For now, it has to be mostly tactical

Morning.

I would like to start by demanding reparations from both West Ham and Newcastle after I watched their game last night. To say this was the worst game of football I have ever seen might be a touch melodramatic, but only a touch. It was genuinely awful. Newcastle were bad, West Ham were worse.

Then I got crotchety looking at the Hammers and wondering how on earth we managed to lose to them a couple of weeks ago. On a basic level, I understand it: we let in a crap goal and couldn’t score any goals, but West Ham are so pedestrian, so devoid of any ideas, that defeat should be a red letter day for Mikel Arteta when he looks back on this season.

I read James’ post-Man Utd piece on The Athletic (£), it’s something we talked about on the Arsecast Extra too, about the need for more creativity in the team. Striker? Sure. Bring it on. Nobody’s going to argue we don’t need one. But who’s gonna get the ball to the striker in positions he can score from? A list of those current options:

1 – Martin Odegaard.

End of list.

Which isn’t to say others aren’t capable, of course they are. We’ve seen Ethan Nwaneri create from the right hand side, picking up some of the burden left by Bukayo Saka who despite being absent since December 21st still has more assists than any other Arsenal player – by some distance too. He has 13, the next best is Declan Rice at 8 (via transfermarkt). He’s also our second highest scorer, despite missing 17 matches so far. His injury was always going to be hard to reckon with, but those numbers lay it pretty bare.

Behind him we have Leandro Trossard on 7, in a season where he has blown hot and cold, it’s fair to say. Odegaard also has 7, and he’s been quite frank about his season being below par, and after that you go down the list for players whose contributions can be counted on one hand.

As I wrote in yesterday’s recap, the issues around creativity are also linked to the quality of forwards we have. It’s easier to create when the movement is sharper and more unpredictable, a player can end up with more ‘assists’ when he gives the ball to someone capable of a moment of brilliance. Stat-padding it might be to an extent, but it’s impossible to unlink those two aspects. Strikers depend a lot on those who create, creators need players ahead of them to make their job easier.

I do wonder if, when we look ahead to the summer, the manager needs to give thought to how his obvious preference for a specific profile of player in the ‘left 8’ position needs some consideration. I think you can draw a fairly solid through line between the physical and technical attributes of Granit Xhaka, Kai Havertz, Declan Rice and Mikel Merino (even if the latter hasn’t played there a great deal this season). That’s clearly what Arteta wants in there, and it’s fine, but when we play a deep lying ‘6’, we then have a hybrid 6/8 in that position, leaving Odegaard on the other side as the main creator. Stifle the captain, you go a long way to stifling Arsenal. Not quite a single point of failure, but certainly adjacent.

When we have Bukayo Saka back, we have to think about how we get Ethan Nwaneri into the team on a regular basis. His talent and ability demands it, even if we can see some inconsistency at this point of his career because of his age. But going forward, he’s going to be hammering down to the door to play regularly, his eye for goal is a huge part of that (he is our third highest scorer this season with 8). Could he play deeper, more centrally? We’ll have to wait and see, but it’s not far-fetched to envisage him in that kind of role.

Martin Zubimendi, tipped for a summer move to ostensibly replace the departing veterans Thomas Partey and Jorginho, will be a fine addition to the midfield, but not somebody who is going to add a lot of creativity to the side. It doesn’t mean he can’t contribute in other ways, winning the ball and feeding those who can create, but that’s not a signing that adds craft and unpredictability in the opposition final third – the area we need it most. So, when Andrea Berta sits down at his desk in the coming weeks and liaises with the manager and the recruitment team, that aspect of our summer business requires close attention.

One other thing that stood out to me when I was looking at the stats this morning were the assist numbers from full-backs, the left-backs in particular. In 49 appearances between them, Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly have 2 (both Calafiori). I know we ask our left-back to do a very specific job, tucking into midfield etc, but is that a tactic that could be tweaked to give the team more width? On the other side, Jurrien Timber and Ben White have 4 (3 & 1), and that role is a bit more traditional, with more scope to overlap – although we’ve seen less of that this year, perhaps because of the way our possession-based games forces the opposition deep.

And this is the key: not every team comes to face Arsenal with a low-block, but quite often the way we control the game in their half means that’s a tactic they have to adopt. But we don’t have enough craft, creativity, unpredictability, individual quality – however you want to frame it – to deal that with as regularly as we need to. We are basically mining our own Kryptonite.

Ultimately that’s a problem we have to solve as a club. I don’t think there’s one simple solution, an antidote that makes it all better. Having Saka back will help. Having other injured forwards back will help. Addressing issues of creativity in the market will help. Tweaking things on a tactical level will help. Doing the same thing in every game and hoping for miracle moments of precision from our one creative player who is struggling with his own form is unlikely to give us what we need consistently.

There are 10 games to go in the Premier League, and these are not nothing games either – despite being so far behind Liverpool. We have a Champions League quarter-final coming up if we navigate tomorrow evening without some kind of disaster, but that’s pretty much assured. We can hope for Saka to play a part if we get to Madrid, but we can’t use the market, so that just leaves the manager with his training sessions and his tactics board. What, if anything, can he do for these final couple of months of the season?

Right, that’s it for this morning. You can join us later on Patreon as we round up the weekend’s Premier League action in The 30, and bit more besides. For now, have a good one.

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