Culture Is Captain

Why the Arsenal captaincy matters

by David Alexander

When I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, Frank McLintock was already part of Arsenal folklore.

The man who led the team to the European Fairs Cup and then the Double, he was a gentleman off the pitch and a warrior on it.

Kenny Sansom was the captain as my interest grew and led by example, his excellence as a left-back never in doubt.

But it was the emergence of Tony Adams as captain in 1988, when just 21 years old, that set the stall for a generation of success.

Adams led by example, putting his head where others wouldn’t even put their feet if it meant making a clearance or bundling the ball into the opposition’s goal from a corner.

The fact that he lifted the title in three different decades says it all about his level of consistency, particularly given his own personal issues and the widespread ‘donkey’ abuse he got from fans and the media when he made a mistake.

Adams had been captain for a decade by the time the club lifted their second Double in 1998, in Arsene Wenger’s first full season in charge.

Adams embodied that warrior culture, an attitude that inspired his team-mates, but he also had a softer side, knowing who to bark at and who to put his arm around.

While he marshalled the defence, it was his guidance of Dennis Bergkamp that set the stall for that trophy haul.

Seeing Bergkamp sitting alone on the bus, he told the Dutchman: “You've been here two-and-a-half years, Dennis. Isn't it about time you won something? It would be a shame not to, with your ability.”

That may well have inspired Bergkamp, who had already grown used to Adams and other members of the back four kicking lumps out of him in training to toughen him up for the rigours of English football.

“We kept people like Bergkamp on their toes, we improved them by testing them and if they didn’t test them in training, they might not have got to the level where they’ve got so we were doing them a service,” Adams said.

Lee Dixon said recently that the rare occasions that Adams praised him on the field, calling him “One heck of a full-back” was one of his proudest moments.

Undoubtedly, Adams benefited from his defensive colleagues, Dixon, Nigel Winterburn, Steve Bould and Martin Keown, who were all cut from a similar cloth, setting uncompromising high standards that set the tone for everyone else.

Patrick Vieira was a natural successor, leading the team to more trophies and the Invincibles title, but there’s an argument that those who have followed have not been of a similar disposition.

Thierry Henry was a great in his pomp, but perhaps lacked some of the people skills to be a real leader for the varying playing personalities and we have had a succession of captains who have left the club after two or three seasons.

Adams talked about living by a set of principles that set the culture of the club.

It’s no coincidence that Mikel Arteta was captain on the day we broke our trophy drought by winning the FA Cup in 2014 and in his absence, Per Mertesacker did the same a year later.

Granit Xhaka is a Marmite player, loved by some and disliked by others, and while he may well have his limitations on the field, his appointment as captain made sense given his reputation as a leader in the squad.

But his meltdown after being booed off as he sauntered off against Crystal Palace underlined a fragility the likes of Adams and Vieira simply didn’t have.

Culture has been a key tenet of the Arteta managerial reign, so it’s no surprise that he took possibly the biggest gamble of his tenure by dropping club captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang ahead of the North London Derby.

Shots of our leading striker sitting, sullen-faced, and then reportedly driving off without taking part in the warm-down after the game, may have been the result of Arteta’s slightly naïve admission that Aubameyang had been dropped.

Whether reports of lateness are true, the Arsenal captain has to set the example which others follow and it comes back to the culture that develops from the top of the club’s playing staff all the way down to the youth teams.

Aubameyang is undoubtedly Arsenal’s biggest star but then again the same could be said of Thierry Henry or Bergkamp when Adams wore the armband.

During the 2-1 victory over Tottenham, Kieran Tierney set the standards by tearing Matt Doherty apart down the left in tandem with Emile Smith Rowe.

It was fascinating watching the player-cam footage Arsenal shared after the game of Tierney barking orders at his team-mates, bombing forward or making tackles for the Arsenal cause.

Much has been made of Tierney’s ‘Braveheart’ attitude, the down-to-earth shopping bag persona made true by his refusal to wear warm training gear in Arctic conditions when shorts and a t-shirt would suffice.

But it’s not just his choice of attire that sets Tierney apart.

He’s clearly cut from the same cloth as McLintock or Adams, a player proud of his colours who expects others to follow the standards he sets.

Just as Adams had done with Bergkamp, Tierney is reported to have unsettled some team-mates with his aggressive and full-throttle approach to training when he first arrived.

But isn’t that precisely the level of commitment, determination and passion that we want to see from our captain?

Don’t we want our captain and indeed every player to exert the same effort that we fans would if we were suitably fit and skilled to do so?

At the very most, Aubameyang has two years left as Arsenal captain and Tierney’s credentials as his successor are indisputable.

When Arteta talks about the culture of the club and non-negotiables, Tierney ticks every single box.

Arsenal Need To Look Forward To Compete Again

By @ArsenalAddict

In the dark days towards the end of George Graham’s reign at Arsenal, when the flair and excitement of his earlier teams had given way to fearful pragmatism, our football was essentially route one, hoping for Ian Wright to do something special.

Graham eventually signed Chris Kiwomya and John Hartson, neither of whom lasted very long, and it was not until the arrival of Dennis Bergkamp and Arsene Wenger that we became a dynamic attacking unit once again.

Bergkamp was undoubtedly a generational talent, providing the ammunition for Wright, who only dropped below at least a goal every two games in his last season with the Gunners.

I saw an interview with Wrighty recently where he spoke of his regret that Christopher Wreh came on in the 1998 FA Cup final rather than him for what would have been his final appearance in an Arsenal shirt at the age of 34.

But while Wenger could often be criticised for his defensive acumen, he collected forwards like candy – and he made a decision in that title-winning season that Wright was declining.

First it was Nicolas Anelka, then of course Thierry Henry who caught the headlines as leading goalscorers.

But Wenger supplemented them with the likes of Kanu, Sylvain Wiltord, Francis Jeffers, Robin van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor.

With the exception of Jeffers, who didn’t make it, and van Persie who rejected a new contract, Wenger knew when to sell or release his forwards to ensure he had a fast and energetic front line.

Whether we played with a number ten such as Bergkamp or relied upon the pace and drive of our wide players, the forwards adapted and thrived whenever called upon.

Questions have been asked this season of the wisdom of giving Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang a new contract and whether it’s a reward for what he has done rather than what he will do.

Given his struggles in front of goal this season, those concerns have some justification, even though the team’s greater attacking challenges have undoubtedly had a role to play.

But you only have to look at how reluctant he is to press and his dip in efficiency to see that he needs to become strategic in his exertions.

It was only a few weeks ago that Alexandre Lacazette was being written off before his recent renaissance pulled us out of the mire – but his limitations in Arteta’s system are clear for all to see.

The Premier League has been so tight this season that finishing in the top six is not impossible, however fanciful a prospect that may seem as Arsenals’ form lurches from sublime to ridiculous.

The Europa League looks particularly strong this season but still offers a route to the Champions League that the club so desperately want and need.

The problems the club have faced in recent years are well documented: signing players who then no longer deliver on long, costly deals; and letting contracts run down, giving us little choice but to sell or exchange or release talents for way below their market values.

That’s why this summer is so important for Arsenal and why Edu and his trimmed-down team of scouts and analysts need to be putting plans in place now.

We have exciting, forward-thinking midfield talents such as Bukayo Saka and Emile Smith-Rowe – and granted, more creativity is desperately needed – but we need to supplement them with younger strikers who have the intensity and desire to take us to the next level and beyond.

Arsenal need to be brave – and that means making wholesale forward departures at the end of the season.

Aubameyang will still have two years to go on his contract, so we can extract some value from him if we decide to sell him even if he will be 32 at the end of June.

Lacazette will be 30 in the summer with only a year left on his current deal and will want big money to extend. 

Then we have Eddie Nketiah who has not yet done enough to convince that he can be a prolific striker at the very highest level, despite his superb record for the England under-21s. If West Ham, Brighton or any other top-flight club offers us north of £20m for him, he should go.

Nicolas Pepe has appeared to be weighed down by the size of his transfer fee, but, just as with Willian, who has no such fee to burden or blame for his performances, he has often appeared to be a poor fit for the club. 

His recent improvement no the left suggests green shoots are finally emerging, but as with Lacazette, can he really contribute consistently in Arteta’s system and in the Premier League?

Such a dramatic front-line overhaul, coming alongside necessary midfield recruitment, may appear drastic.

But we could reasonably expect close to £100m in sales for those mentioned, presuming we got around half our money back on Pepe if Arteta decides to cash in. 

There’s money to be made from Mattei Guendouzi and Lucas Torreira as well, don’t forget.

I still hold out hope that we can convince Folarin Balogun to stay, his fleeting appearances suggesting that he could be a special talent with a keen eye for goal.

Few would argue that Gabriel Martinelli looks to be a world class player in the making – if we can keep him fit – and a player who can become a key striker for us.

With Celtic waning, perhaps Odsonne Edouard might want to test himself in the Premier League while former Gunner Donyell Malen continues to impress in Holland.

The Premier League is characterised by speed and energy, so a forward line of 30-somethings is always going to have its weaknesses.

Just as in midfield, Arsenal need athletes with intelligence, drive and the hunger to win that may be fading as our older players enter the twilights of their playing careers.

Hopefully Edu is already putting plans in place so that this time next season, we are truly competitive once more and establishing a core of younger players who can help us challenge for the title and Champions League progression rather than short-term solutions whose limitations have been clear for all to see.

Progress in January Means Reevaluating Edu's Performance

by @ArsenalAddict

The last few years have undoubtedly been times of great upheaval at Arsenal. You can go back to the Champions League final in 2006 as the peak of Arsenal as a top club. We may have flirted once or twice since with title tilts, but we were burdened with a hugely expensive new stadium. 

Was it the stadium, though or the departure in 2007 of David Dein, the club’s power broker, transfer fixer and Arsenal visionary? It left Arsene Wenger without his trusted Lieutenant, a man who could push through new signings or pull back from potential mistakes. He wasn’t perfect, of course, but then the nature of football means transfer perfection is nigh-on impossible. For every Sol Campbell or Nicolas Anelka, world class players bought for very little, there were mis-steps such as going low on Ashley Cole’s contract renewal which saw him ultimately leave the club for Chelsea; or sign Francis Jeffers for a big fee.

Wenger’s reign had undoubtedly gone stale by the time of his departure in 2018, with plans to spread the workload and responsibilities stuttering to say the least. Perhaps it was to be expected when the club had operated in one way for a decade with power unhealthily concentrated on the shoulders of one man.

In the next 18 months or so after Wenger’s departure, we lost Ivan Gazidis (despite justifiable questions about his own abilities), Sven Mislintat and Raúl Sanllehí, with Vinai Venkatesham taking the role of CEO. To say it has been a time of upheaval is an understatement, and one which many fans expected, but perhaps not quite as tumultuous as it turned out to be.

When he was appointed late in 2019, Mikel Arteta was tremendously impressive, talking about Arsenal as a big club, the “non-negotiables” and the winning mentality that we so desperately needed. To expect a rookie coach to get everything right in his first year is perhaps too much to ask – even though the FA Cup victory, joyous as it was, masked some of the inconsistencies and mistakes that became more apparent during our terrible run before Christmas. Arteta has remained steely-eyed throughout his first year and few would argue that his first year has been a challenge.

Punctuated by lockdowns and financial challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, no wonder Life President Ken Friar, who has been associated with the club for more than 70 years, described 2020 as the most difficult year in the Gunners' history. We now live in an era of impatience, where big clubs hire and fire coaches as soon as things start to go wrong – hire fast, fire faster. But sometimes the ‘project’ needs time to mature before pulling the trigger.

Which brings me to Edu and his importance to the club.

A decent midfielder for Arsenal, he was brought in as the club’s technical director and has now essentially become the Dein to Arteta’s Wenger. He was tainted when he first arrived by his association with Sanllehí and an unhealthy connection to certain agents. Having proclaimed that all transfer business had to go through him when Sanllehí departed, the Brazilian has been tarred with some of the contractual impasses that have seen the club lose millions in potential transfer fees.

A year after we signed David Luiz, whose error-strewn spell at Arsenal has often been disappointing, much was made of the signing of Willian, another Chelsea veteran expected to help us push for the top four as quickly as possible. Willian has been an unmitigated disaster and we are lumbered with a three-year contract for a player so far from his peak that his summer 2021 departure must be a priority. 

Dein would most likely have stopped the Willian signing, urging focus on nurturing Reiss Nelson or looking at a younger option, should transfer finances have allowed. Edu has to take some responsibility for those errors. The Arsenal strategy has to be on buying long-term players with a high ceiling rather than washed-up veterans who appear set for comfortable retirement paydays.

But with the closure of the winter transfer window, it’s time to take a step back and accept that, on balance, Edu has already been a success. There are so many signings he has made in the first 18 months who have already proved their worth.

Perhaps Edu did not make enough about his reported involvement in the £6m deal to bring Gabriel Martinelli to Arsenal. In the Brazilian forward, we have a young, exciting forward who made an instant impact and who has the potential to be a genuinely world class striker. If he reaches the heights he looks capable of, Martinelli could have a transformative influence on the team and still have value to be sold for a big fee in years to come.

This time last year, we signed Cedric Soares and Pablo Mari to bolster a defence which was already packed with players. Mari has been blighted by injuries but has looked solid whenever he has played and I suspect he would have continued to play had it not been for his recent injury setback. While the evidence is limited, he already looks more accomplished than Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi and Sokratis, a trio who will all have left the club by the end of this summer. 

Cedric Soares, an older full-back, has also had limited opportunities and has been labelled a mid-table journeyman. But he was brought in as an understudy for Hector Bellerin, who alongside Ainsley Maitland-Niles, was a possible departure last summer. With both of them staying as the market stagnated, was it really the worst decision to have signed an inexpensive replacement? While Cedric isn’t a long-term option, he has improved with game time this season and his display against Southampton last week proved his worth.

Of our other summer signings, are there any doubts about Gabriel Magalhães or Thomas Partey? Gabriel already looks solid and capable of improvement and despite spending much of the first half of this season on the treatment table, Partey already looks to be one of the best midfielders in the league.

Many fans have looked at Emiliano Buendía, Yves Bissouma or even Houssem Aouar to give us more strength in midfield, but the loan signing of Martin Odegaard makes absolute sense. The Norwegian playmaker already has years of top-flight experience in Holland and Spain and while his ability to manage tendonitis and the pace and power of the Premier League remains to be seen, his reputation remains as one of the most exciting young creative talents in world football. And he has signed at little cost or risk to the club but capable of sharing the creative burden with Emile Smith-Rowe. 

Edu has also managed to ensure Mesut Ozil is off the Arsenal books.  Whatever your thoughts on the German playmaker, his continued presence became an inconvenient sideshow and his departure allows everyone to move on.

Sokratis has also gone, as has Shkodran Mustafi, thankfully, and while it remains to be seen how successful the loans for Joe Willock and Maitland-Niles turn out to be, their departures make sense given their limited game time.

If young players are not going to make the grade or do not yet appear ready to play regularly for us, a loan will either build them up for next season or hopefully raise their value and profiles for future sales. Perhaps Nelson could have moved on loan and Lucas Torreira had his Atletico Madrid nightmare curtailed, but there’s no debate that Arsenal got a lot of work done to re-shape the squad.

If there is one black mark against Edu recently, it’s the failure to pin Folarin Balogun down to a new contract. The young striker already looks capable of making the step up and yet it looks likely that he will leave when his contract ends in the summer. But as I said at the beginning, football is not an exact science, and while it may look easy to buy and sell players, the reality is far more complex.

Arteta has already hinted that next summer’s transfer targets are already established, so it will be fascinating to see the profile of the players we bring into the club. Edu will no doubt have to prove himself all over again, but if we continue to shift the deadwood and bring in young players capable of becoming elite, the Brazilian’s stock as a transfer fixer will continue to rise.

The Kids Are Alright

by Oscar Wood (@reunewal)

During the many struggles Arsenal have faced over the course of the last two seasons, one of the few consistent positives has been the emergence of an increasingly large selection of talented young players. While the hype around any young footballers who show signs of promise is rarely lacking at the best of times, the situation at Arsenal has only led to this being intensified. Starting from the Europa League group stage last season, the performances of these younger players has often been in contrast to the struggles of older, more highly paid players, who have themselves been underperforming. What more, with Arsenal currently looking as far away from the elite of European football as they have been for decades, the idea of talented academy products and youth signings provides an element of long term hope that simply doesn’t exist in the short term. 

Arguably the most impressive performer so far, as well as the most exciting prospect is Bukayo Saka. Not only has he been a consistent starter and one of the best performers for Arsenal in the Premier League for a year now, he’s also a talent with few clear limitations and boundaries when it comes to his development possibilities. Left back, left wing, right wing, weird left wing-back/left sided interior hybrid, Saka has flourished to various extents playing all of them. What more, his mastery of these different roles is only growing. Just two weeks ago I tweeted scepticism that the right wing would be his ultimate position, only for him to put in probably his most complete right sided performance of his senior career in the next game at West Brom. 

He's obviously still young enough to completely prove me wrong, but I'd be surprised if Saka's future is playing on the right. Which is a bit of a shame given Martinelli and Tierney are the other two best u25 players at the club.

— Oscar (@Reunewal) December 29, 2020

In some ways, it’s this versatility of Saka that entices people the most. One of the reasons fans love young players in the first place is that there are fewer constraints to what they could become. Even top quality older players are restricted to their strengths and weaknesses that are unlikely to change much. With a youngster of Saka’s ilk this isn’t the case, fans can envisage almost any future they want for the player.

The number of best case scenarios that have been suggested for his future peak are countless: a cut-in and shoot scorer and creator from the right (Arjen Robben), a dynamic outside winger on the left (Leroy Sane), a creative interior (David Silva), a versatile box-to-box player (Blaise Matuidi), a dynamic left-back (Alphonso Davies), a Swiss army knife left sided player (Raphaël Guerreiro). 

Of course, Saka still has to make significant progress in his development if he’s to reach the heights any of those players have, but the signs are good at such a young age. He has shown some good off ball movement, an ability to create his own shots and an eye for a final ball that suggests he could become a prolific forward. His xG + xA per 90 in the league this season is 0.4, bettered only by Ferran Torres and Phil Foden for players under 22 in the Premier League. 

In terms of his general play, he has been an integral part in the build of multiple goals - both v West Ham, and the equaliser v Southampton - with his dribbling and passing. If he is to become more of an outright midfielder the next step is arguably to simply get on the ball more, as he’s shown he has the quality to do good things with it. Arsenal have lacked a high touch attacking player post-Özil and Alexis, someone you can give the ball to against a set defence in hope of inspiration. That has often been Saka this season but it has usually come in flashes rather than across 90 minutes. It could, however, simply be a case that the team improving and becoming more dominant will see Saka become that player. 

Rather than pigeonholing him into one role and assessing his development relative to that, it seems best to simply let him grow, and only fix a role for him based on the aspects of his game that continue to improve.

Gabriel Martinelli’s game is a lot more simple. Since his move to North London, he has proven to be very effective at getting on the end of moves for a teenager in his first season playing at the elite level, and has been an incredibly committed and hard working presser. It is the latter that has helped endear him so much to fans. His energy and determination is infectious and is the sort of thing that can lift his teammates as well as fans. 

He is, however, still incredibly raw, which isn’t a surprise or a criticism given it’s only 18 months ago that he came to the club from the Brazilian fourth tier. There have been obvious comparisons between him and Alexis Sanchez, Arsenal’s last superstar South American forward. The comparison fits in the position they play and the attitude and personality they play with. Martinelli, however, hasn’t shown much to suggest he can be the ball dominant, dribbling, creative force that Alexis was at Arsenal. There’s room for that side of his game to grow, however, and even without it, he’s still good enough to be a useful Premier League player at 19 thanks to his athletic capabilities and his movement.

It’s at this point worth noting that expecting Martinelli to reach the next level in the next season or two probably isn’t realistic. There are many examples of current Premier League attackers - Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford, Christian Pulisic - who broke through as capable starters at the age of 18 and mostly stayed at that level for a few years before reaching another level in their early 20s. For Gabi the next couple of years will be about building minutes, and Arsenal fans will likely have to put up with his current deficiencies once his new prospect shine begins wearing off - which history suggests will happen.  

Peter (@ThatGooner) has done a comprehensive analysis on Martinelli that looks into the micro details of his game that is worth reading.

Emile Smith-Rowe is probably the player with the most immediate upside for the team, since the squad has no other player who provides the same skills or operates in the same zones of the pitch. 

Smith-Rowe looks very much like the archetype modern number 10. Like Saka, he has demonstrated an impressive level of footballing intelligence when it comes to his movement and choice of pass, but he also has the level of athleticism needed to be a threat in transition, both in carrying the ball at this feet and in the runs he can make off it. The Saka goal at West Brom was probably the most encouraging bit of play in Arsenal’s season, and the best example of Smith-Rowe’s most important qualities. He plays a first time line breaking pass and then immediately sprints into the space in behind. It’s the kind of pass and move play that has been so lacking in recent times.

While it’s the potential creative upside of his game that excites people the most, I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s his carrying of the ball and his goal scoring threat that becomes his best asset. From the limited amounts of him I’ve seen at Arsenal and in highlights for Huddersfield, his passing seems competent for a Premier League number 10 rather than potentially special. That said it really is too early to make definitive judgements. He has still played only five Premier League matches in his career. Now that he has established himself very much in the first XI picture, he needs to finally have an extended run of staying fit before we can make more clear judgements. 

The flip-side of the rise of three three over the last year has been the scaling back of expectations for the 99 generation of Hale End products, all of whom are 21 and are yet to establish themselves as should be starters. That, however, doesn’t mean they no longer serve value. 

Eddie Nketiah could fairly make a case that he is the rarest of things, an under-hyped academy product. While he lacks the traits of a future superstar, at 21 he has already proven himself to be competent at the hardest skill in football; scoring goals. Both last season and this season his non-penalty xG in the Premier League has been fractionally better than Aubameyang’s. While Arsenal’s Europa League group this season was particularly weak, Nketiah still dominated it, scoring 3 and producing over 4 xG from 20 shots within the box. No other Arsenal player who played the group stage was able to get close to as many good shots off. Even his failure to get starts ahead of Patrick Bamford at Leeds last season looks a lot less damning now than it did then. 

Nketiah probably won’t become a striker good enough to lead Arsenal where they want to be, but he is likely already close to being a bottom half Premier League starter, with plenty of years ahead of him to continue to grow. For Arsenal that leaves him as a good squad player or a potential sale for a sizeable profit, like Alex Iwobi before him, who can make space for the next product on the conveyor belt, such as Folarin Balogun, to take his place in the squad. 

Reiss Nelson was at one stage considered the biggest prospect at Arsenal - having won player of the season in the PL 2 as Arsenal u23 won the division in 2017/18 - but a failure to push on in the first team and the emergence of aforementioned others has seen him become something of a forgotten man. I still think he can offer value as a technically secure wide player, but it’s looking unlikely that he will become a truly prolific wide forward in the Premier League. 

Joe Willock hype arguably peaked 18 months ago, and his reputation among Arsenal fans now feels very low compared to his new peers. He has reached an interesting stage of his career where he has been able to dominate the Europa League group stages, but in the PL minutes he has been given he hasn’t been able to make much impression. Now 21 it feels like he’s moved beyond loan age, but one could still be useful to a club near the top end of Championship or the lower end of the Bundesliga. Somewhere where he could play lots of minutes and the club can make a more definitive judgement on his level. It seems unlikely his passing and overall technical level will ever be good enough to be a starting midfielder for a club with top four aspirations, but he does still offer a unique profile in the squad with his off ball running from deep areas. 

Moving away from the 21 and under club, the trio of 23 year olds in Kieran Tierney, Gabriel and Ainsley Maitland-Niles will also have big roles to play in Arsenal’s continue rebuild. Tierney has already become a cult hero amongst the fanbase and the last few weeks have seen his best performance level at the club. While Gabriel fell back to earth somewhat in his last few performances of 2020, his season so far remains the most promising displays from a young(ish) centre back at Arsenal since probably Laurent Koscielny’s debut season. The hope is that those two will form the left side of Arsenal’s defence for years to come. Maitland-Niles remains in an interesting place. In only a year Arteta has flip-flopped on his use of Maitland-Niles multiple times. While it’s still possible he could make the right back spot his own, it seems more likely that if he’s not sold he’ll remain a valuable squad member; a versatile player who can play either fullback spot thanks to his great one v one defending. 

Of course it would be remiss to mention that it’s not all been rosey with Arsenal’s younger players recently. Two years ago Mattéo Guendouzi was comfortably the most polished youngster at the club, and was already proving a fine Premier League midfielder at 19. Without getting into the rights and wrongs of his demise under Arteta, it feels unlikely Arsenal’s best young midfielder has much of a future at the club, which is a massive shame. Meanwhile William Saliba, signed for an eye watering £27 million in 2018, has essentially had six wasted months playing under 23 football. At 19 it was probably unrealistic to expect him to be ready to start in the Premier League, and the whole ordeal doesn’t mean he now can’t be a long term success at Arsenal, but the club were indecisive during the summer as to whether he was ready, and this has cost him development time.

A talented collection of young players is by no means new for Arsenal. With the likes of Cesc Fabregas, Nicolas Anelka, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Theo Walcott and Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain in the last couple of decades, Arsenal have had some of the best teenage players in the world at their club, guys who were key players on teams that were among the European elite. Even in more recent history, the likes of Serge Gnabry, Jeff Reine-Adélaïde, Ismaël Bennacer and Donyell Malen have been around only to fall by the wayside. This current generation is benefitting from the fact Arsenal have to lean into them, and are thus getting more opportunities to showcase their talent. 

Academy products - and cheap young signings, which essentially fall into the same bracket - can serve three functions. They can provide a cheap route to a star player who would be too expensive to obtain through the market, such as Harry Kane at Tottenham. They can provide a cheap way to fill out the squad, as Manchester United did so successfully under Ferguson, something Tim Stillman has pointed out numerous times on the pod and in articles. Or they can be sold for profit, as Alex Iwobi was when he left for Everton. 

In Saka and Martinelli, Arsenal have prospects that have shown signs they could become future star players. If just one of them, or someone else, can reach that level, then this crop of players will have succeeded. Most of the current 21 and under club will likely never become more than reliable starters or squad options, and that is fine. For a while now some of us have been frustrated that the club hasn’t focused more of their transfer strategy on younger players. The current success of these players show that a 20 year old prospect can be just as good, if not better, at football than an experienced player on big wages. Maybe this will be an epiphany for Arsenal’s long term rebuild.  

Why Arteta should return to the 4231

by Peter Taylor (@pjtreelaw)

The 4231 has, over recent years, become viewed as a somewhat regressive formation, a formation tied intrinsically to the early 2010s when almost every team in world football operated in some variation of the shape. Arsenal fans in particular have more than had their fill of the 4231, with mid to late Arsene Wenger sides almost exclusively lining up in this formation (until his late switch to 343) and regularly shipping goals despite some fluid attacking moves. Dismissing the shape as archaic when compared to, for instance, a 433 where the midfield triangle is flipped seems wrong-headed and overlooks some of the highly innovative sides using the shape to great effect in the modern game. 

The Modern 4231

When one considers the 4231 in a modern context 2 significant teams come to mind; Bayern Munich and Ajax. The two European giants use similar interpretations of the shape and both have achieved huge success relative to their budgets and expectations. Bayern under Hansi Flick operate with attacking fullbacks including the sensational Alphonso Davies usually married with the slightly more reserved Benjamin Pavard, though recently they have begun to use the slightly more adventurous Bouna Sarr whilst Lucas Hernandez replaces the injured Davies. The centre backs are typically excellent passers and relatively quick and the midfield pivot usually sees Joshua Kimmich paired with Leon Goretzka. In last season’s Champions League winning side Goretzka was often replaced by Thiago Alcantara when available. This midfield pivot can function differently depending on game state and opposition strength, with one of the pair dropping into the backline to offer additional build up options and cover against the counter if required, usually Kimmich, or with both operating on the same plane if numbers are required higher up during build up. Bayern have a plethora of attacking options, with any of Kinglsley Coman, Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sane and Douglas Costa able to play the wide positions and Thomas Müller able to play across the front line. Ahead of them Robert Lewandowski continues his astonishing goal scoring run and is ably supported by exciting youngsters like Joshua Zirkzee. In attack Bayern’s wide attackers pull into the half spaces, with fullbacks overlapping to occupy the high wide zones and Lewandowski in the centre. Behind this line of 5 Müller flits in and out, finding space to create chances for others or find opportunities for himself along with moving to create overloads, a key principal for Bayern in attack. Kimmich and Goretzka can either push up and support or remain deeper to cover and provide recycling options. The entire system is made possible by Bayern’s incredibly high line and energetic press, preventing opposition counters before they can even begin. The narrow nature of Bayern’s attacking 4 and the prevalence of overloads enable incredibly efficient pressing, with a ball turnover usually meaning the opposition player is immediately outnumbered and harried by several Bayern players in close proximity. 

Ajax use a similarly aggressive high press and attacking line, again using the wide attackers in the half space when high up the pitch. Ajax also make use of overloads, with the 10 coming across to help outnumber the opposition, but often make use of quick switches to the wide player on the opposite side who, rather than being drawn inside, remains high and wide to create space on the opposite flank to the overload. In build-up they tend to make more use of a midfielder dropping into the backline to create a three, with this most apparent during the 2017-18 season when Frenkie de Jong announced himself as a budding superstar with his performances in this deep midfield role. Ajax often commit 7 players to the attack, with midfielders bursting forward to add greater fluidity and intent to Ajax’s attack. This can leave them open at times but again a high line and aggressive press can compensate for their occasional openness at the back. 

Recently, the Premier League’s two finest sides have both started employing variations of the 4231, with both Manchester City and Liverpool employing the shape in their recent 1-1 draw. City have been toying with the shape for some time, allowing Kevin De Bruyne the freedom to roam more in attack than he is able to in their previous 433 and compensating the loss of peak Fernandinho in the anchor role by playing Rodri and Gündoğan in tandem. This double pivot also means that opposition teams have a harder time isolating the City pivot, meaning build-up play from the back can be more varied and harder to stop. Liverpool have often seemed to be toying with the idea of shifting to the shape, pursuing players who would seem better suited to a 4231 than their 433. The incredible form of Diogo Jota seems to have forced Klopp’s hand, with the German reverting to the shape he preferred in his Bundesliga days and has employed at times whilst at Anfield. Elsewhere in the Premier League Leicester, Tottenham, Aston Villa and to a lesser extent Manchester United have all seen recent success using the shape. Is there a particular reason the system seems to be rejuvenated in the modern game.

Changing roles rather than changing shape

Perhaps the major reason for the 4231’s fall from grace was the roles of the players used in the system. The major point of failure being the number 10. Teams in the mid 2010’s who used the shape against high pressing 433s found that employing a dedicated playmaker with little defensive contribution meant their midfields were overrun by the three in opposition. The two 8s in the 433 could harry and harass the deep pivot and 10 of the 4231, with the 10 often marked out of the game by the deepest midfielder of the 433. This decline of the archetypical number 10 is familiar to Arsenal fans, with a certain German playmaker perhaps the clearest example of a player for whom the game has simply evolved past. However, rumours of the 10’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. The best player in the Premier League over the past few years has been City’s de facto number 10, Kevin De Bruyne. Bayern’s Müller contributed over 30 goals to Bayern last season. Kai Havertz was sold for an enormous sum to Chelsea, with few questions over whether the deal was sensible due to the player’s enormous quality. What these players have in common is their tactical flexibility, incredible goal threat and creativity married to exceptional work rates and the ability to contribute to the press. The modern 4231 can allow for an attacking midfield presence simply because the players employed in these roles are no longer defensive passengers but key contributors to an aggressive press. 

Arsenal in a 4231

So, how could Arsenal employ the shape to maximum effect? Frankly most of the roles seem fairly easy to fill, with many players ideally suited to the system.

Attack

Nicolas Pépé honed his talent in the wide right of a 4231 where he was allowed to drift into the half spaces. Bukayo Saka seems to have the talent to play anywhere behind the striker, with his work rate and excellent movement ideal for the system. Joe Willock’s excellent off ball movement and improving technical skill under pressure perhaps harkens to the skills Thomas Müller employs as Bayern’s Raumdeuter. 

Midfield

In Thomas Partey, Dani Ceballos, Mohammad Elneny and Granit Xhaka, Arsenal have a variety of deep midfielders who could be paired based on opposition strengths and weaknesses, with a fair degree of tactical flexibility offered by the different combinations. The use of a double pivot also seems best suited to Arsenal’s contingent of deep midfielders. Whilst either Partey or Xhaka could be used as a lone pivot, the security of a deep midfield partner should bring out the best in both players. Partey has almost exclusively played in a pair at Atletico and many of his key strengths are maximised when used this way. He has greater ability to press and harry without worrying about space in behind, has more freedom to burst forward and carry the ball through the opposition midfield line and can even be afforded the chance to get in and around the box more when covered by a partner. Xhaka’s strengths in passing, build up positioning and his somewhat under rated defensive contribution can all be useful when in tandem with another, slightly more positive and press breaking partner and his weaknesses in mobility and press resistance can be lessened by a physical, press resistant partner to take the pressure of the Swiss. Ceballos is perhaps only player better suited to playing as an 8 in a 433 but has shown he is more than capable of playing as the more progressive of a midfield pair. Elneny, interestingly, actually profiles fairly well as a possible lone 6 on paper, with his discipline and simple but efficient passing game seemingly ideal for the anchor-man role. He has, to my knowledge, never played this role for Arsenal and his tireless energy for the press can also be better utilised in a midfield partnership when afforded cover by another player. Building play from the back with two pivots also prevents one being isolated and thus the build-up stymied, something City have demonstrated in their switch to the system.  

Defence

Kieran Tierney and Hector Bellerin are both strong in attack and seem ideally suited to overlapping wide. The defence perhaps lacks a little pace, but Gabriel is fast becoming regarded as one of the best defenders in the league and in combination with David Luiz offers good ball progression from the back. The player who would, perhaps, gain most from this shift is Arsenal’s talisman, Pierre Emerick Aubameyang.

Attacking strengths and Aubameyang

One of the key issues with Arsenal this season has been the poor form of and poor service to Aubameyang. There has been a great deal of clamour for Arteta to shift Aubameyang to the central role in his current system but this overlooks one of the main features of the centre forward role in this shape. The striker has been predominantly dropping deeper in build-up, allowing Aubameyang to run in behind from his inside left role. This clearly has not been working of late, but simply moving Aubameyang to the centre would either mean Arsenal lose their key man closer to goal or lose a key component of the build-up. In a 4231, however, Aubameyang can remain high, perhaps even drifting a little left in search of space, whilst the 10 occupies this key position in build-up with assistance from the left and right attacking midfielders when required (Figure 1). Arsenal can then either form a front 5 with a 3-2 defensive and midfield split (Figure 2) or a 2-3 (Figure 3), shifting whether one of the pivots drops into the back line depending on opposition. This system ends up being fairly similar to Arteta’s current system when high, though the use of a more attacking midfield option means the front line can effectively become a 6 rather than a 5, and the ability for this attacking midfielder to drift and provide an extra body to create overloads or to make third man runs to find dangerous spaces should go a long way to improving Arsenal’s creativity and goal threat, the single biggest concern for Arteta at present.

Figure 1 Flexible positioning during build up in the 4231

Figure 2 The defensive 3-2 split in attack

Figure 3 The defensive 2-3 in attack

Defensive flexibility and pressing

One of the great strengths of the 4231 is that it can offer multiple options for the defensive aspect of the game. The system is ideally suited to high pressing, as previously outlined, due to the high density of players in attack. If the opposition manages to retain the ball or is starting from a goal kick, for instance, the system can retain a high press by shifting into a 442-like shape, the attacking midfielder joining the striker to press the opposition back line with the wide attackers cutting out passes to the opposition full backs and one central midfielder pushing into to press the opposition whilst the other covers his partner (Figure 4). This pressing shape has become the gold standard thanks to the Ralf Rangnick and his various disciples who have pushed German gegenpressing into the forefront or modern tactical thinking. The shape offers excellent coverage across the entire pitch and a narrow 442/4222 can control the centre of the pitch, pushing the opposition wide into pressing traps and throttling any chance of effective opposition build up. Arsène Wenger even describes the 442 as the “mathematically ideal formation” due to the fact it maximises the space covered by the team. The 442 is also famous for its deep defensive solidity, being the shape of choice for defensive, compact and aggressive sides when in a deep block, perhaps best illustrated by the Atletico Madrid sides of Diego Simeone (Figure 5). The system could even be shifted slightly, when under extreme duress, to use Arteta’s ideal coverage of the 5 attacking lanes with Bukayo Saka dropping deeper and Tierney rotating inside, Willock dropping deeper and Aubameyang and Pépé remaining counter attacking threats when facing much stronger opposition (Figure 6). This option should be used sparingly and only when under exensive pressure, but Arteta has done an excellent job of training his side to employ this sort of flexibility and it should be utilised in the right circumstances. 

Figure 4 High pressing in the 442

Figure 5 The mid/low block in the 442

Figure 6 Shifting to a 5-man backine in the low block

Conclusion

Arteta has already used the system to some effect, particularly early in his reign, but has not made the tweaks I outline here yet. I believe the key shifts would be the use of a number 10 to help aid build up and free a central Aubameyang to find space in behind. A more concerted effort to press high in a 442 and more freedom for the 10 to search for space and create overloads should significantly improve the lack of creativity currently on offer. Perhaps one of the biggest shifts would be more one of mentality than positioning, with the team more committed to the back 4 than the comfort blanket of the back 5. The system can make use of the excellent developments in defensive organisation Arteta has engendered whilst taking our attacking game up a level. The system can even be tweaked in game to allow for more defensive solidity in a pinch. Clearly the addition of a top-quality attacking midfielder would further improve the system, though Arsenal has already indicated they are looking at this position with their pursuit of Houssem Aouar and links to Dominik Szoboszlai. Additions in defence or perhaps the emergence of Saliba could add further speed to help cover for the necessary defensive high line to maximise the system. However, even with the current squad the system offers significant upside and the possibility to develop our attacking game whilst retaining much of the good defensive organisation we have seen of late. 

25 Best Individual Arsenal Seasons of the Emirates Era

Ranking the top 25 individual Arsenal seasons of the Emirates era

It can feel hard to believe, but Arsenal have been playing at the Emirates stadium for the best part of 14 years now. While this period hasn’t seen the same level of team success that Arsenal experienced at the end of their time at Highbury, the Gunners have still had many world class players who have produced some phenomenal seasons in Arsenal colours. Here are the best of them ranked. But first, a few things to note: 

I thought about limiting entries to one season per player but decided not to. However, I have tried to reflect a broad spectrum of players who have played for Arsenal in this time. Realistically there have been a handful of Arsenal players who truly standout for their exceptional quality in this period, and there could be a case for them making up a large chunk of the 25 best seasons. I feel the exercise is more interesting, however, if it gives preference to the standout season of a good player over a regular season by a world class one. Players playing different roles also matters. For example I haven’t included van Persie in 10/11 - a season one could argue should make the top 10 - since it was essentially an injury plagued prelude to his 11/12 self, which will be a contender for the top spots. On the other hand, central midfield Cazorla and attacking midfield Cazorla were different players, and therefore each role has a unique case to be in the list.

Stats use 

In the statistical summaries, all stats are league only, unless they’re put in (brackets) in which case they’re all comps. 

NPG = Non-penalty goals. Their total goals with penalties removed. 

90s = Their number of minutes divide by 90. A more accurate representation of their game time than the appearance stat. 

League goal and assist stats come from fbref.com. NPG stats for all comps come from transfermarkt.com. Other stats come from whoscored.com where possible.

Now, onto the list.

25. Gilberto - 2006/07

Statistical highlights: 32.6 (45.5) 90s played. 5 (5) NPG. 

Arsenal’s first season at the Emirates Stadium was arguably the club’s least eventful. The team finished fourth in the league, a long way behind second but comfortably ahead of fifth. The Champions League and FA Cup meanwhile, saw underwhelming exits at the last 16 stage. A dramatic league double over United (the last time Arsenal would do such a thing) and the run to the league cup final were the highlights. The stadium shift also coincided with a genuine change in eras that occurred this season. Bergkamp, Pires, Campbell, Cole, Reyes and Lauren all left the club, and while Thierry Henry stayed, he missed lots of the season through injury and only contributed 12 goals in all competitions. 19-year-old Cesc Fabregas won player of the year, though he would reach greater heights that we’ll look at later. One of the few people left over from the Invincibles era was Gilberto, who was the most senior player for most of the season and produced a level of consistency in defensive midfield that has only fleetingly been seen since.

24. Olivier Giroud - 2016/17

Statistical highlights: 12 (15) NPG & 3 (5) assists in 13.4 (19.8) 90s. 

When thinking of Olivier Giroud’s best Arsenal seasons, I initially thought of 13/14 and 14/15. In 13/14 he led Arsenal’s line week in week out, accumulating a solid 16 goals and 8 assists in the league. The following campaign he suffered a bad injury in August, but upon his return went on a fantastic scoring streak that faded in April and May. With that in mind 16/17 might be considered a strange choice. He wasn’t even a starter for most of the season after all. That, however, is why it was Giroud’s best season. The super sub role suited him in a way trying to be the leader of a title challenge never did. He regularly came off the bench to offer a different threat, and he was prolific in doing so, most notably assisting just a few seconds after coming on in the FA Cup final against Chelsea. It isn’t a coincidence that Giroud went from being an incredibly divisive and at times outright unpopular player in his first four years at the club, to an extremely popular one, whose name was sung around the Emirates stadium while he played in a Chelsea shirt last year. That wouldn’t have been possible, without his 16/17. 

23. Alexandre Lacazette - 2018/19 

Statistical highlights: 13 (19) NPG & 8 (11) assists in 27.8 (37) 90s.

Given his troubles this season, it’s easy to forget that Alexandre Lacazette was a hugely popular player as recently as the summer, and comfortably beat out Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang in the fan vote for player of the season in 2018/19. His output was solid rather than spectacular, with 13 goals and 8 assists in 28 90s in the league. But Laca did have a habit of scoring in the big games at the Emirates stadium, netting against Liverpool, Tottenham and Chelsea, as well as against Napoli and Valencia in the Europa League knockouts. His away record mirrored the team’s however, and it’s what stopped his season being a great one. Away from the Emirates, none of the English grounds he scored in that season are still Premier League grounds.

22. Per Mertesacker - 2013/14

Statistical highlights: 41/55 tackles, 59 interceptions and 248 clearances in 35 (52.5) 90s. 

In the entire Emirates era, Arsenal have arguably only had one quality, reliable centre back pairing; Per Mertsacker and Laurent Koscielny. In no season was the partnership more important than in 2013/14. Arsenal famously had a handful of horrendous big away games that season, which overshadowed the fact that for the most part, Arsenal were extremely solid defensively that season. Koscielny was and has been the more celebrated of the pair, fairly I believe, but Mertesacker’s contribution shouldn’t be underestimated. His more sedated approach suited Koscielny’s more aggressive nature, and he provided the height to better deal with balls into the box. He was also tasked with more build up responsibilities of the two. 

21. Alexander Hleb - 2007/08

Statistical highlights: 2 (4) NPG & 7 (11) assists in 27 (36.7) 90s. 

Arguably no player on this list was a more divisive figure at the club than Alexander Hleb. For some, he is a cult hero, a player whose qualities best epitome Arsenal players. Someone who helped others play better and was central to the Wengerball style of play. For others his mediocre output was a sign he wasn’t good enough. There are people who have made countless compilations of Hleb’s old performances and relished over his pre-assist stats - the stat might even have been invented for him - and equally, there have been deceased Arsenal fans whose dislike for the player has been cast in stone. Regardless, 2007/08 was the peak of Hleb’s career, where he shone in a team that challenged the eventual Champions League winners for the title. A superb dribbler and decision maker, his ability to retain and progress the ball helped Cesc Fabregas reach new attacking heights, and saw Barcelona sign him in Pep Guardiola’s first summer.

20. Bacary Sagna - 2010/11

Statistical highlights: 3 assists, 67/75 tackles, 62 interceptions & 141 clearances in  33 (42.3) 90s.

Like some of the other defensive players on this list, identifying a best season for Bacary Sagna wasn’t easy. He wasn’t a flashy player who had brilliant and terrible moments, his strength was his consistency. Sagna wasn’t Arsenal’s greatest fullback from an attacking point of view - though he was capable of contributing - but that wasn’t his role in the side. With a more up and down fullback in Gael Clichy on the other flank, and right sided attacker in Theo Walcott who was more wide striker than wide midfielder, Sagna had a considerable defensive workload that he rarely failed to handle. His aerial abilities were also important on set pieces and he was often the target of Szczesny’s goal kicks this season. 

19. Nacho Monreal - 2015/16

Statistical highlights: 3 (4) assists, 79/109 tackles, 106 interceptions, 114 clearances in 36 (43.7) 90s.

While in many ways, Nacho Monreal was similar to Sagna, a fullback known primarily for their defensive work, he had more peaks and troughs throughout his Arsenal career. He made a strong start after his move in January of 12/13, but endured some difficulties after that. It wasn’t until the second half of 14/15 where he established himself as one of Arsenal’s best defenders. He carried that form into 2015/16 with a series of imperious displays, reading the game brilliantly and being a significant upgrade in possession on what Kieran Gibbs had previously been offering at LB. 

18. Mikel Arteta - 2011/12

Statistical highlights: 6 NPG, 2 assists, 91% pass accuracy, 72/105 tackles & 55 interceptions in 27.5 (35.7) 90s.

I have a lot of affinity for Mikel Arteta’s second season at Arsenal, but in the end I went with his first as his standout season. With Arsenal in a potential crisis at the start of the 2011/12 season, Arteta’s arrival brought the much needed stability that allowed Robin van Persie’s attacking brilliance to not go to waste. While many viewed his arrival as a like for like replacement for the creative brilliance of Cesc Fabregas, Arteta instead filled the role of all-round midfield general. With Jack Wilshere also missing the season, and Alex Song taking up fewer of his defensive responsibilities, Arteta had to fulfil multiple responsibilities, and he did all of them to a high level. His almost immediate take up of a leadership role in the dressing room was also crucial, the extent to which probably wouldn’t be fully appreciated until he became manager over seven years alter.

17. Mesut Özil - 2017/18

Statistical highlights: 4 (5) NPG, 8 (12) assists, 87% pass accuracy & 84 chances created in 24 (32.8) 90s. 

I expect this to be possibly the most controversial entry on the list but I consider 2017/18 to be Özil’s second best season for Arsenal. And anything close to peak Özil is worthy of a place fairly high up on the list. While 2017/18 wasn’t ultimately a good season for Arsenal, it doesn’t mean there weren’t periods of good football or strong individuals seasons. Arsenal were an attacking force at home in 2017/18 and also dominated the Europa League knockouts until wasteful finishing and a defensive mistake cost them against Atletico. Özil was a significant part of both those things. Contrary to popular perception he did not experience a significant drop in form after agreeing a new contract. In fact with the exception of the League Cup final and Atletico Madrid away, he produced good performance in almost every game he stepped on the pitch for from February to May. I made the case for his 17/18 season in far more detail on the site previously: Mesut Özil: Beyond the Narrative — Arsenal Vision Post Match Podcast

16. Samir Nasri - 2010/11

Statistical highlights: 9 (12) NPG, 1 (4) assists, 88% pass accuracy, 61/117 dribbles & 60 chances created in 26.6 (38) 90s. 

In some ways, Samir Nasri was a better version of Alex Hleb. An attacking midfielder who was easy on the eye, good on the dribble had a final pass, but also divided fans, and was never able to consistently produce the kind of output needed to be considered a truly world class player. 10/11 was his peak in an Arsenal shirt. In the autumn, when Robin van Persie and Cesc Fabregas both missed significant game time, it was Nasri who stepped up and carried the team, scoring a glut of goals and playing at a level not many Arsenal players have reached. The trouble with Nasri is it never lasted. From the Fulham game in early December onwards, he got only two goals along with no assists in the league, and that stops him breaking into he top 15.

15. Aaron Ramsey - 2017/18

Statistical highlights: 7 (11) NPG, 8 (9) assists, 85% pass accuracy & 29/36 dribbles in 20.5 (27.4) 90s. 

While the performance levels of Özil in 2017/18 might up for debate, the quality that Aaron Ramsey displayed throughout the season should be crystal clear. Amid the chaos of the season, the Welshman produced the second best season of his 11 year Arsenal career. Ramsey essentially had two separate seasons, one before December (when he tore his hamstring) playing in a 3-4-2-1 in the league, and another in 2018 playing in a 4-2-3-1 mostly in the Europa League. Both systems helped get the most out of him. The three at the back shape allowed for an extra central player to cover for his marauding runs, while the 4-2-3-1 surrounded him with highly technical attacking midfielders. Playing mostly once a week all season also allowed him to have one of his healthiest campaigns since 2013. The result was 13 goals and 9 assists in just 27 90s playing almost exclusively from deep in midfield. 

14. Jack Wilshere - 2010/11

Statistical highlights: 1 (2) NPG, 3 (9) assists, 86% pass accuracy & 61/91 dribbles in 29.5 (42.4) 90s.

Given the problems that would plague the rest of Jack Wilshere’s career, it shouldn’t be forgotten what an elite level talent he was. It’s almost cruel to think that the standout season of his career came in his first full campaign, aged just 18 and 19. The qualities he displayed in that season where that of a natural born Arsenal player. His passing, spatial awareness, press-resistance and ability to drive forward and play 1-2s helped Arsenal produce some of their most aesthetic football ever in 2010/11. The peak was of course his performance against Barcelona, where his bravery and willingness to receive the ball, combined with his awareness and ability to take it on the turn, helped Arsenal turn the tie against possibly the greatest club team of all time. 

13. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang - 2019/20

Statistical highlights: 16 (19) NPG, 1 (1) assist in 25.6 (30.1) 90s. 

In terms of output per 90 minutes, there have actually been many better Arsenal seasons than Aubameyang’s 2019/20. His output in the league roughly translates to a goal or assist in two of every three games, which isn’t even as good as the Ramsey 17/18 season we just looked at. But this hasn’t been a typical Arsenal season. It’s seen their most tepid attacking displays in any campaign of the Emirates era, where the only creative player to perform at a high level has been the 18-year-old playing at left back. And amongst this, Aubameyang has managed to stay afloat as a goal scoring extraordinaire. He currently has the most non-penalty goals in the Premier League. Of those 16 only three didn’t come in games Arsenal drew or won by a solitary goal, and two of those three were the opening goal in a game. Arsenal sit 9th thanks to Aubameyang. Surprisingly that’s a compliment not a criticism. 

12. Theo Walcott - 2012/13 

Statistical highlights: 14 NPG & 10 assists.

It goes somewhat under the radar - to the extent that calling it underrated has actually become something of a meme in sections of the Arsenal twittersphere - that Theo Walcott’s 2012/13 season is one of the most productive wide forward seasons by a Premier League player. A combination of factors - injuries, contract disputes, wanting to play striker - meant he only played 25 90s, but he still managed to produce 14 goals and 10 assists, only one goal and assist fewer than Gareth Bale, who won PFA Player of the Year that season. A year before his tragic ACL injury, this was Walcott at his peak; as fast as ever, but also stronger, and more refined in his movement, decision making and technique. If he’d started 30+ games on the right that season, he would’ve had a strong claim to breaking into the top ten on this list. 

11. Santi Cazorla - 2012/13 

Statistical highlights: 12 NPG, 11 assists, 97 chances created, 87% pass accuracy & 86/131 dribbles in 36.8 90s.

With Robin van Persie heading for the exit door in 2012, just a year after Cesc Fabregas and Santi Nasri, Arsenal were in desperate need of a new star player, and in cash strapped Malaga, they found one at discount price. One of La Liga’s best players for years, Cazorla was a coup at under £20m, and quickly established himself as Arsenal’s new best player. 12/13 was a season of equity for the Gunners. van Persie’s 30 league goals were replaced by four players reaching double figures. But Cazorla was the best among them. He was Arsenal’s new dictator in the final third, either as a number 10 or just off the left, making use of his trademark two-footedness and low centre of gravity, all while producing 12 goals and 11 assists. 

10. Santi Cazorla - 2014/15 

Statistical highlights: 1 NPG, 11 assists, 78 chances created, 89% pass accuracy & 87/121 dribbles in 33.2 90s. 

While it’s hard to separate these two Cazorla seasons on a quality level, unlike, say, Robin van Persie’s 10/11 and 11/12 seasons, these two are actually rather different on a stylistic and tactical level. After Mesut Özil’s arrival in 2013, Cazorla’s importance in the attacking trio declined. It’s possible that this also coincided with a natural physical decline that would’ve seen his role need to change anyway, but it led to a less spectacular 13/14 from the little Spaniard. This continued into a reasonably slow start in 14/15, but when Özil got injured, Cazorla was rejuvenated as a genuine number 10. This led to the growing realisation that his qualities, at least aged 30, were more that of a midfielder than forward. And when Özil returned in January, Cazorla’s new position felt a natural fit. Central midfield. 

An incredibly gifted technician with brilliant close control, but also not the quickest over long distances, a deeper role suited Santi perfectly. Here he could evade pressure, dictate from deep and progress the ball to the likes of Özil and Alexis Sanchez who were able to do the damage in the final. While in 13/14 it felt like a good performance from Cazorla or Özil came at the expense of the other, from 14/15 onwards they combined brilliantly, with Cazorla to Özil being the most prominent pass combination in the league. He was able to maintain his creativity as well. From his deeper position he still produced nine assists from open play in the league. 

9. Emmanuel Adebayor - 2007/08

Statistical highlights: 21 (27) NPG and 4 assists in 32.5 (41.1) 90s.

When, at the start, I mentioned that the standout season of good players was perhaps more interesting than a typical season from world class players, Emmanuel Adebayor’s 07/08 campaign is perhaps the best example. Adebayor had a good career of course, but 07/08 stands out amongst the rest of the pack. It came somewhat out of the blue as well. Having never reached 10 goals in a league season before, he hit 24 in 07/08 (3 of which were pens). 

At his best Adebayor was the complete package, a threat on crosses and on balls in behind. His partnership with Cesc Fabregas, who we’ll touch on shortly, was arguably one of the most iconic striker-playmaker partnerships in Arsenal history. Many of the Spaniards best ever Arsenal assists were chipped through balls onto the chest of Adebayor. What stops Adebayor being even higher in this list is that his was a streaky season. He went on goal gluts but also droughts. A seven game drought from the Birmingham game onwards (where Eduardo broke his leg), only one of which Arsenal won, proved costly in the title race. A quarter of his league goals also came against arguably the worst side in Premier League history. Still, it remains one of the best Arsenal striker seasons in the post-Henry era. 

8. Laurent Koscielny - 2013/14

Statistical highlights: 2 NPG, 94% pass accuracy, 54/65 tackles, 89 interceptions & 234 clearances in 30.5 (44.2) 90s

First off a disclaimer. I’m not sure whether 13/14 was Koscielny’s best season. I think any of that, 14/15 and 15/16 are contenders. 13/14 is definitely his most celebrated, but I think that might be a case of circumstance. The end of 12/13 was when he established himself for good in the Arsenal team, meaning 13/14 was the season when Arsenal fans realised they had a, at least borderline, world class defender in their ranks. The two seasons after that were just more of the same, so don’t standout the same way. 13/14 was also probably simply a more celebrated Arsenal season overall. 

Nonetheless, at least one of them deserves to be celebrated, because at his peak, Koscielny was one of the finest defenders in the league. He combined great athleticism with a fantastic reading of the game, making him regularly a league leader in interceptions. His ability to perfectly time his step outs when defending in a high line and his knack for reading and intercepting cut backs and then calmly playing his way out of trouble were stand out plays of his. His one weakness was his defending of aerial balls. He wasn’t especially tall for a centre back, and his reading of aerial crosses was sometimes surprisingly poor considering how well he read crosses on the ground. But that’s also why his partnership with Per Mertesacker was so successful. In no season did they play as regularly together as 13/14, and that’s another reason Koscielny’s 13/14 season stands out. His brave equaliser in the FA Cup final also helps. 

7. Alexis Sanchez - 2014/15

Statistical highlights: 16 (25) NPG, 8 (13) assists, 82 chances created & 115/196 dribbles in 32.8 (48) 90s.

When Alexis Sanchez was bought in the summer of 2014, it felt like a landmark moment for the Arsenal rebuild. For the second year in a row, Arsenal had bought a prominent attacker from one of the two Spanish giants in the prime of his career. What more, he filled a gaping hole in the team. Arsenal in 13/14 had had many technical attacking midfielders, but with Theo Walcott missing nearly all of the campaign, were desperately short on cutting edge. 

While his arrival failed to bring about a new golden era for the club, it wasn’t down to a failure in Alexis’ performances, and his first season was close to being his best. The first half of Arsenal’s season was undermined by a combination of injuries and some unfortunate results, but Alexis’ performances as the main man stood out. He was the team’s best scorer, creator and most dangerous dribbler. Alexis’ individual contribution waned in the second half of the season, despite the team growing in strength, but he still stepped up with two gaols in the FA Cup semi final and assisted and scored the first two goals in the final. His 25 NPG in all comps has only been topped by a player in two seasons in the Emirates era, one of which would be by himself. 

6. Cesc Fabregas - 2007/08 

Statistical highlights: 7 (13) NPG & assists in 31.8 (43.2) 90s.

The summer of 2007 was a scary time for Arsenal fans. With Thierry Henry departing the club, Arsenal no longer had any genuine superstars in the team, and were staggeringly short of experience. Some feared this would lead to an imminent decline, or at least a prolonged period of not challenging for the big trophies. What followed instead was the closest Arsenal have come to winning a Premier League title in the entire Emirates era. Part of the reason for that was the stepping up of Emanuel Adebayor, as mentioned previously. The main reason, however, was the progression of Cesc Fabregas, who, tasked with being the main man for the first time in his career, produced one of his best seasons aged just 20 years old.

The start of the season saw a huge goal glut for Cesc. By the beginning of November he’d already more than doubled his previous best campaign with 11 in all comps. While the goals dried up after that, he was still the league’s best creator and Arsenal’s main passer in midfield; and he would score the season’s most famous goal in March as Arsenal won 2-0 in Milan. While he would go on to arguably hit even greater heights later in his Arsenal career, in this campaign he was still playing in a midfield two. That makes his 24 direct goal contributions without pens, which, for example, surpasses any figure by Steven Gerrard in his Premier League career, even more extraordinary. 

5. Aaron Ramsey - 2013/14

Statistical highlights: 10 (16) NPG, 8 (9) assists 32 chances created & 77/114 tackles in 19.6 (30.3) 90s

Even at the end of 2012/13, when Aaron Ramsey had become an important role player in a more resilient Arsenal team, no one could have expected the explosion that would occur the following term. To put simply, judged purely on any given player’s time on the pitch, there have been very few midfield seasons as influential as Ramsey’s 13/14 campaign in the recent history of European football. 

Ramsey was a superstar in all phases of midfield play. In all comps he scored 16 goals, all from open play, in just 30 90s. Such a scoring rate was more prolific than what Olivier Giroud did that season, and was only bettered by Lukas Podolski and and Theo Walcott, who played far more limited minutes. He also created roughly one big chance every two games in the league, the best rate amongst a team featuring Özil, Cazorla, Rosicky and Wilshere. He led Arsenal with nearly four tackles per 90, and he played the fourth most passes per 90 in the entire league, behind only Arteta at Arsenal. He was a dominate figure defensively, in build up, creatively and in front of goal.

The only problem is that period of on pitch domination was limited. A thigh injury on boxing day that experienced multiple set backs meant he played only half of Arsenal’s Premier League minutes. One of the greatest August to Decembers in Premier League history didn’t even end up in the PFA Team of the Year because of it. But Ramsey did return in time to score the winner in the FA Cup Final, and maybe that should place him above at least the season next on this list, though that player reached his own himalayan heights. 

4. Cesc Fabregas - 2009/10

Statistical highlights: 12 (13) NPG, 13 (17) assists, 95 chances created, 51/81 dribbles & 62/90 tackles in 24.4 (33.2) 90s. 

Throughout his career Cesc Fabregas has played in a variety of roles and positions. Despite having a pretty straightforward skillset he’s played everywhere from deep plying playmaker to centre forward. But without a doubt, no iteration was better than the number 10 version that played for Arsenal in 2009/10. It was in 07/08 that Fabregas added the ability to drive forward and score goals to his repertoire of passing and creativity, but even then his evolution into the complete attacker in 09/10 was somewhat unexpected. His was a creative season every bit as good as Mesut Özil’s in 15/16; yet he was also Arsenal’s top scorer and someone who was capable of - excuse the rare mention of this cliche - grabbing the game by the scruff of the neck, driving the team forward and deciding matches in Arsenal’s favour. His substitute cameo against Aston Villa - one of the most iconic performance of the Emirates era - was the epitome of this. He was capable of, for want of a better term, heroball. Heroball that worked. 

The numbers are staggering. Even accounting for Fabregas being on penalty duties for most of the season, he still produced more than one goal and assist per 90 minutes. He completed 3.9 key passes per 90 (by far the best figure in the league) and played 73 passes per 90 (only slightly behind Scholes in all players in the league). His individual brilliance was reflected in the team as well. Despite Robin van Persie missing most of the season with an ankle injury, meaning the Gunners played without a recognised centre forward for parts of the season, they still scored 83 goals, their third best tally in the Premier League era.

Just like Aaron Ramsey in 13/14, however, the ceiling of his season is capped by the injury issues he had that limited his appearances. He missed more than a third of Arsenal’s league minutes, and this prevented the team achieving more. In the 10 league games Fabregas and van Persie started together, Arsenal scored 35 goals. Alas, he and van Persie’s minutes combined that season only just passed the amount of minutes in a league season. In typical Emirates era Arsenal fashion, with better health they could’ve achieved even greater things. What they did anyway was still pretty remarkable. 

3. Mesut Özil - 2015/16 

Statistical highlights: 6 (8) NPG, 19 (20) assists, 86% pass accuracy & 146 chances created, an all time PL record, in 33.9 (43.8) 90s.

For Arsenal, 2015/16 was a season that offered so much hope and expectation. A hope and expectation that was ultimately met with complete disappointment. For whatever reasons, the majority of key players in one of Arsenal’s most talented ever squads failed to impact the season to the extent they would’ve hoped. Alexis Sanchez missed a significant chunk of the season through injury, and either side of that didn’t score in the number of games he usually did. Theo Walcott and Aaron Ramsey were extremely wasteful in front of goal. Olivier Giroud started strongly but his season is ultimately remembered for the goal drought that occurred in the period where the title charge slipped away. Santi Cazorla was on course for a strong season before his injury nightmare began. And Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain failed to make the leap many were predicting of him before the season. 

All that left Mesut Özil, who managed to achieve the most influential and consistent season of his Arsenal career, and possibly his career as a whole. Statistically it holds claim to being the greatest creative season in Premier League history. His 146 chances created is a league record, and his 19 assists has only been bettered once, by Thierry Henry in 2002/03. 

Some have accused Özil of dropping off in the business end of the season but his drop in assists owes as much to the volatile nature of the stat as it did any drop in his creativity. It’s also worth noting that it was his free kick that was headed in by Danny Welbeck against Leicester, and he scored and assisted in the 3-2 defeat at Old Trafford. Those were Arsenal’s two biggest moments in the title challenge, and Özil produced moments in both of them. Had Arsenal been capable putting on a more coherent display in the latter, it might have become one of, if not the, defining moment of his career. But such is the life of the Emirates era Arsenal superstar. Özil’s 15/16 was resigned to individual achievement. 

2. Alexis Sanchez - 2016/17

Statistical highlights: 22 (28) NPG, 10 (17) assists, 78 chances created & 109/161 dribbles in (47) 90s. 

After winning the Copa América Centenario as the tournament’s best player, Alexis Sanchez returned early to Arsenal in 16/17 in a new role. With Olivier Giroud not yet back to full speed after the Euros, Alexis started the season as the centre forward. Although not the Chilean’s personal position of choice, he would eventually begin to flourish in the role, and would stay there throughout the first half of the season. Alexis would be the team’s biggest goal threat, as his 28 NPG in all comps proved, but his interpretation of the role was that of a genuine false nine. He dropped deep to receive the ball and with willing runners in Mesut Özil and Theo Walcott, his full creative capabilities were unleashed as well. In total he finished with 28 NPG and 17 assists in all comps, the best all comps combination of the two in any Emirates era season.

Some might resent the idea of a season ranking so highly on the list when Arsenal finished fifth that year. But the Gunners’ Champions League streak didn’t snap because of Alexis’ performances. Arsenal’s 77 goals scored in the league that season is the club’s fifth best tally in the PL era, only bettered by seasons in the 2000s. What more, Arsenal finished the season with 75 points, a record for a club outside the top four, and were at a much greater pace for the majority of the season. Arsenal’s undoing was a period of wretched results in February and March. And even there, it was Alexis who scored the opening goal in defeat at West Brom, and assisted what could’ve been comeback instigating goals against Watford and at Anfield. 

What more, Alexis returned to peak form after Arsenal’s late switch to a 3-4-2-1, operating in something of a hybrid inside forward and number 10 role. His performances couldn’t quite get Arsenal into the top four at the last, but he did score in both 2-1 wins against Manchester City and Chelsea at Wembley. A decisive contribution for silverware that gets him above the previous two entries in this rank. 

1. Robin van Persie - 2011/12 

Statistical highlights: 28 (32) NPG, 10 (10) assists, 92 chances created (4th most in the PL) & 42/66 dribbles in 37 (45.5) 90s. Directly involved in 53% of Arsenal’s PL goals. 

Despite some tough competition from some world class players in their peak, choosing the best individual season from the Emirates era was still a relatively straightforward task. Fresh off losing his two best creative teammates the previous summer, and despite an early season crisis of results, Robin van Persie led Arsenal to a scarcely credible third place finish in the league in 2011/12, and by doing so produced one of the very best seasons in the history of the Premier League. His 28 NPG in the league was six more than any other Arsenal season in the Emirates era, and a figure that has only been bettered in three Premier League seasons. His goals also came in big matches and key moments. A hat-trick at Stamford Bridge, an equaliser and winner at Anfield, the equaliser in the 5-2 against Tottenham, a winner against Everton, goals in both fixtures against United (albeit in defeats), three goals in two games against Dortmund. 

All that would’ve made for an extraordinary season from a pure goal scorer, but van Persie was so much more. He was a technical link up player first and foremost, who learned the art of poaching later. 11/12 saw his greatest combination of the two. His 92 chances created were the fourth most in the league, only marginally behind pure creators and passers in Silva, Mata and Modric. In total he provided ten assists in the league, three of which were to Theo Walcott who he combined with excellently all season. 

A player with the movement and finishing to score a high quantity of goals, but one also capable of creating for himself, his teammates and producing the spectacular, to the extent he wasn’t reliant on world class service to win matches. Add in the durability that he had so frustratingly lacked throughout his Arsenal career until that point, and RvP 11/12 was the perfect player to build a team around. For many, van Persie’s 2012 move to United, and subsequent success with them, tainted his Arsenal career. But that can’t take away from the fact his last 18 months at the club are the highest level of football we’ve seen from a player at the Emirates Stadium.

Happiness Index Report: March 8, 2020

by Scott Willis

Time for another round up of how Arsenal fans feel about the state of the club. Since I last asked about things Arsenal have played 7 matches, winning 5 of those and collecting a pretty impressive 2.3 points per match in the league (87 point pace!), won two FA cup matches while advancing to the quarterfinals but they also got dumped out of the Europa League when they really should have gone through. 

GENERAL ARSENAL APPROVAL RATING:

Even with being knocked out of Europe, fans are happy with how the club is doing right now. I asked a new question this week about how people feel about the direction of the club and things are similar in that people are positive about the direction of the club.

How things have changed overall over the 3 surveys. 

ARTETA APPROVAL RATING:

There aren't any complaints about Mikel Arteta.

THE MANAGEMENT DUO:

Raul still is still the second least popular figure among Arsenal management (only behind the owners) but fans' opinions didn't really get worse from him compared to the last survey. 

Edu is starting to see his numbers trend more positive with people starting to move off of neutral stance as he has been at the club longer. 

Interestingly people are generally happy with the overall talent level of the club but they have questions about the people who are leading the recruitment efforts.

Where people are not happy is with the ownership of Kronkie Sports and Entertainment, I am actually surprised that 6% of respondents showed any level of approval with KSE.

THE PHASES OF PLAY:

The approval rating for the attack improved quite a bit from the last time I asked. Arsenal did score 13 goals in the time between surveys averaging 1.9 goals per match, which was a significant improvement over the 1.3 that they had in the last survey period so maybe that explains things.

For the midfield, things are still generally mixed and there hasn't been much change since the start.

In defense, things have shown steady improvement. Fans are still generally negative about the Arsenal defense but the trend is very positive. That is also reflected in the statistics for goals allowed, Arsenal allowed just 0.7 goals per match in the 7 matches between surveys and in general I think that they have looked like that isn't a fluke. 

Happiness Index Report: January 28, 2020

by Scott Willis

The second update to how you all as fans are feeling about Arsenal are ready to go. We got a few less responses but still have a sample of over 500 respondents, which while not a perfect sample is better than nothing and hopefully it will grow as time goes on.

With this being the second version we also have a baseline from two weeks ago to compare to, so that will be interesting to add as well. Without further bloviating lets get into the numbers.

General Arsenal Approval Rating:

The plurality of respondents still feel positive about Arsenal however there is a significant drop from 67% approval to just 41%. In the intervening time Arsenal collected 3 draws, haven't really done much in the transfer window (not even really any sexy transfer rumors) and perhaps some of the honeymoon period of a new coach is wearing off (but perhaps not looking at Arteta's approval rating).

Arteta Approval Rating:

Arteta is still very popular with the Arsenal fans. He too has seen some decline with his approve a great deal declining from 86% to 61% but overall he is still at 98% approval which is still about as good as is possible from a head coach. 

The Management Duo:

Raul and Edu have both seen their numbers drop quite a bit since the last survey. Raul has gone from a plurality approving of the job he is doing to a majority disapproving of the work that he is doing. I can't exactly point to a reason why things turned so much in the last couple of weeks (maybe transfers?, general lack of a team building plan?, he's the face of the management team and getting the blame going towards the Kroenke's?) but Raul now has more people that "Dispprove a great deal" than he has in the combined "Approve a great deal" and "Approve a moderate amount". This will be an interesting one to watch as time goes on.

Edu still is overall neutral, but as people form an opinion people are breaking towards disapproving. He still seems to have a secondary role on things to Raul and maybe that is why he isn't getting quite as much blame.

The Phases of Play:

The approval of either the players or the style (I don't specify in the question) is another area where things have gone south quickly. The Attack went from wildly popular to just a plurality approving. The negative feelings have gone from just 3% to 24% in the space of two weeks. Maybe people had different expectations for what Arteta would be able to do with the Arsenal attack but whatever it is, people have turned pretty quickly on it.

In midfield it is more of the same. I am pretty confused about this one as well as things haven't really changed much and honestly I think that you can see much better structure in the way that the team sets up and while there hasn't been massive improvement in the attack, there has been noticeable improvements in midfield control turning into less shots allowed.

The defense, well everyone knows that is a problem and there isn't really much change since the last time.

That's it for this time. After the next set in a couple weeks we can start to see if some trends emerge! 

Happiness Index Report: January 8, 2020

by Scott Willis

I asked people to fill out their opinions on how they felt things were going at Arsenal earlier this week, now it is time to take a look at the results.

First let's take a look at the general feeling that people have for the team:

I don't have the data for it (thus why I started this) but I bet a month ago things would be vastly different. Currently two thirds of Arsenal fans who participated in this survey feel positive about Arsenal, breaking that down a little further 6% felt very positive about Arsenal currently. 10% of Arsenal fans had a negative view of the team but less than 1% had a very negative view. In general, I would feel comfortable saying that the early results and performances under Mikel Arteta have made people feel a lot better about the direction of the team.

The head Coach:

I am sure there are still holdouts who aren't sold on Arteta for some reason or another but those people didn't get included in the nearly 600 people who ended up taking this survey. Overall only 0.5% of respondents don't approve of the job that Arteta is doing. This is for sure the honeymoon stage and unless things go perfect it is unlikely that he will be able to have near unanimous support among fans.

Head Of Football

Arsenal's Head of Football, Raul Sanllehi does not share the same level of support as the head coach. If we looked at this following the summer transfer window maybe things would have been more favorable for him but the narrative that came out during the last months of the Unai Emery reign was that he was still a believer in him (going so far as looking to extend his contract in the summer) and it wasn't until almost all hope of top 4 was gone that he seemed to be convinced that a change was needed. From my own perspective, this plus still being uncertain about his transfer style of agent contacts has me on the fence about him. The fall from "Don Raul" has been pretty swift.

Director of Football:

Edu is the second newest member of the Arsenal management team but he has the least publicly defined role (besides looking great in a suit for official club duties) and that shows in these ratings. This will be an interesting one to watch as time goes on.

Arsenal's Attack:

This isn't a surprising result to me, Arsenal's talent is heavily concentrated in the attacking side of the ball and the early results from Arteta is that he is going to do things to unleash them. I do have some sympathy for the 3% who have negative feelings about Arsenal's attack because even though things look like they are going to be moving in the right direction, this team still feels below where we have seen Arsenal in the recent past.

Arsenal's Midfield:

I was a little surprised by this one. I am in general fairly positive about Arsenal's midfield and I think that the early results of Arteta show that their is talent there if it isn't misallocated and played out of position. Maybe the plurality of people are talking a wait and see approach to this. I do think that this will be an area that Arsenal will need to strengthen in the summer but there are talented players here.

Arsenal's Defense:

That the defense has the lowest ratings is not surprising. This is the biggest weakness in the current team and has been for a number of years, probably going back to when Mertesacker and Koscielny were in their primes. 17% of respondents had a very negative view on Arsenal's defense, so to get some easy gains going from a disaster at the back to just bad would be helpful. Some strengthening in January, even it was just a loan, would probably also be welcome according to Arsenal fans.

That's it for this week. Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the survey. I will look to do another one of these in 2 weeks and then on a continuing basis to be able to track the trends. I might add some questions along recruitment and maybe a couple other things but i still want to keep this to a quick survey to encourage as many as people as possible to fill it out.

Unai Emery’s Time Is Up

Unai Emery has proven he is not capable of reviving Arsenal. It is time for the club to begin the process of finding someone who can. 

In Arsene Wenger’s final few years as Arsenal manager, it became hard to keep track of the number of matches that felt like a new nadir; a blow that couldn’t be recovered from. There were the multiple bloated defeats to big teams away from home, that cumulated in the 10-2 aggregate defeat to Bayern Munich, still Arsenal’s most recent participation in the Champions League. Then in the final couple of seasons there were several pathetic defeats away from home to mid-table and relegation battling teams. A 3-1 at West Brom in March 2017. A 3-0 at Palace a month later. A 2-1 and 3-1 at Bournemouth and Swansea in January 2018. The 2-1 in Brighton that March. 

For some Arsenal’s defeat to Sheffield United on Monday will be that nadir with Unai Emery. For others it would’ve been the Europa League final against Chelsea, or perhaps the atrocious second half at Watford in September. And for some, that match will still be to come. For myself, however, things are a bit different. Throughout Emery’s tenure there hasn’t been a moment of breaking point, where it felt like time. Yet it is nonetheless just as clear as it was in March 2018, perhaps even more so, that Arsenal’s current manager is not the person to take the team forward in the foreseeable future. 

Of course there have been some real low points. More problematic for Emery, however, is less the depths of the nadirs and more that, after 70 games in charge, it’s very hard to find any bright sparks or reasons for optimism when it comes to his management. For more than 14 months Arsenal have been consistently playing mediocre football under their current head coach. The particularly severe problems of the final two Wenger seasons - Arsenal’s defending and away performances - haven’t been improved in the slightest, and it’s come alongside a decline in their attacking cohesion and authority in possession. 

In total Emery has had 47 Premier League games and if you were to count the number of genuinely convincing performances you’d struggle to reach double figures. There haven’t been any yet this season, and they were sparse enough last term. The wins at home against Tottenham and Chelsea were the clear highs and Arsenal were unlucky to only draw away at Tottenham in what was their most accomplished performance away to a big six team in years. A 1-1 draw vs Liverpool was a fine showing against a great team. There was a fantastic second half at home to Leicester and a great first half at home to Southampton. Fulham were twice dispatched, and Bournemouth were comfortably put away at home. 

Arsenal’s other league wins have usually fallen into one of two categories. Either Arsenal struggle to control or breakdown a weak team and have to battle for a scrappy win - Huddersfield and Cardiff twice last season, Bournemouth and Aston Villa at home this season, among many examples. Or Arsenal have played their opponents about even, and have come out on top through being more clinical with their chances, rather than any dominance in general play - Everton, Watford and Manchester United at home last season were the clearest examples. 

There have been some baffling tactical decisions, like going with a diamond at Anfield when Liverpool do so much of their attacking through their fullbacks. Emery has spoken about making Arsenal a chameleon team tactically, an idea that isn’t without its merits. In practice, however, it has been difficult to grasp the logic behind Emery’s chopping and changing. The number of half time substitutions (25 in the league) have added to the sense that Emery is fumbling in the dark for tactics and combinations that work, rather than executing them with a clear thought process. 

For many, their biggest gripe with Emery is his loyalty to certain players, or his lack of trust in others. His unwillingness to use Torreira as a base midfielder, where he played for Sampdoria and still does for Uruguay, and his preference for the Xhaka and Guendouzi pivot instead, is just one example in this regard. 

- - - - - -

In truth, these kind of complaints could go for a while, and everyone has their own; but these micro tactical and selection issues people have with Emery are minor compared to the major macro issues of his time at Arsenal so far.

There have essentially been three major failings of Emery as a coach in his tenure so far. The first of those has been his inability to build a coherent attack. Quickly after he took over it became apparent that Arsenal, either through deliberate design or simply an inability, weren’t sustaining pressure in the final third as much as they did under Wenger. For a while this was somewhat counter balanced by the fact Arsenal had slightly improved in their bringing the ball out from the back in a more structured and precise manner. [I wrote more last November about how Wenger wanted to get the ball up the pitch as quickly as possible, while Emery liked to focus on the earlier phases]. This meant the Gunners were able to score a few very well worked goals that started from the centre backs or goalkeeper. As time wore on, however, the attacking fluidity and final third combinations that were a constant trademark of the Wenger years continued to deteriorate. Having a better system to get the ball to the midfielders or fullbacks up the pitch is useless if you don’t know what to do with it in the final third. 

This has been exasperated by the fact Emery hasn’t been able to implement many of his own attacking automatisms or player partnerships that influence how the team plays. In the early months there was more focus on fullback overlaps and cutbacks, and in the winter of last season Alex Iwobi built a partnership with Sead Kolasinac that bore some fruit until the former’s sale. Admittedly it’s early days, but there aren’t yet many signs of attacking combinations involving the new faces in Arsenal’s midfield and attack. Nicolas Pépé and Bukayo Saka have created chances for Aubameyang, which almost goes without saying, but it’s not clear which players are likely to find their runs, or play 1-2s with them. The returning fullbacks, Kieren Tierney and Hector Bellerin probably have the most potential to strike up partnerships with them, but given what we’ve seen of Emery’s Arsenal so far, it would be naive to genuinely expect it. 

Of course Arsenal still score goals and are a better attacking team than they are a defensive one. But none of that is a surprise considering the attacking firepower they have. Arsenal’s four record signings are all attacking players in the current squad. Being able to score and outgun teams with their attack should be the bare minimum of the Gunners’ expectations. 

Related to the inability to sustain attacks comes the second major failing of Emery’s reign; Arsenal simply don’t control or dominate games as much you’d expect when they play theoretically inferior opposition. Arsenal games tend to either be open and like basketball matches - end to end with each team taking it in turn to attack - or turgid affairs with few shots or quality attacking moves - Monday’s loss in Sheffield, a prime example of the latter. Arsenal don’t suffocate teams with dominate possession, nor do they press with much intensity to win the ball. It’s a bad combo. In his first press conference as manager, the Spaniard claimed he wanted Arsenal to be “protagonists in possession and the pressing” but this plainly hasn’t been carried out. 

One attempt at measuring pressing is PPDA which divides the number of passes the opposition are able to make in their own half, by the number of defensive actions a team makes. Generally the lower the figure, the more successful a side was in disrupting their opponents possession through pressing, while a higher figure suggests a more passive approach. Last season in the Premier League Man City had the lowest figure, while Bournemouth had the highest. Rather than becoming more intense and coherent, Arsenal’s PPDA has slightly increased since Emery took over, which implies Arsenal are more content to allow opposition teams to keep the ball away from goal. The trend is moving further towards that as well, the away games to Liverpool and Watford this season represent two of the three highest PPDA figures for single Arsenal matches since 14/15 begun. 

This goes with what The Athletic reported last month, with James McNicholas claiming that any focus on pressing in training didn’t last beyond the very early stages of Emery’s reign. 

https://theathletic.com/1216532/2019/09/17/emery-is-unloved-and-under-threat-it-may-be-time-for-the-next-man/ (to sign up use theathletic.com/arsenalvision)

There are valid reasons to play a more passive defensive game, and to look to attack with speed rather than play keep ball when you get it. In fact, it seems likely that Emery came to this conclusion and believes it to be the best way for Arsenal to play. But to say Arsenal’s tactics haven’t worked would be an understatement. Since Emery took over Arsenal have faced 58 more shots than they’ve taken in league play. This is practically unheard of for top four contenders. For context, in the same period Man City, Liverpool and Chelsea have shot differentials of +570, +324 and +329 respectively, while Arsenal in 17/18 (just 38 games, not 47) had a positive differential of 172. While it’s true the quality of Arsenal’s shots taken are higher than the quality of shots they allow, it’s not by a significant enough margin to override such a terrible differential.  

I slipped in a graphic earlier while talking about the attack under Emery. It showed the number of deep pass completions (defined as passes that end up fewer than 20 yards from goal) the Gunners have made on average in the last few Premier League seasons. Not surprisingly there’s a slump that occurs not long after Emery takes over. Arsenal simply complete fewer passes into the last part of the pitch now than they did at any point under Wenger in the last few seasons. The trend is also the opposite in defence. Arsenal are conceding more passes per match into deep zones than under Wenger. Quite simply, since Emery’s arrival, Arsenal fans have been seeing less action in the opposition box and more action in their own than they used to. 

What makes things more frustrating is that the players Emery selects could feasibly be more suited to another style. Granit Xhaka is a flawed player, but he is not without his qualities. He is a well above average passer in possession, and can be a significant plus to a side playing a possession game, as he has been for Arsenal on occasions in the past. What he clearly lacks is the defensive intelligence and mobility to be a great screener of the back line out of possession. This makes Emery’s method of trying to see out games through control without the ball particularly bizarre. There’s ample evidence showing it doesn’t work and the players are ill-suited to it. 

This is all connected to the third major problem under Emery; Arsenal’s continued defensive failings. People could look past less cohesion in attack, less dominance through possession, less aggressive pressing and more conservative team selections if it had helped to solve Arsenal’s three year defensive crisis. Indeed there are those that do defend Emery on the grounds that Wenger’s football and team selections were simply leaving the team too open. But defensively there hasn’t been any improvement since Emery took over.

In the wider media there’s a bit of a myth that Arsenal have always been a bad defensive team in the period since their last league title. But for years Arsenal had been exactly what you’d expect from the third or fourth best team in the league defensively. In 12/13 they conceded the second fewest goals in the league. In 13/14 they conceded 41, but 20 of those were in four games. In the 34 games that weren’t away to top five teams, they conceded only 21 goals, a stellar defensive performance. In 15/16 they had the lowest xG against in the Premier League, and would’ve competed harder for the title had Petr Cech not shown a surprising weakness to long shots at his near post that season. 

Arsenal’s defence only became truly bad in 16/17, when Arsenal’s xG against was more than 13 goals higher than the previous season. A year later it was even worse, and Arsenal conceded 51 goals, a record for the club in the Premier League era. In Emery’s first season they repeated the trick, matching the 51 goals conceded of the previous season. This was despite Emery getting new signings in goal, at centre back, and in defensive midfield. Leno also did his job well, and was arguably one of Arsenal’s three outstanding players last season alongside the two strikers. Arsenal actually over performed their xG allowed by more than six goals while conceding 51. This season it’s not been better. If they continue to ship chances at their current rate, Arsenal are likely to end the season conceding 58 goals in the league. In short, the defence has deteriorated so much, that Arsenal are conceding chances at a rate of 25 goals a season more than they were just three and a half years ago. 

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There are those that argue the task of replacing Wenger was never going to be a quick and easy task, and that with more time and investment, Emery could form Arsenal into a formidable side. While there is truth in the former statement, at this point there just isn’t sufficient reason to believe Arsenal will make any significant improvement as a result of Emery’s coaching. The returns of Bellerin and Tierney at fullback could feasibly help Arsenal in all aspects of play. Signing more good players in future transfer windows could help Arsenal get better results - though the results this season show even that is in doubt. But after two pre-seasons and over 15 months of training time to implement his vision and philosophy on the squad, what reason is there to think Emery will eventually coax more out of the players he has so far got little from?

One of the concerns that surrounded Emery before he took over was the type of clubs he’d had most success at. The easy joke, and an unfair one in truth, was that he was a Europa League specialist. The more nuanced criticism was that in his time at Valencia and Sevilla Emery’s success had come from achieving consistently solid results, never from elevating them to a level above their resources. Now obviously doing that is difficult and extremely rare even for good managers. It does, however, stand as a key point to differentiate Emery from someone like Jurgen Klopp - often cited by Arsenal fans as an example of what can happen when you give a manager time - who had a history of lifting a sleeping giant in Borussia Dortmund to title wins and a Champions League final. 

If one were to be particularly harsh of Emery’s time at Arsenal - and it’s not particularly necessary to be so to make a case against him given the realities laid out so far - one could go as far as to suggest Arsenal’s best bits of performance since he took over have actually had the least to do with his coaching. In the early months of his reign, Arsenal usually had sluggish first halves, only to get the result when going more full throttle in the second half. At the time it felt like the players were having more success when throwing caution to the wind and letting their individual quality take over than when trying to implement Emery’s plan. Around March last season Emery went away from his favoured rigid double pivot and finally deployed Aaron Ramsey in a deeper position. Ramsey added vertically to the midfield and it resulted in one of Arsenal’s best runs of the season with wins over Manchester United and Napoli, until Ramsey’s hamstring injury contributed to the season being derailed. This season Arsenal’s best performances have all come with the second string lineups in the Europa League and League Cup, using players who have had fewer matches and training sessions with Emery than the first team regulars. 

Now that is a harsh outlook, and is at best a possibility unlike the earlier criticisms which are all but factual. It does, however, support the idea that Arsenal’s squad isn’t terrible, and that it’s not unreasonable to think their league struggles are down to something other than player quality. 

This season’s Europa League performances also bring relevance to the one shinning light for Arsenal football club at the moment. The Gunners have a stack of young players who have looked promising in the minutes given. This is actually a rare area Emery probably has to be given credit, given he could’ve quite easily opted for more experienced starters than the likes of Saka and Joe Willock, or at least fought harder to not lose either of Alex Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan from his squad. This shows that the long term future doesn’t have to be doom and gloom. It does, however, mean the next stage in Arsenal’s development is crucial. Which makes having a head coach that can maximise attackers and possibility elevate a team beyond the sum of its parts sooner rather than later even more of a priority.

- - - - - -

It should go without saying that none of this is a personal crusade against the man. Regardless of his time at Arsenal Emery has had a very successful managerial career. As Alex Kirkland said on a recent Arsecast, Emery would have no problem finding another job in La Liga and would even be one of the main candidates for next Spain manager. It’s entirely possible his problems at Arsenal have predominantly been an issue of communication. Or perhaps his footballing ideas just don’t gel with this crop of players.

For over 20 years Arsenal fans got to bask in a reality few fans do; one of managerial security. Now they are in the pack with the rest of the world, where managerial turnover is frequent. Many appointments don’t go the way they were initially hoped. Unai Emery’s at Arsenal is one such example. The reality of modern club setups is that they don’t have to be defined by the manager. Much of Arsenal’s backroom changes in the last two years has been for this exact reason, to hold some level of continuity at club level from one managerial appointment to the next. 

During the international break David Ornstein confirmed that Arsenal have a clause in Unai Emery’s contract where they can get out of the third year without having to make a pay off. That they should do it if the time arrives is at this point a given. The Arsenal board have the next seven months to start preparing for that situation, and to ponder whether paying the moderate financial sum required to end his tenure before then is worth it. If it comes down to top four or no top four, and the huge financial benefits that come with it. Well, you do the maths. 

Nicolas Pépé - Early Review

Nicolas Pépé - Early Review

In recent times, it’s hard to recall a record Arsenal signing who’s early performances have been treated to a quieter and calmer response from the Arsenal fans than Nicolas Pépé. So far there hasn’t been a lot undue hype over his quality and potential future impact; and neither has there been much harsh criticism. Given he arrived for a record fee and has so far only provided a penalty goal and a solitary assist in the league, one might have expected the Arsenal fanbase to have voiced some concerns or criticism, especially since the club’s start to the season hasn’t been particularly convincing overall. 

In part, the measured response is probably due to the to the wealth of other narratives surrounding Arsenal’s start to the season. The continued defensive struggles and failure to assert much control over matches. The fantastic start to the season from Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and the continued emergence of youngsters like Joe Willock, Bukayo Saka and Reis Nelson. Plus Arsenal fans are more accustomed to big forward signings than they used to be. Pépé is the fourth attacker in Arsenal’s current squad who has held the title of club record signing. Predominantly, however, it’s likely down to the fact that Pépé’s quality is obvious; and that while it hasn’t completely come together for him yet, most are in agreement that it’s only a matter of time before it will. Until then, it’s simply a matter of waiting. But in the meantime, here are some early thoughts and projections on how he might best be utilised this season.

Overall

So far, Pépé has been used in two different ways by Unai Emery. As a genuine wide player in a 4-3-3/4-2-3-1, tasked with progressing the ball and linking with the other forwards, and also as a striker in a 4-4-2 diamond, where he has primarily been used as a counter attack weapon. One can debate the wiseness of using a new signing in more than one position in his first few games for the club, but both roles have highlighted strengths and (over the first few games at least) weaknesses in Pépé’s game. 

Regardless of the role, the Ivorian hasn’t struggled for involvement in Arsenal’s attack. In what has often been a shot shy Arsenal attack under Emery - Arsenal ranked 11th for shots for in the league last season - Pépé is currently taking or assisting close to six shots per game. After six games this season his usage rate - a stat that measures the amount of possessions that end with a particular player, either through a shot or loss of possession - is only surpassed by Alexis Sanchez seasons in the last few years at Arsenal. 

His expected goals and expected assist figures - 0.28 and 0.25 per 90 respectively - are solid rather than spectacular. While his shot and key pass numbers are great, few of either have been big chances, which drags the xG and xA figures down. 

His general play has been mainly very good. The fact that his end product has been his undoing so far is something of a surprise given his impressive goal and assist numbers for Lille over the last two seasons. It hasn’t been simply down to a finishing slump either. There have been times where his weight of final ball has let him down (like in a 2v1 late in the match against Burnley) or he’s worked himself into a good position to attack a defender with a dribble, only for it to come to nothing.  

If he didn’t have a history of good production, this might be a bigger concern. For now Arsenal fans will hope his early indecisiveness is simply a blip, or down to early season rust after a long season and summer tournament, and that with greater integration and fitness it will no longer be an issue. As of now it’s simply been frustrating, because the signs in his general play have so far been very encouraging.

Dribbling and close control

On the evidence of his Arsenal career so far, Pépé’s close control is one of his standout strengths. He is comfortable receiving passes into feet with his back to defenders, and can turn in either direction to get away from his man. While he doesn’t have the low centre of gravity that many great dribblers have, he is able to manipulate the ball in tight spaces without getting dispossessed. 

via Gfycat

The Ivorian is also great at using body feints to deceive defenders and create space for himself. This nutmeg against Burnley went viral, but look for how he also uses a feint to deceive the midfielder on his left which allows him room to pull off the trick. 

With these traits it’s not a surprise that another area he’s shown he excels at is in creating separation from a defender in order to play a pass or get a shot off. It helps that his ability to skip past players on both sides means that even high quality defenders like van Dijk and Robertson have opted to stand off him, giving him an extra bit of space.  

What has so far let him down when dribbling has been his propensity to make sloppy touches when travelling with the ball. While his ball security when receiving and in tight spaces has been quite good, this problem has somewhat contributed to his lack of decisiveness in matches so far. As seen in this example against Liverpool, where he does well to initially get past van Dijk, and is then able to find the separation to get a shot away, only to miss control. 

Passing and possession play 

Pépé has been somewhat of a mirrored Alexis Sanchez with his passing so far. A comment that will either be met with enthusiasm or dread depending on which side of the Chilean’s playmaking debate you fell on. Pépé  likes to cut inside to play passes into the middle or to curve passes to the other flank. When he’s closer to the defensive line or the opposition penalty area, he’s always looking for potential through balls into the centre, or a cross to the back post. Many of his assists for Lille came with this pass, with a runner making an out to in run from the left hand side and finishing. If Aubameyang is to play on the left a lot this season - a scenario that seems likely if Emery uses the big three in attack - this is a potential link up that could cause a lot of damage, particularly on the break. 

via Gfycat

When playing on the right Pépé has shown a willingness to drop deep and offer himself for passes. Last season Arsenal did a lot of their building of play down the left, which worked when the likes of Alex Iwobi played on that flank, but was problematic when Aubameyang was put there. This season, if Aubameyang is to play regularly on the left, Arsenal could benefit from focussing more of their ball progression through the right, since Pépé is much better suited to helping with the build up. It would have the added benefit of allowing Aubameyang to stay high up, and focus his game on making out to in runs when Arsenal have the ball on the right. 

Perhaps the biggest weakness of Pépé’s creative game is the fact he appears quite one footed. Against Villa he was able to beat the left back down the outside a couple of times, but wasn’t able to deliver a threatening ball with his right foot. This is obviously far from a deal breaker for a wide player, but it will limit the type of service he can provide to Aubameyang and Lacazette. 

Off ball play and defending

With his rapid pace - which might rival Aubameyang’s in the Arsenal frontline - and all round attacking play, Pépé will be a big threat on the counter attack, as he has been already this season. Unless the aforementioned issues with his decisiveness persist to the same extent, which I don’t believe they will, he will be involved in many counter attack goals over the course of this season.

This was most evident against Liverpool. In a match where Arsenal were on the back foot most of the time, Pépé was by far Arsenal’s most threatening player, and perhaps the most dangerous forward on the pitch. The one big chance he’s had this season came from a Liverpool corner, where he sprinted from one box to the other, stole the ball from Henderson, beat Robertson on the dribble, only to shoot tamely. He was Arsenal’s main outlet into the channels, where he displayed good hold up play to relieve pressure and almost managed to create a big chance from a long ball downfield from David Luiz. 

What I’m yet to see from him are any enterprising off ball movements against set defences. This isn’t to say it’s something he can’t do at all. It’s just not something he’s visibly showcased in his first few matches for Arsenal. 

It’s hard to judge Pépé’s defensive capabilities, since Emery has shied away from giving him defensive responsibilities in Arsenal’s more challenging fixtures. Away at Liverpool and Watford he was part of a front two, and while against Tottenham the Gunners played a 4-3-3 rather than a diamond, Lacazette was often the player dropping back to help defensively, while Pépé and Aubameyang stayed high up like in the away games. There is likely some causality here, however. The fact Emery is using him that way either suggests he doesn’t trust the Ivorian’s defensive capabilities, or that he considers his counter attack threat too valuable to curtail.

Conclusions 

With Iwobi and Henrikh Mkhitaryan gone, Arsenal’s left flank is likely to either be filled by Aubameyang - a wide striker - or youngsters such as Saka and Nelson. That, along with the fact Mesut Özil looks like he will continue to be a bit part player this season, means the onus on Pépé to be the ball dominant attacker will continue. Pépé has already shown in his early matches for the Gunners that he has the dribbling, creativity and personality to be the fulcrum of an attack. 

Whether he will justify all of his £72m fee, and whether Unai Emery will be the man to get the most out of him are both very much up in the air. What isn’t is that Pépé has the quality and profile to be a valuable asset to Arsenal’s season and long term future. The fruits will likely bear sooner rather than later. 

An American Gooner In North London

By Foti Filacouris

The Decision

When considering what me and my lovely girlfriend should do for holiday this year, our initial thought was to vacation to Spain and to spend a nice 10 days in Barcelona. After a brief search on the most popular travel sites, we realized quite quickly that $2,000.00 in return tickets alone was not as appetizing as the allure of the warm Catalonian sunshine. We happen to live in Long Island, which is right outside of New York City, so we ultimately had an easy flight path to Europe. 

Our next thought was to visit the south of France, a beautiful vacation to the Côte d'Azur better known as the French Riviera. After another seemingly endless search trying to discover reasonable flights, we discovered this journey was also too expensive for only 10 days.

A look at the start and end dates of our holiday lead me to a very interesting discovery. We just so happen to be planning to head to Europe during the opening game of the season at the Emirates vs Burnley!

After what seemed to be endless searching which coincided with some careful budgeting on our side, I had a stroke of brilliance. What if I could somehow do a train tour around Europe that started in London? Could I sell that to my better half? 

The answer was yes… what follows is my experience.

I will attempt to depict my pilgrimage to the Emirates. I will attempt to encapsulate my thoughts and feelings in a coherent manner. I will attempt to make some suggestions for folks who might also be making their first trip in the near future.  

The challenge with all of that is, if you love the club the same way that I do, this task is seemingly impossible. For a foreign fan, watching the team week in and week out, living and dying by the pixels on a tv screen or laptop monitor – seeing the Emirates for the first time is a surreal experience. Come on the journey with me ya gunners.

The first question is..

How do I get tickets?

Once I convinced my girlfriend to gallivant to London with me to visit the Emirates, I had a big task at hand, how do I purchase tickets.

This is not such a straightforward experience to the layman. After some careful investigation, I learned that purchasing tickets from popular ticketing websites may be illegal in the UK. This was a complete shock to me as third-party ticket reselling in the US is the most common mechanism for purchasing match day tickets – for any sport. This had me a bit rattled, so I decided that the best approach was to go directly to https://www.arsenal.com/ to purchase tickets.

What I did not know was that in order to purchase tickets from The Arsenal you must go on their Ticket Exchange which is a marketplace for reselling directly through the club. In order to gain access to the ticket exchange, you must purchase a membership plan which will grant you access to the ticket exchange – the better the membership plan, the earlier in advance you can purchase tickets. Much to my chagrin, since this was fairly last minute (3 weeks before the match), I decided to purchase the red membership. This was essentially a £29 cost for purely the chance of purchasing a ticket. (You can find out more about red membership details here https://www.arsenal.com/membership/red)

Bad luck for me though… 

All of the tickets were sold out on the ticket exchange and my dream was almost shattered. I decided that this was not enough to get me down and that after all of this hard work and planning, we would take the risk and purchase tickets via StubHub. After two weeks of waiting, I received the email with our e-tickets!

The next question we had to ask ourselves was…

Where do we stay?

Luckily for me, working for global companies for the better part of my career left me with friends that lived in and around London. The recommendation that was given by a good friend and colleague was to stay in Shoreditch. Shoreditch is a hipster part of London that is located in the borough of Hackney. We stayed around a very reasonably priced area in Shoreditch which was roughly a 12-minute uber ride to the Emirates stadium. Our hotel was very accommodating with nice restaurants, clubs and bars nearby… not to mention some great street art:

The Emirates Experience

Once gameday arrived I donned my bruised banana Arsenal away kit and made my way towards the stadium. The game was set to start at noon, which left me at a decision point of what time to arrive. We arrived two and a half hours early so that we had plenty of time to take in the surrounding ambience that was North London. Traveling to the stadium in our minicab, we traversed Holloway Road that brought us past Highbury  and into Islington (names of the local towns in the area – probably familiar to most). As we made our way through the streets, we were brought into a neighborhood where our Uber driver instructed us to exit. After walking up a block or two we were able to see it… finally.

The first thing you see as you walk up to the stadium is the Armoury. 

The Arsenal Armoury

Once you enter the Arsenal team shop, you walk into a room that has all the kits anyone could ever dream of. In the main entrance area, there is all of the Men’s kits, these varied from warm ups to the standard Home, Away and Alternate jerseys. 

Even roughly two hours before kickoff the Armoury was packed! There was a substantial amount of families.  While wandering around and casually shopping I was able to meet Gooners from all around the globe. We met many Gooners that varied from countries such as Australia, Japan, Nigeria – we even met fellow Americans from Colorado and Boston. I must warn any first time Gooners that there is a metric ton of awesome Arsenal memorabilia and clothing – please be prepared to spend money if you walk in there. I personally got a custom printed Bergkamp #10 on the home kit, which was around a 20-25-minute wait (view from the line below).

This whole experience gets you really jazzed for the game. As I walked out of the Armoury I felt this feeling of anticipation welling up inside of me, I was a few short steps away from entering the stadium grounds where the new look Gunners would face Burnley.

As we walked up the stairs, we were greeted by music…

Entering the grounds

Once we climbed the staircase that led to the main promenade, we were greeted by a quartet of brass players playing on a stage. They were playing a lively tune that flittered through the warm summer day, saluting the fanbase on their way through security. While we walked and wandered towards our preferred entrance, a nice woman came up to us and handed us a card for a free pint of beer inside the stadium. This turned out to be Arsenal’s new brewery sponsorship, Camden Town Brewery. 

Before walking into the grounds, I stopped for a moment to take the whole beauty of the stadium in, there is a giant mural of some legends that look over the stadium from the upper perches of the walls (History Through Harmony):

 After the initial butterflies of being there had subsided to a degree, we walked to our “gate” and walked through security. The experience of passing through security for me was very light compared to what I am used to in the US sports venues. A quick look through our bags was all it took for us to be passed through to the turnstiles. We were quickly into the inner sanctum of the Emirates. 

Inside the Emirates, we saw a ton of concession stands and food halls. It is important to note that we had entered on field level and this account is from that purview. Needless to say, at this point, the anticipation of getting my free beer and walking onto the field level seating was growing. We quickly grabbed our free Camden Town Brewery lagers and headed for our seats.

One thing to note that was also a bit of a shock to me, was that, alcohol was not allowed on the field facing portion of the stadium. This may seem naïve to folks who grew up in Europe and attended many football matches abroad, but this is a completely different policy compared to American sports. This is an important memory to point out because it required me to drink my beers quickly inside the stadium prior to heading to my seats. This probably added to the liquid courageous feeling that I felt when I actually saw the field.

My view from our seats – NorthBank

The Atmosphere

Walking out and seeing the Emirates field for the first time is very difficult to explain. Arsenal Football Club has become a sort of obsession for me over the course of the past 5 years or so – watching and admiring the ups but mostly the downs over the course of the past decade. This summer on the other hand left the club in a positive light for the first time in a while. The business that was done left a sense of optimism in the air and it resonated throughout the pitch. 

It may sound odd to the say that being there in person was euphoric but that is really the best way to explain it. Once the match began, being so close to Aubameyang, Ceballos, Guendouzi, Leno, Sokratis, etc… at times I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming. 

The result of the match and the overall tone of the game also assisted in enjoying the experience thoroughly. This includes but is not limited to the stadium energy and the banter all around me. We had heard in the past that the Emirates is quiet and lacking in charisma but that was not the case on this day. The four-tiered bowl that comprised of roughly 55,000 screaming fans was both beautiful and electric. Our perspective was from the North Bank, closer to the field level by the corner flag. I mean just look at some of the photos:

Aubameyang and Mike Dean – bitter rivals)

Post Aubameyang second half goal

An American Gooner in North London

Being a tourist in London for the first time let alone traveling to the Emirates can be intimidating. Especially since it is difficult to answer some of the questions mentioned earlier in this blog post. Hopefully some of this helped someone, somewhere looking to visit for the first time and to emulate this experience. Hell this might even be interesting for locals and season ticket holders – to understand what visiting the stadium means to someone living 1,000’s of miles away. 

Being somewhere you’d never thought you’d get to be is special. Being there with the person you love is life changing. Getting to share that experience with countless others in this beautiful community we call fandom – priceless.

North London is red my friends, I just had to see it with my own eyes.

Arsenal vs. FFP in 2019/20 - Are We Screwed?

by Tom Jones

FFP SUMMARY

To comply with Financial Fair Play clubs must break even or better on a rolling three-year aggregate. For example, to qualify under FFP in the 2019/20 season the club submits total profit and loss (P&L) from 2016/17, 2017/18 and an estimate of 2018/19 (official accounts are not available when submission is due). For 2020/21, the accounts for 2016/17 will be replaced with estimates for 2019/20 and so on. Owners can offset losses as much as 35m per year with cash investment, and clubs can deduct expenses on youth development and infrastructure from the calculation.

Seems reasonable, right? But as we will see, there can be some unintended consequences of this three-year window that clubs may not have anticipated. In Arsenal’s case, a large cash reserve was built up long before FFP as Arsene Wenger and the board kept player trading expenses down. Arsene finally started to spend the cash, but as of May 2018, Arsenal still had about 195m in “free cash.” We have repeatedly heard from management that money generated by the club is free for investment into the squad, so why in January of 2019 when faced with a tight race for the lucrative Champions League and key injuries did the club state it could only loan players while sitting on 200m?

One prevailing theory is that Stan has tightened the purse strings to cover cost overruns at his LA stadium project. While a nice narrative, there is another possible explanation—that the fiscally responsible Arsenal are up against an FFP wall. As I’ll explain, the player trading and contract management at Arsenal the last few seasons have put the club in an accounting bubble which has ballooned and effectively made spending the cash pile very challenging even if KSE has given the green light to use it. To see this, we will need to first understand how the club accounts for player trading.

PLAYER TRADING ACCOUNTING

As fans we like the simplistic approach of following the cash balance numbers and annual “net spend” figures that are spouted in the articles we read. In truth though, there is no such item in the official accounts. Player purchases, renegotiations and sales are distinct types of transactions and are accounted for differently in both amount and timing.

Player Purchases

While a club may pay actual cash for a player’s registration from another club, this cash paid does not immediately go toward expenses (see highlighted portion of Official Arsenal Accounts below). This is because the new player’s registration is considered an (intangible) asset, and for accounting purposes the cost of assets is realized over their “useful life.” While the “usefulness” of some of Arsenal’s players is debatable (ahem, Mustafi), the club will spread out or amortize the cost of a player’s registration over the duration of the player’s contract.

This is useful for typical businesses so that when acquiring a large asset, they can spread that cost out and not take a huge hit on the bottom line in a single financial period. But typical businesses don’t have to deal with FFP, and Arsenal do.

As an example of how this is done, we can look at the purchase of Alexis Sanchez by Arsenal. He was bought for reported 35m in 2014 on a 5-year deal. That 35m did not go on Arsenal’s P&L for 2014 as an 35m expense, however. Instead, Arsenal booked his registration as an intangible asset with a cost of 35m. Each year for the term of the contract they amortized that value down by 7m (35m/5yr) and booked the 7m as an amortization expense (see the line item below). So, in terms of affecting the P&L, and therefore FFP calculations for that season, Sanchez only “cost” the club 7m in 2014 even though they might have paid the 35m up front in cash. Of course, this meant he was still hitting this line item for 7m in 2016 as well.

Contract Renegotiations (extensions)

In these situations, club accounting policy (see below) is to take the remaining amortization of the player’s registration (what’s left to expense from the initial purchase or prior renegotiations), add that to the cost of the new contract (certain bonuses, Agent’s fees, etc.) and then amortize that “total cost” over the life of the new contract.

Consider the Ozil deal. At the time, Ozil had about 6 months left on his original cost of 42.5m. So, the club maybe had about 4m remaining to amortize. Certain bonuses to the player, agent’s fees for the new deal, etc. are added to that remainder (maybe 10m for such a huge deal). Therefore, we have maybe 15m as the total cost of Ozil’s current registration. The club will spread that over next 3 years (duration of his new deal) by taking an amortization expense of 5m every year. So Ozil hits the bottom line to the tune of negative 5m or more per year on top of his 18m per year salary. Easy to see why the club possibly wanted him off the books in January.

Player Sales

When a player is sold, the remaining amortization is subtracted from the sale price and the result is what hits the bottom line as either profit or loss.

Consider the rumored sale of Xhaka this summer for 50m. While the club might receive a check for 50m, that money will not contribute to the P&L as a 50m income. At the time of sale, the club must charge off the remaining amortization left on the player’s registration. As we learned from the sections above on purchases and renegotiations, the club is yet to fully realize Xhaka’s initial purchase price and he also renegotiated his deal in 2018 further adding to his “cost”. When he is sold, this remaining amortization would need to be realized which would offset some of the 50m income from his sale.

In detail, Xhaka’s original deal was reported as 35m for 5 years so the club was charging 7m off each year. At the time of renegotiation in 2018, the club still had 21m (7m per remaining year) left to amortize. He renegotiated for reported 5 more years. So, add another few million in agent’s fees and bonuses and you probably have 25m left. Subtract the amortization taken in 18/19 (1/5th) and you are left with about 20m or so to amortize at the time of sale. Therefore, if Xhaka is sold for 50m this summer, the club may see an increase in cash by 50m but will actually only book an income on the P&L of 30m from the transaction.

Again, for a typical business this is good. It can essentially shield the bottom line from huge fluctuations when a large asset is sold (i.e. dodge the tax man). However, these costs are being spread out over 5 or more years while profits from sales are being realized in one season. With only a three-year window for FFP it’s easy to see that occasionally this may cause a problem if not considered by management.

A prime example of how this disparity can unexpectedly affect the P&L can be seen in Arsenal’s spending in 17/18. At first glance the net spend in cash terms was close to zero (3m net income according to tranfermarkt.com) with sales of Giroud, Ox, Walcot, etc. essentially balancing out purchases of Auba, Laca, etc. However, due to these accounting practices, Arsenal actually booked a 120m income on player “disposals” that year (see P&L from 2018 below) which was only offset by player trading expenses of 91.7m. Essentially Arsenal only generate 3m in cash from player trading that year but booked a net positive of about 30m toward the bottom line.

How is this possible? Due to the accounting differences between purchases and sales we explained above, most of the cash from the outgoing players was booked as profit for 2017/18 while most of the cost of incoming players is spread out to future years. This is the problem Arsenal are facing with respect to FFP.

Another good example is the Sanchez/Miki swap deal with United. To the fan, it seems like a net-zero even swap since no cash was exchanged between the two clubs. However, for accounting purposes this was a sale of an asset (Sanchez) and a purchase of another asset (Miki). For this one, the club uses the fair market value of the players (reported as 35m in this case). So the club booked an income of 35m from the Sanchez “sale” for that year (less any remaining amortization). But for Miki, the club will spread the 35m “cost” over the 3.5 years of his contract (10m per year). The effect of this is that the club booked a “profit” on the exchange of perhaps 20m or more for the year 2017/18 even though no cash was exchanged.

Of course, there is no such thing as a free lunch, and the club still amortizing Miki’s registration at the clip of 10m per year and over time this will net out to zero. But, by taking the profit in one year and the expense in future years can really hurt the bottom line when the year of the profit drops out of the FFP calculation, but the years of the expense remain—essentially a 50m swing in this example. More on this in the FFP section below.

What is the consequence of all of this? From a business point of view Arsenal is actually doing okay in terms of revenue, cash and debt trends. But the way Arsenal have “timed” and structured their player trading in the twilight of Wenger’s reign means those deferred costs have created a bubble which is hitting the club’s P&L hard starting in 18/19 and likely continuing through 21/22.

FFP ANALYSIS

Now that we know how the accounts are handled, what does the FFP situation for Arsenal look like? Recall that according to FFP, Arsenal must profit or break even over a rolling three-year aggregate or face penalties. Let’s look at the next two seasons--2019/20 with the FFP window using accounts from 2016-19 and 2020/21 with the FFP window using 2017-20.

We have official accounts for 2016/17 and 17/18, but official numbers for 2018/19 haven’t been released and 19/20 hasn’t happened yet. In order to do some analysis, I have projected in the chart below based on what we do know about these seasons (no Champions League revenue, 18/19 signings, new Adidas and Emirates deals, etc.).

As we can see, the club was in profit both of 16/17 and 17/18 despite the lack of Champions League revenue in 17/18. In 18/19 the club will still be amortizing the deals for Auba, Laca, ozil, etc. from 17/18, while the revenue from Theo, Giroud, etc. all was booked in 17/18. Further, the club essentially sold no one in 18/19 but bought new players (Leno, Torreira, etc.) spending about 75m. That expense will also be amortized in 18/19, 19/20 and beyond at about 15-20m/yr. Therefore, the club likely will see a jump in amortization expense that I estimate to be as much as 35m more than in 17/18. I keep staff and other wage costs the same.

Turnover due to property sales doesn’t count toward FFP, the commercial/TV deals were basically the same, and there was no Champions League revenue in 18/19 so FFP revenues will likely be the similar to 17/18. Therefore, in 18/19, Arsenal will likely see a huge jump in expenses due to the signings of 17-19 along with the stall in revenue due to no Champions League. This will culminate in a huge P&L loss for 18/19 which I estimate could be about 92 million.

That is a huge loss, but for the season 2019/20 FFP calculation Arsenal had the profits from the previous two years to offset this loss for an aggregate profit over the three years of about 15m. Not bad, but I think I’ve been conservative here by not accounting for any extra expenses relating to the departure of Wenger, Gazidiz, Sven et al. and the appointment of their replacements. I suspect this 15m may actually be closer to zero. In any case, this number doesn’t offer a lot of wiggle room, and so it is a possible explanation why the club announced it could only loan players in January.

But what about 2019/20 when the club has additional revenue from Adidas (30m/yr more than Puma) and Emirates (10m/yr more than before)? The club is also trimming its wage bill significantly with the departures at least of Cech, Ramsey, Leichsteiner, Wellbeck, Jenko, etc. so at least 20-30m in reduced annual wages and even further reduction in amortization costs. With these considerations, I project that Arsenal will reduce wage and amortization expenses by about 50M next year not including any signings or contract extensions. With the 40m more in extra revenue, 50m less in expenses, and healthy cash balance Arsenal should be good to make signings in the summer of 2019, right? Not necessarily.

Since there is no Champions League football for 19/20, even with the new kit deals and trimming the fat a little, I project Arsenal will likely still see a small net loss on the season of 19/20 of around 2m (assuming no player trading). A big improvement compared to the huge loss of 18/19. However, the problem with respect to FFP is that the very profitable year of 16/17 (+43m) now drops out of the FFP calculation for the 20/21 season. Arsenal will then have a loss in two of the three years considered by FFP for the 20/21 season. Put another way, without doing “something” positive in 19/20 Arsenal will be about 30m behind the FFP target of break-even over the three-year window from 2017-20 and could face FFP sanctions for the season of 2020/21.

IMPLICATIONS FOR SUMMER TRADING

We’ve all seen the rumored net of 40m to spend this summer. As one can see from above, club accounting with respect to player trading is not so simple. For example, Xhaka and Iwobi might be sold for the same cash amount, but Iwobi is an academy player and most of his fee would count to profit while Xhaka still has 20m left to amortize which will reduce his fee income. Basically, “net spend” is an oversimplification and useless with respect to club accounting if FFP is in play.

Disregarding this rumor and assuming my projections to be somewhat accurate, we know the club needs to offset FFP losses of 30m with player trading in 19/20 to avoid FFP sanctions for 20/21. However, this doesn’t mean the club has to make a net income of 30m on player trading (i.e. net spend -30m). Remember, player sales and purchases are accounted for separately and the club can take advantage of this to show a 30m “profit” on player trading even though in cash terms they actually have a positive net spend.

How? For an example, let’s say the club sell some combination of players for 50m income after all the remaining amortization of their contracts is realized (see Xhaka example above). This will hit the line item as profit from player disposals. We reserve 30m of this to offset the 30m FFP loss and 20m income is left. Does that mean the club only have 20m to spend? No. Remember, the expenses from purchases are spread out over the contract years of the new players. For example, assuming the club sign new players on 5 year contracts, they could spend a total of 100m this season and still comply with FFP next season since only 20m of the 100m (100m/5years) will hit as an expense in 19/20.

Of course, this effectively kicks the can down the road a bit more and if not balanced by revenues at some point could serve only to further inflate the bubble.

SUMMARY

In the latter seasons of Wenger’s reign, it seems he and Gazidis failed to adequately plan player trading and contract negotiations for future FFP compliance. Perhaps they were simply going all-in on a quick return of Champions League revenue, or maybe they just assumed the “well run” club of Arsenal didn’t need to be too concerned with FFP. For whatever reason, they made a huge FFP mistake in 17/18. While they didn’t “net-spend” that year, the effect of such high squad churn yielded a large profit in 17/18 and huge expenses realized in 18/19 and beyond. For a while, the profits and losses were balancing out, but the profitable years of 16-18 will be dropping out of the three-year FFP window leaving only the losses. These losses will have to compensated by profits in 2019/20. With no Champions League, the only meaningful way the club have to generate that kind of revenue is through more squad churn in 19/20.

5 Things We Learned: Huddersfield v Arsenal

If there ever was a game that best describes how it’s been like to watch Arsenal this season, this 2-1 win against Huddersfield might just be the poster boy for how 2018/19 has felt like. While results have mostly been improved under Unai Emery, they have been a grind and not often pleasant to watch.

Here are 5 things we noticed as Arsenal ground out a win against the relegation strugglers.

A Conservative Formation?

Did we really need to play three central defenders against a team that has scored just 13 goals all season? I get that a 3-4-3 formation could also be an offensive setup with the full backs bombing forward and the central defenders stepping in to midfield to start the play. The performance showed otherwise.

Defence has never been Arsenal’s strong point this season so I would have preferred the team lean towards their superior attack against the weakest team in the league. Despite the injuries, we could still have lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with Lacazette up top with Iwobi, Mhkitaryan and Maitland-Niles behind him. Torreira and Guendouzi could anchor the midfield while we stick to a back four.

The midfield duo was also swamped by the three men in patrolling Huddersfield’s central area. The home team’s side used their numerical advantage and high tempo passing to keep possession and pile on the pressure on Arsenal. 

The Gunners only mastered an average of 45% possession the entire game and were inferior with their attempts on goal too. All this against the league’s bottom side. If we are to be “protagonists” as Emery first described his style, we need to find a style that has the team dominating the games.

Poor Individual Performance in Defence

The irony about the defensive setup was that our defenders has a poor game bar Koscielny and a moderately passable Monreal. 

One of Mustafi’s strong points (there aren’t many) is his ability to play out of the back but he only completed 75% of his passes – a poor rate for a centre back. His tackles and clearances were also half hearted and often ended with the ball returning to the opposition in a dangerous area.

And then we have the wing backs. Both of them created the goals but stuttered in other areas of their game.

I was amazed at how technically competent Maitland-Niles was, especially when he had the ball at feet. His cross for the goal was excellent too. However, his lapses in concentration caused Arsenal to lose possession deep in our half with stray passes that wouldn’t look out of place in a Sunday League game.

Kolasinac was no better, clocking in a measly 55% pass completion rate. This system was built around getting the wide players involved and a big part of the team’s poor control of the game was due to the wing backs’ poor decisions with the ball.

The Return of the Single Striker

It feels like quite a while since we played with a lone striker up top. With Aubemeyang’s illness and Mhkitaryan’s return, Emery was able to redeploy a tactic he favoured earlier in the season – getting two interior attacking midfielders to support the lead striker. 

This tactic worked a treat, especially in the first half. For Huddersfield’s defensive midfield screen, Jonathan Hogg, it was like playing a game of whack-a-mole. Whenever he looked to clamp down on Iwobi, Mhkitaryan popped up on his other side to receive the ball, and vice versa. Both attacking midfielders dominated the half spaces and created a lot of good opportunities on the counter attack. Players like Suarez and Ramsey would also do well in this dual no. 10 role and fill in as we head into the business end of the season. Besides being an effective tactic, this formation also allows Emery to rest one striker on the bench as the games pile up with matches in the Europa League.

Mhki You’re So Fine

The Armenian had a decent run out considering that this was his first competitive game since his 2 month injury lay off and it wasn’t a surprise that he tired towards the end. His performances and productivity haven’t always matched his ginormous wages but his style is crucial to how Emery wants his midfielders to play.

Emery likes all-rounders in the middle of the part and Mkhitaryan ticks a lot of boxes. He works hard, links up play and is capable of sticking to the manager’s tactical plan. It’s quite telling too that Emery pursued Denis Suarez, a player who seems to be in a similar mould. 

There are a lot of reasons for Arsenal’s indifferent form the last couple of months but I feel some of that would have been mitigated with a player like Mhki who could knit the play in the final third. 

Iwobi Didn’t Deserve The Jeers

I don’t understand fans who would jeer our own players in the stadium. Sure, we gripe about them from time to time (this column is such an example) but booing them in person won’t help them improve. 

By and large, Iwobi didn’t have that bad a game at all. He scored a slightly fortuitous goal and could have scored a couple more if not for poor finishing and an offside call. Maybe he’s being targeted because we’re comparing him to other players in his age group like Martial and Mbappe.

The truth is, he’s not them but he’s an Arsenal player who’s been with us since he was 8. He’s Arsenal through and through and deserves our support to make it good. Comparisons aren’t healthy and the only benchmark he can set is to do better than last season. For the most part, I believe Iwobi’s showed that he’s a better player this season. He’s still developing at the age of 22 and perhaps, through no fault of his own, has been overplayed by the manager.

With Suarez bedding in, Mhkitaryan coming back from injury and Ramsey being phased out, expect to see more of Iwobi whether fans like it or not. The only way he can improve if he gets our support.

Hatta is a Singapore-based Gooner, a purveyor of the latest football boots and kits and founder of BOOTHYPE.com. You can also find him on Twitter at @chatwithhat.

5 Things We Learned: West Ham v Arsenal

Arsenal stuttered to a 1-0 loss to West Ham at the London Stadium. The Gunners went down to a Declan Rice strike but had trouble finding their groove throughout the match. 

Here are 5 things we noticed as Arsenal slipped up in their challenge for a top four place in the league.

SLOPPY PLAY

Arsenal’s last two January games showed a team who looked to have regained their attacking mojo so it was a bit of a surprise when we were treated to some really ponderous play against West Ham. Overall, the team was lethargic with their passes and movement off the ball and Arsenal did not deserve to get any points from the match.

Ironically, Arsenal started on top with Iwobi and Lacazette producing slick exchanges in the final third but their connection petered out after the first 10 minutes. Guendouzi held on to the ball for too long and squandered possession while Ainsley Maitland-Niles flattered to deceive on the right hand side.

The 3-4-3 formation also did not help matters as Aubameyang was tasked to drop deeper into an attacking midfield role on the right where he had trouble knitting play and combining with Maitland-Niles. This role definitely did not suit Aubameyang as he spent more time as an awkward playmaker rather than being played to his strengths as a lead forward.

It was a poor tactical set up and a bad day at the office for the players. 

RAMSEY NEEDS TO PLAY MORE

Arsenal gained some fluidity after Ramsey came on to play in an attacking midfield role. He is by no way the perfect no.10 but his technical ability and movement did cause West Ham some concern.

In the 3-4-3 set up, he should have been the second attacking midfielder alongside Iwobi as he would have at least pulled the West Ham players out of position with his clever positioning. 

Despite positive remarks about Ramsey’s professionalism in his final year, it is obvious that Emery is freezing out Ramsey as he plans for life without the Welsh international. However, with Ozil and Mkhitaryan’s continued absence, Emery should use Ramsey to fill in that gap in the short term.

IWOBI’S IMPROVED FORM

The only player could leave the match with his head held high was Alex Iwobi who took on the responsibility of driving the team forward. He was a blur of legs – trying to make things happen with his dribbles and passes into the feet of the forwards.

He didn’t shirk his defensive duties either, as he won the ball in his half during the second period before outrunning his marker on route to the West Ham penalty box.

Iwobi might have had a blip in form in December but looks to have returned to his best with 2 goals and 2 assists in the last few games. His skill set, being able to carry the ball and take on defenders, is unique in this team of passers and runners.

Emery would be wise to add another ball carrier like Iwobi (Denis Suarez maybe?) during the transfer window if Arsenal wants to make the top four. 

RISKY FORMATIONS

I like seeing Aubameyang and Lacazette upfront as part of a classic front two. I also understand that a three-man backline helps keep the defence secure as each member of that backline does have weaknesses in their game.

However, it is quite a big risk playing most of your available players in these positions when there isn’t enough back up on the bench. Aubameyang and Lacazette are the only fit forwards with Welbeck out for the season. Nketiah is too inexperienced to start games in the league or in the latter stages of the Europa League.

Aside from the three defenders who started against West Ham, the only options in reserve are Mavropanos and Monreal. The former is an inexperienced player who is only coming back from an injury that sidelined him for months. The latter, our back up left back who has also struggled with his share of injuries.

A return to a back four and a single striker formation should be on the agenda for future matches as we are precariously on the brink of an injury crisis the moment one of the strikers or defenders goes down injured.

WHAT IS EMERY’S PLAN?

As previously mentioned in our mid-season ratings of the manager, we’re half way through the season and we’re not sure what the plan is by Emery. There’s been many formation changes and it seems that the only constant is the focus on cutbacks by rampaging full backs.

The chopping and changing looks to be confusing the players as the game plan changes too fluidly, not just from game to game but also, from each half. Emery spoke at his unveiling about being protagonists in attack but it’s tough to do so without any coherent plan to work towards.

It’s starting to look like Arsene’s last season all over again where the performances would swing wildly from game to game. Emery isn’t helping himself with the constant switches in formation. The faster he can settle on a plan, the better.

Hatta is a Singapore-based Gooner, a purveyor of the latest football boots and kits and founder of BOOTHYPE.com. You can also find him on Twitter at @chatwithhat.

Arsenal Mid-Season Ratings 2018/19 – Forwards and Manager

We’ve hit the mid-season mark under the new Unai Emery regime. Here at the Arsenal Vision Podcast, we will be looking to rate the Arsenal players based on their performances so far. 

In this piece, we’ll be assessing the forwards and the new manager, Unai Emery. 

Danny Welbeck – 6.5/10

Poor Danny. Just when he was getting into the groove of things, he suffered a major injury in the Europa League that ended his season early.

Emery integrated Welbeck into the team slowly due to his commitments in the World Cup, bringing him on as a substitute in league games and starting him in the cups. His versatility, physical power and diligence in following instructions were a plus as the manager has shuffled his team through a series of formations and tactics. 

Welbeck clocked in a respectable 5 goals and 1 assist in all competitions despite being moved between a supporting and lead striking position. He’s a major team player and always puts in the hard yards for his teammates. If he’s leaving at the end of the season, which looks quite likely, Arsenal would be hard pressed to find a back up forward with his experience, ability and professionalism.

Alexandre Lacazette – 7.5/10

Lacazette’s value to the team was evident in the first couple of games when Arsenal’s forward line struggled to find any rhythm without the Frenchman. Lacazette has since become indispensable to the team as his hold up play, clinical finishing and a willingness to put in a defensive shift high up the pitch has endeared him to Emery and the fans.

9 goals and 6 assists in all competitions shows that he’s not just a good goalscorer but a selfless provider for his teammates. He’s on course to better his goals scored in 2017/18 and has already surpassed the number of assists from the entirety of last season.

Much has been made of his moody demeanour when being substituted but he’s managed to show a more positive disposition in the recent Fulham game – providing another assist for his team from the sidelines.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang – 8/10

A player that I feel doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Aubameyang’s 14 goals in the league puts him at the head of the goalscoring charts but not much has been made of his supremacy in front of goal. This is probably because, for the casual viewer, he’s not an all action player like Lacazette. 

Aubameyang operates in the periphery of the game and his skills are more cerebral. His game is based on finding pockets of space to exploit and his speed helps him gain an extra yard of space to pounce on the tiniest opportunity in the box.

He does miss his fair share of chances but he averages close to 3 shots per game and that is enough to get him a goal in most of the games he plays. 

Aubemeyang also deserves credit for playing a big chunk of the season out of position on the left of midfield but has played on diligently. Scintillating shots from outside the box, something he rarely did at Dortmund, and improved pressing from the front since the North London Derby shows that Aubameyang is expanding his repertoire as a forward.

Aubameyang looks the elite striker we have been crying out for since the departure of Robin Van Persie and Thierry Henry and we should appreciate his talents while we can.

Manager: Unai Emery – 7/10

Emery had a tough task of replacing a legacy manager but said all the right things at the start about working harder. Under his guidance, the team does look fitter and stronger which may explain Arsenal’s second half dominance as the Gunner tend to overrun tired opposition legs. Despite losing the first 2 games of the season, there is a resilience in the team now that has been missing in the last few seasons under Wenger.

Emery has improved individual players like Iwobi, Holding and Bellerin who stagnated under the previous regime. A focus on the collective is also to be applauded but that has come with its set of problems.

The new manager has found it hard to integrate Ramsey and Ozil into his plans – 2 high profile players who have previously been given free creative reign under Wenger. In the case of Ozil, that means dropping the club’s biggest earner and most creative player due to poor form. That is a political minefield that has complicated matters for Emery but he seems to have that under control for the time being.

While the results have mostly been positive, fans have been right to call out Emery on a lack of “philosophy” and a coherent plan. He changes formations very often and has not been able to improve the defence. The half time substitutions were refreshing at the start but it’s hard to see what the team is building towards. Tactical flexibility is always welcomed but it has to be anchored in a clear blueprint.

Still, I believe he deserves more time and the hierarchy needs to back him with more players during the current transfer window, especially in defence and on the wings. 

Emery has been tasked to get back into the Champions League through a top 4 finish and/or via the Europa League. To attain his goals, he has to tighten up the defence, have a consistent plan for the players to adopt and bring out the best of Ozil in the second half of the season.

Hatta is a Singapore-based Gooner, a purveyor of the latest football boots and kits and founder of BOOTHYPE.com. You can also find him on Twitter at @chatwithhat.

Arsenal Mid-Season Ratings 2018/19 – Midfield

We’ve hit the mid-season mark under the new Unai Emery regime. Here at the Arsenal Vision Podcast, we will be looking to rate the Arsenal players based on their performances so far. 

In this piece, we’ll be looking into the midfield to assess who’s played well and who could look to improve as the season progresses. 

Lucas Torreira – 8/10

The defensive midfielder that fans have been crying out for since Gilberto’s departure. Torreira’s drive, aggression and pace belied his small stature as he regularly shielded the defence with his combative tackling

Some have compared him to Flamini in his prime but Torreira is nowhere near as reckless and is a much more accomplished technician of the ball. He’s comfortable on the ball, passes quickly and is capable of delivering a pass through the lines – something that he honed as an attacking midfielder earlier in his career.

Torreira’s form dipped a little from playing so many minutes through a heavy festive period but you can expect him to bounce back sooner rather than later. One of the bright spots in a mixed first half of the season.

Granit Xhaka – 7/10

Finally, fans are starting to appreciate the qualities that Xhaka’s the Arsenal midfield. Xhaka has been able to play his natural game by dictating the tempo from deep. Gone are the days that he would have had to shield the defence alone with midfield partner Torreira picking up the defensive slack in the centre of the park.

His absence was keenly felt when he was moved to the centre and left side of defence due to an injury crisis at the back. Arsenal struggled to progress the ball up the field and could not find a rhythm in those games.

With Emery marginalizing Ozil and Ramsey, Xhaka’s excellent range of passing and set piece expertise looks even more crucial to making the team tick. He looks more and more like a leader on the pitch and could well be the successor to the armband when Koscielny ends his Arsenal stint.

Matteo Guendouzi – 6.5/10 

Guendouzi’s name was on everyone’s lips after a productive pre-season in Singapore. Guendouzi plays with courage and confidence that is rarely found in someone so young. He’s eager to receive the ball in tight spaces and is always committed to play out under pressure. You can see why he’s a favourite of the manager.

However, he is still a teenager learning his trade and his rawness is apparent when he switches off defensively and makes silly tackles in dangerous areas. Sometimes, that courage on the ball also means that he holds on to the ball for a bit longer than he should and ends up losing it in midfield.

Guendouzi is a player with great potential and Emery needs to ensure his minutes in the league are managed accordingly to aid in his growth as a player.

Mohamed Elneny – 5/10

The ultimate “safe” player. Possessing a good engine and an ability to make safe, albeit conservative, passes of the ball, I always felt that Elneny looked a good option to bring off the bench to protect a lead. 

However, Emery doesn’t seem to rate him and he’s been relegated to starting in the cups. Elneny has only one league game to his name – the 3-1 win over Burnley on 22 December which saw him substituted on 59 minutes.

The Egyptian international hasn’t been bad, though he hasn’t been spectacular neither, and would look to be a handy squad player for the cup games where you can be guaranteed of a steady 6/10 performance from him.

Aaron Ramsey – 6.5/10

1 goal and 6 assists in 9 Premier League appearances is stuff many midfielders can only dream of. Despite the good record on paper, Aaron Ramsey hasn’t always looked comfortable in the number 10 role – a position he’s played for most of the season.

Arsenal’s announcement regarding the non-renewal of Ramsey’s contract has also thrown a spanner into the works as his appearances have been marginalized since.

There are rumours of a January departure to PSG or Juventus. A move for him might be a blessing in disguise as managers past and present have struggled to find Ramsey a role to best express his talents. 

If he stays, I would love to see him on the right side of midfield in a “Ljungberg” role where he can tuck in and protect the midfield and make late diagonal runs into the box to add a goal threat in attack.

Mesut Ozil – 4/10

There is no one in the team right now who can divide opinion like Mesut Ozil. The biggest star in the team has struggled to play within Emery’s setup. He’s been peripheral in the earlier games having started on the right side of midfield and hasn’t been on board with the high pressing tactics. Blockbuster performances such as the one against Leicester have been far and few in between. 

For someone of his ability, I believe he should be performing better in the games he starts in though at times, he has unfairly been the lightning rod for wider issues in the team. But as the biggest star and the highest earner in the club, the spotlight is inevitable.

Constant rumours of a backroom rift with the manager has also dogged Ozil – missing games due to a series of “back spasms” and “tactical reasons”. Whether you see him as victim or villain, it is imperative that Arsenal find a way to get Ozil performing in 2019 to lead the team back into a Champions League spot. 

Henrikh Mkhitaryan – 5/10

Much was demanded from Mkhitaryan at the start of this season. He’s an experienced attacker who can play in wide and central areas, has a telepathic relationship with Aubameyang (judging from their Dortmund days) and is one of the highest earners at the club. The Armenian playmaker has not delivered and his performances have so far been mediocre. 

For a player of his talents, he hasn’t shown enough consistency for Arsenal with only 4 goals and 3 assists in the league and Europa League to show for. Very often he struggles to get the basics right with his link up play and finishing but is equally capable of a brilliant moment of skill (see goal against Chelsea). 

His form did seem to be on a slightly upward curve towards the end of December before suffering a metatarsal injury that would see him return in February 2019. 

Alex Iwobi – 6/10

Iwobi started the season on fire. Like Bellerin, the ex-Arsenal academy player found a new lease of life under the new coaching team. Opponents were struggling to cope with his dribbles, powerful runs and his nutmegs. 

However, December saw the team’s spiralling form affect Iwobi’s performances. A greater responsibility to be the team’s playmaker due to Mkhitaryan’s inconsistencies and the absence of Ozil has seen Iwobi revert to the ponderous play that plagued him game last season.

He could do with a bit of a rest but with scant options within the team for a wide player, Emery may be forced to play Iwobi into the ground. If there was a consolation to the Liverpool game, Iwobi looked like the one guy who could have created something for the team but more reinforcements are required to shoulder the responsibility in attack.

Hatta is a Singapore-based Gooner, a purveyor of the latest football boots and kits and founder of BOOTHYPE.com. You can also find him on Twitter at @chatwithhat.

Arsenal Mid-Season Ratings 2018/19 – Goalkeepers and Defenders

We’ve hit the mid-season mark under the new Unai Emery regime. Here at the Arsenal Vision Podcast, we will be looking to rate the Arsenal players based on their performances so far. 

In the first of three articles, we’ll be looking into (theoretically) the bedrock of the team – the goalkeepers and defenders.  

Petr Cech – 6.5/10

The veteran goalkeeper was the surprise first choice shot stopper for the Gunners at the start of the season considering the big money acquisition of Bernd Leno, a “modern goalkeeper” who was adept with his feet. This is an important trait in Emery’s plans to play out of the back and there were worries that Cech, an ageing ‘keeper whose strengths don’t include these traits would struggle.

And struggle he did. Cech lacked the composure with the ball at his feet and was almost culpable for a few major blunders. That was in stark contrast to his shot stopping and command of the box as he often bailed the defence out on many occasions as they struggled for cohesion in front of him. 

His performances did improve with each game, averaging 4 shots saved per game (1.9 saves in the penalty box alone) but succumbed to injury and has lost his spot to Leno. Something tells me he won’t be first choice any longer.

Bernd Leno – 7/10

The German international never looked back after displacing Cech after the latter’s injury. Leno hasn’t been spectacular but has had pretty steady performances.

He definitely looks more comfortable on the ball. Despite the myth that all ball playing goalkeepers are adept at a dribbling past pressing forwards (blame them on those Neuer Youtube highlights), he’s not afraid to boot the ball long if the situation calls for it.

Leno still looks like he is acclimatizing to the robust English game. He’s had some shaky moments, the Southampton game comes to mind, but he’ll be a reliable performer if he continues to improve as the season goes on.

Hector Bellerin – 7.5/10

Bellerin’s performances, like many Arsenal youth products, hit a glass ceiling towards the end of Wenger’s regime. He was extremely enthusiastic about learning from the new management team during pre-season and has flourished under the tutelage of Emery and his team.

Tactically more astute with his positioning, Bellerin also has gotten 4 assists to his name this season. His role in the team is crucial due to the lack of wide players in midfield and it’s no surprise that Arsenal’s results have tailed off since his injury in the game against Southampton. 

Could move up a gear if he just has a settled partner ahead of him on the right side of midfield.

Stephan Lichtsteiner – 4/10

I was unsure if Lichtsteiner was a good acquisition from Juventus. Massively experienced and a master of the dark arts, he looked a good fit as a back up to Bellerin and could also play a big part in the locker room. 

While we aren’t privy to his impact in the locker room, Lichtsteiner has been below par on the pitch and occasionally, a liability (as seen in the build up to the goal conceded to Brighton). I do have sympathy for him as he’s got the unenviable position of having to adjust to a new, faster paced league at the age of 34 in a physically demanding position. On top of that, the collective defensive issues and the constant rotation due to the growing injury list makes it doubly hard for Lichtsteiner.

At this rate, I’d even take Jenkinson over him to play right back. A longer term replacement for Lichtsteiner will be on the agenda this summer.

Sead Kolasinac – 6/10

One of many polarising players in the team. Kolasinac’s got the physique of a burly centre back with the balance and agility of a twinkle toed winger. He is a player who needs a run of games to get into his best form. Kolasinac struggled earlier in the season, especially with the defensive side of the game.

However, his ability to provide width and deliver the final ball means he’s considered one of the most important players in attack for Emery – he registers an average of 1.8 key passes per game.

Emery needs to find a way for the team to cover for Kolasinac’s defensive gaps and allow him to channel his inner Marcelo as Arsenal’s creator from the left.

Nacho Monreal – 6/10

I’ve got a soft spot for Nacho. He’s been a reliable and underrated player for Arsenal but this looks like a season too far for him as a regular starter. He’s struggled with injuries but he’s still scored a goal and notched 3 assists in 14 games across all competitions.

Nacho could still do a decent as back up to Kolasinac and needs to have his minutes managed as he approaches 33 years of age in 2019. A left back should be on the list for the likes of Sven and Raul.

Shkodran Mustafi – 4/10

Mustafi has been a calamity. He makes rash tackles, switches off at important moments and often dangles his leg out to “tackle”. These are Sunday League-level errors that has no place in this team. His defending in the second goal scored by Liverpool at Anfield says it all.

You see the talent in him when he nicks the ball off opponents and plays calmly out from the back. On paper, he’s a World Cup winner, a player in his prime years and has had two and a half seasons with the team. Mustafi should be an undisputed player at the back but he’s been a massive failure.

Arsenal will not be able to push for a top 4 position with Mustafi as the first-choice centre back. They need a January signing to relegate Mustafi to the bench for the second half of the season before selling him in the summer.

Rob Holding – 7/10

Probably due to inexperience, Holding had to sit out the first few games of the season as Emery went with the more experienced duo of Sokratis and Mustafi.

Holding made his first competitive appearance against Vorskla at the end of September and was a regular fixture since. Predominantly a left sided centre back, he caught the eye with steady performances at the back and assured technique when passing and dribbling out from defence.

Holding’s season was curtailed prematurely with an ACL injury and is a big loss for the team lacking in defensive numbers.

Sokratis – 6.5/10

Sokratis has the makings of a cult hero at Arsenal. Deceptively quick, strong in the tackle and a student of the dark arts, he has had good performances in the Arsenal shirt. However, his game is also marred with the occasional needless tackles that put the team under pressure. The kick on Salah’s calves at Anfield displayed the need for better discipline as he gave away a silly penalty to seal the game for Liverpool.

I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt as he’s still new to the team and has been thrusted into a dysfunctional backline but Sokratis has room for improvement in the second half of the season. 

Hatta is a Singapore-based Gooner, a purveyor of the latest football boots and kits and founder of BOOTHYPE.com. You can also find him on Twitter at @chatwithhat.

Scoring in an Auba Wonderland

Things really are different at the Emirates this season. After his brace against Burnley on Saturday, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang will be top of the Premier League scoring charts on Christmas day. Since Robin van Persie picked up his Golden Boot in 2012 and moved up the M1 to Manchester, Arsenal involvement in the race to be top scorer has been rare. By this stage of 2016/17 Alexis Sánchez had 12 goals, and he finished with an impressive 24, but in a particularly high scoring season, he was only able to finish third overall. That is the only time in the last six full seasons that an Arsenal player has found the net more than 16 times in a league campaign. 

For Aubameyang, however, such a position is not a new feeling. This is a player who, in his last full season in Germany, not only won the cannon award for top scorer in a closely fought race with Robert Lewandowski, but also scored more goals in a single Bundesliga season than anyone since the 1977. Last season he played for two struggling teams whose managers didn't last past May, and his campaign was impacted by the January transfer, but he still managed to score 23 league goals. 

Despite this, however, it actually feels like Aubameyang is somehow underrated, or overlooked, when it comes to the Premier League’s standout players. Even amongst Arsenal fans there sometimes doesn’t seem to be a full recognition of the fact Arsenal have one of world football’s most prolific goal scorers, who isn’t injury prone, a luxury they’ve arguably only had for a single season since Thierry Henry left the club. 

I think Aubameyang ins't helped by his style of play in this regard. His lack of involvement in general play means he rarely stands out in matches, even when he scores. His repertoire of eye-catching goals has actually been better this season than in his time at Borussia Dortmund, but a significant proportion of his goals still look relatively simple and aren't very memorable. It’s not an exaggeration to say that many of his goal celebrations are more spectacular than the goals themselves.

Arsenal more than most clubs have come to appreciate strikers for more than just scoring. Thierry Henry was arguably responsible for helping to change how strikers are viewed in England, thanks to his selflessness in setting up others and amazing all-round dribbling and passing skills. Like Henry, Robin van Persie evolved from a wide man or support striker to a genuine centre forward, while maintaining his top class technique and link up skills. When he became only the second Arsenal striker of the last ten years to score 20 league goals, Alexis Sánchez was still near the top of the league in chances created, through balls and dribbles. Even Olivier Giroud was defended for not being the most prolific striker around because of his perceived ability to bring others into play.

This combines to mean that on a match to match basis, Aubameyang rarely has single performances that are considered particularly impressive. He has four games this season where he scored a brace, yet hasn’t won a man of the match award in the Premier League this term. Sure, the goals at Fulham came when the contest had already been decided, but his goals in the other three were decisive, yet the general consensus afterwards was that there had been better performers. There’s nothing inherently wrong with this. People’s idea of a man of the match display is a complete performance rather than one or two decisive moments. It does, however, show how such a player can go a bit unnoticed. Consistency can sometimes be overlooked at the hands of the spectacular.

Describing what it is that Aubameyang does so well can be both straightforward and quite difficult. His goals speak for themself, but attribute wise it’s harder to explain what makes him so good. He’s not a link up striker and he’s not very good at creating his own shots off the dribble. People often describe poachers like him as clinical finishers, but this hasn't been the case for most of his career. In has last six months at Dortmund he scored just ten goals from almost 14 expected goals in the Bundesliga. This season he’s been efficient in front of goal but has still missed some big chances, like in the 1-1 draw against Wolves or the 2-2 at Old Trafford. His strength is essentially getting on the end of chances. At Dortmund he got on the end of chances more than almost any other player in the world and the goals naturally followed. He’s a similar player to Edinson Cavani in many ways. He can have misses that look sloppy, but his movement allows him to keep churning out good chances, and his fitness and durability allow him to keep getting on the park and produce big numbers over a season.

More to come

Despite him sitting at the top of the Premier League scoring charts, it's clear Arsenal are yet to fully get the best out of Aubameyang. This could either be viewed as a concern - what happens when he goes on a finishing slump? - or as something to be encouraged by - if he’s top scorer now, what could he do if Arsenal managed to eek out even more from him? His non-penalty expected goals per 90 minutes figure is currently 0.51, 5th highest in the league. But that pales in comparison to his last 30 months in Dortmund, where the figure was 0.9, one of the absolute highest in Europe. 

His period of elite output in Germany can kind of be broken into two parts. In 15/16 Dortmund were one of the strongest teams in Europe, with a balanced and cohesive midfield and attack able to consistently create all types of chances. Their off ball movement and creativity meant they were regularly able to get in behind opposition defences and all of the front three scored multiple tap ins. After that season key players were sold and injury ruled Marco Reus out for most of Aubameyang's final 18 months in Germany. The team suffered significantly but it only increased their dependence on their star striker. 

Aubameyang formed a brilliant partnership with 19 year old Ousmane Dembélé. The winger assisted 10 of his 29 non-penalty league goals in 16/17. Dembélé is a player who can assist all types of goals, but his trademark assist that season became the low cross to Aubameyang. He had the ability to manufacture space on the wing with his speed, dribbling and two footedness and send low curling crosses to Aubameyang in behind the defence (see 1:20, 1:40, 4:00 and 5:30 on the video below). This is one of the most effective ways Aubameyang utilises his pace. When a wide player gets the ball behind, or even just close to inline with the defensive line, they can play the ball behind the defensive line and Aubameyang has the speed to reach what the defenders and most other forwards in the world can’t. The finish is simple but most players don’t have the athleticism to reach the number of balls he does with his slide tackle esque tap in. 

A winger of Dembélé’s ability makes creating these situations relatively straightforward. Their individual skill allows them to beat a fullback and deliver the killer ball. This isn’t a luxury Arsenal have had since Aubameyang’s arrival, however. Teams without high level one v one players have to rely on good movement and combinations to get into the areas where they can play dangerous passes across goal. Arsenal’s lack of true wingers has been well documented, and as such their route to providing him with such chances has inevitably fallen to the fullbacks. In the early stages of the season Hector Bellerin was Aubameyang’s best route to getting big chances, and since his return from injury and Arsenal's increased use of a back three, Saed Kolasinac has become the Gunners’ chief creator. Here’s a breakdown of the chances created for Aubameyang in the league so far this season: 

While it’s not a surprise that without genuine wingers, Aubameyang has relied on fullbacks for service, it is perhaps concerning that the other attacking players have been responsible for such a small proportion of the big chances he has got on the end of. Only Ramsey has been able to set up multiple chances of decent quality for him, and although Ramsey's assist total is inflated, his xA (expected assists) on passes for Aubameyang in the limited number of minutes they’ve played together is fine. 

I made a graphic showing the chances that have been created for Aubameyang this season and colour coded it by who created the chance. As you can see the majority of chances in the danger zone were created by either Bellerin or Kolasinac. Other than the chance Iwobi created against Chelsea, there's no other openings from the half spaces. 

Most concerning is the lack of significant chances created by Özil and Mkhitaryan. Other than the one assist against Leicester, Özil hasn't been able to find Aubameyang on the end of moves, though he was instrumental in both his first goals against Leicester and Burnley with brilliant pre-assists. Özil did create some good chances for Aubameyang in the few matches they played together last season, which suggests the problem is more down to the Özil specific issues this season rather than a lack of compatibility between the pair. Mkhitaryan enjoyed a fine partnership with Auba in Germany and assisted two of his first three goals for the club, but since then it’s been slim pickings. 

The reality is Arsenal lack a brilliant one v one winger like Leroy Sane who would help get the most out of Aubameyang, and that has to be the focus on the attacking front in future transfer windows. But that doesn't mean the current attacking midfielders can't contribute more. They have the capabilities to be doing more on the creative side, whether it be playing incisive through balls or getting into the half spaces and finding accurate cutbacks. If Aubameyang is to get the goals needed for the Golden Boot and, much more importantly, if Arsenal are to get the goals needed to move back into the top four, both player and club will be hoping for, and relying on, getting more from their chief playmakers.  

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Oscar Wood is a special contributor. Follow him on twitter @reunewal.

5 Things We Learned: Southampton v Arsenal

Arsenal’s unbeaten run came to an end at the St. Mary’s Stadium as their defensive frailties finally caught up with them. To make matters worse, more defenders went off injured and Arsenal’s rival for the Top 4 have all gained maximum points. Arsenal trail Chelsea by three points in fifth place.

Here are 5 things we observed in the game against Southampton.

Threadbare Defence

The paucity of options at the back meant that Emery set up a three man central defensive line with a rusty Koscielny being flanked by makeshift centre backs – Lichtsteiner and Xhaka. Koscielny looked off the pace on a few occasions and he was culpable for the first and third goal. He could have been better positioned to meet the crosses before they reached Ings and Austin respectively.

However, it is harsh to put all the blame on him as he’s been rushed back to play after 6 months out with a major Achilles injury. With injuries and suspensions decimating the defence, the captain will be required to get to grips with his form double quick time with a whole slew of matches coming up.

Such demands and a packed fixture list are worrying as it might push Koscielny into the injury “red zone” faster than the club would like.

Things got from bad to worse when Bellerin hobbled off at half time and Lichtsteiner went off injured towards the end of the game. Oh, and Kolasinac sat out the game due to a thigh problem. It’s going to be a rough December.

Missing Fluency and Thrust in Midfield

Just like in the game against Huddersfield, Arsenal struggled for fluency and penetration in the first half. The reason for this, however, is slightly different from the previous league match.

With the 3-4-3, Emery’s gameplan was to focus play through the flanks to create overloads via the wing backs and the interior attacking midfielders (Iwobi and Mkhitaryan) but the players seemed to be on a different wavelength when it came to their movement and combination play. There were good moments that were borne out of those overloads (the first goal and Bellerin’s cross for Aubameyang that was snuffed out just before his tap in) but the team struggled to move the ball fast enough.

Perhaps it was fatigue or the team missing Xhaka’s distribution from midfield. Emery needs to come up with new solutions to provide a spark through December. My eyes are on the well-rested legs of Ozil and Ramsey push the team across the line when the going gets tough.

Mkhitaryan’s Graft A Positive

As one of the top earners at the club, Mkhitaryan’s performances has been relatively poor for Arsenal. I’ve spoken often about the need for him to step up as one of the team’s chief playmakers further up the field to compensate for Ozil’s and Ramsey’s lack of contribution in Emery’s system this season.

Against Southampton, he was one of the bright sparks for the team. His header and impeccable timing to receive the cross from Monreal was a much needed boost when Arsenal went a goal down. While he was lucky with the deflection on the second goal, it was a deserved goal for a player who put in a great shift to press the opponents relentlessly and get involved in the build up for some of Arsenal’s better moves.

Aubameyang’s All Round Play Getting Better

Another rare positive in this game was Aubameyang’s improvement in his all-round play. The match against Spurs proved that Aubameyang was more than just a penalty box poacher. He showed fantastic ability to press intelligently and hold up the ball.

Against Southampton, he used the ball efficiently by opening up the game through dribbling into half spaces and layoffs for teammates to bring them into play. His back heel to set up Iwobi in a crowded penalty box also showed good vision and composure under pressure.

His predatory prowess was still evident on two occasions when he was close to scoring a tap in if not for last ditch tackles from the Southampton defenders. If he keeps playing like this, we should expect him to be at the top of the goalscoring charts by the end of the season.

Does Arsenal Need Cech?

Leno has shown that his judgement isn’t the best when it comes to crosses. All three goals conceded were headers created from wide which perhaps showed that Southampton were looking to test him in those situations.

The third goal was a combination of defensive mistakes throughout the team but it could have been averted if he was better positioned to palm the ball away from Austin. This was not the first time in the game (or the season) where he hasn’t been able to reach the ball when defending the cross.

David de Gea faced similar issues in his first season at United but was given leeway to make mistakes while acclimatizing to the Premier League. Would Emery take a similar risk if he sees Leno as his long-term solution? Arsenal need to finish the season in the top four and Emery may not be able to afford such mistakes with crucial short-term targets. Could he revert to Cech in goal who has a superior command of the box?

My guess would be that Leno keeps his place but with a thinning backline, having a leader like Cech in goal might be a big help to that makeshift defence.