It wasn’t rare to see him left hanging like this:
To that end, the spoils of the winter break seemed to reveal themselves pretty quickly. Playing at RW, he was the best player on the pitch against Lyon, relentlessly pushing the ball forward, his teammates doing a better job of anticipating his movements.
He eventually assisted the Nkeitah strike on the counter, while nailing in another one of these bad boys:
He was good again against Milan. By recognizing this situation early and beating Adli to the ball, he was able to create a second goal for Nelson out of thin air:
Against Juventus, he played 63 minutes at RW, then 15 at the Xhaka role, then closed the game out back at RW. He was ridiculously involved throughout, with 109 total “actions” and 84 total passes, higher than the likes of Ødegaard, Saka, and Xhaka have notched all year, by my count.
It didn’t turn into goals, and I’d tell you why, but I don’t really want to think about that game again.
The fan consensus seems to be that he’s not a winger, but I think Arteta views the situation with a little more nuance. He may not be a traditional winger, but he may not be a traditional anything, and that’s not a knock.
At wing, he’s good at the advanced press, and is buoyed by having a panoramic view of the pitch. Because of that, he can be less likely to lose the ball in the middle third, and is more likely to receive the ball on the move (instead of with his back to the net, and a big center-back climbing on his back).
As he does near-post cuts or works himself into interesting spots, his teammates may grow to understand his game with more context. There will undoubtedly be inconsistency and messiness, but because of his work-rate and a cut-throat nature in front of goal, it may not just be a year of adjustment—but one of impact.
No big surprises with Nketiah
Two weeks ago, the long-read was about Eddie Nketiah: what we can make of his performances to date, and what we can expect moving forward.
After going through that, there wasn’t anything unexpected about his form in the friendlies. He’s still high-effort, still looking to poach through pressures, and is working to evolve his game to accept the ball all over the pitch, with varying success.
While accepting the ball in the middle, he can still be adjusting to the speed of a midfielder close-down, as he did against Enzo Barrenechea:
In similar situations, he had perfect composure. In other words: he’s working through it, people.
He also netted a goal, and was able to generate opportunities with his work-rate. It was all pretty solid.
On Boxing Day, Nketiah will make his first Premier League start of the season. However impressed we can be with the recent stylings of Reiss “Ryan” Nelson and Vieira, they are still no Martinelli and Saka, who may or may not join the likes of Xhaka and Ødegaard up front.
With quality like that, there is likely to be more opportunity, more progression, and more rebounds. That all means more chances for the kind of goals that Eddie likes to score. Let’s see if he can do it.
Sambi caught in the middle
Over at Arseblog, Tim Stillman wrote a great piece on Sambi, and I don’t have much to add. But I will add nonetheless.
After the initial performances against Villa, there was reason for hope that Sambi was on an upward trajectory and ready to take the next step in his career. It was natural to preach optimism and patience for a player who was likely to draw criticism in a tough role.
His performance in a high-pressure loss at Old Trafford was probably better than a comments section would lead you to believe, and he also had good moments against Zurich. But in the weeks to follow, he gradually fell to the level expected by his critics. Instead of progressing at the 6, his game got smaller, safer, and more nondescript. The issues with defensive tracking remained, he’d go full nineties without a disruptive challenge, and the passing lost some of its confident, cutting edge.
Sambi has since moved back over to the 8 with Elneny back. After a middling first half in the second game against Zurich, I wrote on Patreon about how he turned on some of his best form of the season after 45’, while the rest of the team looked sleepy. He was sprinting everywhere, covering counters by himself, won all of his ground duels (6/6), made 3 interceptions and 3 clearances, and did some interesting carries and rotations with Tierney to help save a game that was all-too-close.
That work-rate was replicated in this slate of friendlies. After Vieira, I would place him as the second best player on the field against Lyon, even better than the captain—showing longballs, tackles, box movements, hustle, and physicality, with his switches-of-play playing a role in both goals.
On a first touch, he blasted this perfect looper on a ball that unexpectedly bounced to him, resulting in the second goal:
His game was a little less impactful against Milan, but still more physical, shouldering people and getting fouled in equal measure.
That’s nice to see in a vacuum, but it’s a level of effort and assertiveness that would have been nice to see down the stretch before the break. As it stands, Elneny is back, Vieira is improving, ESR is on the mend, and reinforcements look to be on their way.
With Sambi still showing his skills when afforded space, and in need of confidence and consistent playing time, a loan to France or Italy might make sense for all parties at this stage. But we’ll see.
Exploring depth at CB
Rob Holding is a good football player. If you ever watch tape of him kicking the ball around in training, you’ll be reminded of the ridiculous technical levels of every player in this league. But while Holding would be a locked-in starter for many teams across the Prem, Arsenal is leveling up its quality across positions.
With a team looking to regularly challenge for titles, and White swinging out wide as a dynamic new weapon at right-back, the question remains as to whether Holding is an actual City-challenging option in the middle. My warm take: maybe as a fourth CB option, probably not as a second or third.
The reasons are more physical than anything within his control. He’s a good, safe passer but not always a dynamic one: in the friendlies, some of his switches-of-play sailed out of bounds. He can make good judgments on a super-high line, but if anything goes wrong on the coordination, he can lack the recovery speed to clean up the mess. His agility can run into problems against players like Xavi Simons.
This can all be balanced out in games here or there, and is no problem as a 5-back sealing a game, but a longer stretch in the lineup may limit Arsenal’s ultimate ceiling.
Meanwhile, il Romanista reports that a free transfer is already agreed to for the summer for Eintracht Frankfurt’s Evan Ndicka. We’ll see how that all plays out, and if true, I’ll turn out a full scouting report. But here’s the gist: I fucking love this possibility, and it’s easy to see why Arteta and Co. are interested.
Ndicka first caught my eye down the Europa League stretch last year. As a left-sided CB in a back-three who is capable of playing LB as needed, he’s somebody who really jumps out for his tight-space agility and comfort with the ball, but most of all for his speed at 6’4”. There are times where his lanky recovery sprints will make you laugh at what you’re seeing, and call to mind Antonio Rüdiger. He’s not a finished product, but good in the air and with both feet, and can match of some Gabriel’s progressive carries.
I’ll go into his defensive game further if I do a deep-dive. In the meantime, I’ll say this: a few months back, I wrote a piece investigating who might be Gabriel’s backup at LCB, and why Arteta favors the lefted-of-foot over there. In the process, I created a napkin stat that ranked the world’s left-footed CB’s, but omitted it from the piece because it didn’t feel overly scientific. The first takeaway was just how few of them there are. The second takeaway, for today: at the time, Gabriel ranked 7th among left-footed CB’s, and Ndicka ranked 11th.
Take that all with a grain of salt, but gives you a broad sense of what Arsenal would be working with. Wouldn’t be bad to have both of them along.
Final notes
Tierney is adapting well to inversion as a LB, and there’s no reason to doubt his ball-skills in the middle of the pitch. In the final third, the system allows for a lot of interoperability among the triangle of the LB, advanced 8, and LW. With Tierney more likely to bomb down the line, Nelson was moving in, and Sambi/Vieira were dropping into the midfield spot. It works well with that personnel, but may be a little less impactful to pull Xhaka out of the box to do that.
Cozier-Duberry and Nwaneri were genuinely impressive. There are plenty of young players with good dribbling skills, but there was a sense of confidence and tactical know-how that felt a little different, and Cozier-Duberry had a few first touches that were nasty, especially considering that he’s usually played on the right. Regardless of situation, this is a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old playing against Juventus. Man.
The crossing game this year leaves a bit to be desired. Against the Juventus bus, they banged in 39 in all, and while some were retrieved, they never felt particularly menacing. Would like to see this be the next evolution of White’s game at right-back.
Prayer circle for Nelson to be back soon.
OK! Notebook empty! We’re one week away from real football! Rejoice!
Happy holidays everybody.
And happy grilling.
🔥
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