This season Arsenal has a 5-0 home victory and a 3-0 home victory in the Premier League. The two most forgiving matches in the schedule, against Leeds and Nottingham Forest at the Emirates, have seen the Gunners make and score relatively easily, even if the victory of Leeds was blown up by some set goals.
However, the schedule is pre -loaded with a number of difficult competitions, Liverpool and Bilbao Weg (and Manchester United I think?) And Manchester City at home. This weekend Arsenal will travel to Newcastle where they did not score in their last three visits.
Performances and setups In these more difficult games have yielded a discourse about the approach of Arteta and whether it is inherent inherent in conservative. I admit that I really started with the levels of hysteria on everything that Arsenal does and does not do, but it is still a very valuable discussion.
Arsenal signed Viktor Gyokees, Noni Madueke and Ebereechi this summer, so we can assume that Arteta wanted more creativity and unpredictability. All three of these players have an element of improvisation about them in different ways. Diversity and refreshing The attack was clearly one of the most important objectives of the manager for the summer transfer window.
These additions have also added depth to the attack and it is necessary in these opening weeks. Kai Havertz, Martin Odegaard, Bukayo Saka and now Noni Madueke have all been injured. Some of that absence have informed a stiffness in this arsenal attack in some of these larger competitions in the opening weeks of the season.
Strangely enough, I think the absence of Saka was probably the least impactful, because Noni Madueke is a very capable representative and he gives Arsenal much of the qualities that Saka does. In my opinion, the absence of Havertz and Odegaard have been more problematic, especially because they have been simultaneously.
To begin with, it often meant that the entire front three of Arsenal consists of new signing sessions. In Bilbao Eze, Madueke and Gyokeres started to be together at the club this summer, so new relationships have formed in some of the most difficult matches.
One of the reasons why Odegaard and Havertz are so familiar with Arteta is that they perform ‘both sides’ of the game very well. Odegaard is a creative player and one of Arsenal’s most important and most difficult players too.
His absence leads to a number of very binary choices between players who can match his creative output, but also cannot lead the press (Eze and Nwaneri) or a player who can perform his less striking tasks, but with little of his creativity (Merino). Arteta is mixed and matched according to the opponent.
When Odegaard had to be replaced against Leeds and Forest, Ethan Nwaneri was preferred. In Bilbao, in Anfield and at home in Manchester City, Arteta chose Mikel Merino. Of course, against Manchester City, the decision to choose Merino was almost immediately made superfluous by the early goal of Erling Haaland.
Everyone has a plan until they are hit in the face. As soon as Arsenal had picked himself up from the canvas, Arteta sent to Eze for Merino because the game state had shifted so early. Missing such an all -round player as Odegaard has been a problem in these games and I would say the same thing about Kai Havertz. Havertz is another player who does ‘both sides’ from the game to a high standard.
That certainly does not apply to Viktor Gyokeres. Not yet. Gyokeres scored at home against Leeds and Forest (both open playbacks came from lofted passes over the top of the opposition defense, just like Martinelli’s did against City, which clearly added a rope to their attacking bow this season) and I think it was largely bought the type of game.
Arsenal sometimes missed the deception to break down deep defenses last season and attracted too many matches due to the failure to convert dominance into goals. Arsenal didn’t have much problem in the ‘larger games’. I suspect that Arteta would have proposed a template in which Havertz started in advance in the larger games.
In fact, if he had been fit, I also suspect that Arteta would probably have chosen Havertz in Odegaard’s position for tests such as Liverpool and Manchester City. There is something here about the profiles of the player who did not have Arsenal available during demonstrably the most difficult series of matches of the season.
Arsenal is certainly better equipped to deal with some of this absence than last season. Injuries to Havertz and Saka actually ended the domestic opportunities of the Gunners months before the end of the last campaign. This time they are better registered and have been able to rely on individual quality moments in the midst of a number of quite stiff performance.
Eze was not great against Manchester City, but his pass for Martinelli’s goal is the kind of match -changing moment for which he was purchased. While players such as Martinelli and Trossard started almost every match where they were available last season, they now largely have an impact of the bank. (For my money, the decision to start Trossard against Manchester City was a more debatable selection than Merino).
Arsenal also adapts to a new striker for whom I think is honest at this stage to say that it offers little more than goals. I suspect that this will only change somewhat in the season, so I think that Arteta would probably have preferred Havertz in those larger games when the game happens more ‘between the boxes’.
My own opinion is that I ‘a pin slice’ in part of the attacking stiffness of Arsenal in the opening weeks of the season given all reservations. So far they have made short work of their two softest matches of the season, but that does not mean that everything will be fine this weekend after Newcastle (a game that I think many have to look again with regulatory teeth). I personally think that I would be inclined to re -assess in a month or so.
#Hand #brake