The most important thing Mikel Arteta learned early on as Arsenal manager was that Granit Xhaka was not a deep-lying playmaker. When Xhaka arrived in 2016, Arsene Wenger seemed to have a hard time defining the player, initially describing him as a ‘box-to-box’ player and then deploying him deep in the Arsenal midfield. Xhaka has, somewhat confusingly, described himself as a ‘false 10’.
Wenger’s initial instincts about Xhaka were right. He was more of a shuffler, preferring to run in a straight line. He wasn’t fast, but he was very durable and had a lot of stamina. He was a talented distributor, but playing him deep in midfield exposed his athletic weaknesses in wide areas, leading to mistakes and yellow and red cards over the years.
Arteta immediately saw Xhaka as a ‘left-eight’ rather than a deep-lying playmaker, so Thomas Partey was one of Arteta’s first big-money signings. A few weeks ago I wrote that Declan Rice should be seen as a replacement for Xhaka rather than a successor to Partey or Jorginho (though he is clearly a different player to Xhaka).
Rice is a good passer of the ball, but he is probably not good enough to be the primary distributor, and I think England’s Euro 2024 tournament illustrates the same point. In that article, I also wrote about how Rice’s preference for the left side almost ended Zinchenko’s dominance in the team. The two like to operate in similar spaces, although in very different ways.
I suspected that Arsenal would prioritise a ‘young Jorginho’ to complement Rice in the transfer market this summer. It may still be in the plans, but it depends on whether Thomas Partey is sold first. What is interesting, however, is that the two central midfielders Arsenal have been reliably linked with so far this summer, Mikel Merino and Amadou Onana, do not fit into that mould at all.
In fact, both are great at winning duels (Mikel Arteta gets very angry, etc.) and profile much closer to Rice than Jorginho or Parti. Arteta might want Rice as a solid back-up. Last season, Arsenal were able to keep Saliba, Gabriel, Odegaard, Saka, Havertz, White and Rice healthy for almost the entire season.
Arteta doesn’t seem to want to take anything for granted there. White, Saliba and Gabriel played most of last season and have established themselves as key players for Arsenal, but even with Jurrien Timber returning and Takehiro Tomiyasu signing a new contract, that hasn’t stopped Arteta from adding Riccardo Calafiori to his defensive armoury.
Calafiori can play as a left centre-half or left back, meaning he can play in the centre or outside of the defence alongside White, Timber, Kiwi and Tomiyasu. I expect the back four to be more fluid next season, with more rotation in the full-back area.
Arsenal have more dedicated cover at centre-half in case one (or both) of Salibriel is unavailable or needs rest. Last season Arsenal had an elite defensive aura. I think adding another striker would give the front three more of the same characteristics as the back four.
But what I’m most curious about is ball progression. When Arteta adds defenders to his team, he thinks about ball progression as much as he does about orthodox defending. With Rice in midfield and Zinchenko no longer the preferred left-back (and the arrival of Calafiori certainly demotes him further), it will be interesting to see how Arsenal structure their play.
I think Arteta wants to create a different structure for this. At the end of last season, I saw a ‘diamond midfield box’ that I wrote about several times in the summer. It relies on Rice sitting deep in midfield with either Partey or Jorginho as the left channel relay and hunting for loose balls.
I’m sceptical that Arsenal can or should rely on the Partey-Jorginho partnership next season, and I don’t think Arteta sees that as Plan A. The links to Merino and Onana suggest Arsenal could move to a more orthodox midfield double pivot, with Rice + 1 roaming the pitch to create unpredictability, and perhaps get Rice’s legs out of the game so he doesn’t have to run 60+ marathons a season.
Arsenal are interested in Mikel Merino, but how would he fit into the Arsenal squad?
🎤 @jj_bull pic.twitter.com/rDFzKzqJ3H
— The Athletic | Football (@TheAthleticFC) July 19, 2024
I don’t think Havertz will be the last to feature in the ‘left eight’ role. A midfield double pivot of Rice and Merino would lack a primary distributor, and in the video above, Tifo Football’s JJ Bull suggests Arsenal could prioritise building play from wider positions with a higher full-back, which could explain why Arteta has been so keen to land Calafiori.
At times, Rice may need to use his energy and his tremendous strides to cover the left-back position, with the left-back also being able to join in the attack. The Athletic’s Art de Roche wrote a good piece on Jurrien Timber (£) earlier this summer, and what really interested me was the really progressive and aggressive off-ball position Timber took at full-back, often finding himself part of the front line.
Of course, it’s not entirely foreign to Arsenal. We’ve seen Tomiyasu take up such an attacking position when he’s a left-back. When Martinelli scored the winner against Manchester City in October, Tomiyas was positioned as a target man striker, and look where he popped out to score the equaliser against Everton on the last day.
Calafio is often a very advanced player, a position you would normally see a forward in (I recommend Billy Carpenter’s very thorough profile of Calafio here). The way Calafio gets out of the way of defending with the ball at his feet was a notable part of his performances for Italy at Euros this summer.
🚨News for Sponsors 🚨
Scouting Riccardo Calafiori 🇮🇹 – The next Rolls-Royce? https://t.co/LRxxVjuaqx@YankeeGunner @ClivepaFC
🎧📺Audio and video versions
🤔25-minute pod on building the best squad this summer
🔬Watch Calafiori show off his amazing skills for 40 minutes— ArsenalVision Podcast (@ArsenalVPodcast) July 9, 2024
In short, I think the ‘back section’ of the Arsenal team will be doing a variety of things next season, but I’m not sure what they are yet. Arteta has shown the ability to make unexpected tactical adjustments to the team, and part of the fun of the current Arsenal transfer window is second-guessing how the manager thinks his new players will adapt. We don’t know much about Jurrien Timber yet.
I’ve seen some people ask if Zinchenko could move into midfield full-time. He moves there often anyway. I doubt it. Firstly, Arteta has never shown any willingness to do it before. I think Zinchenko is very suited to a ‘freelance’ role, where he fills up space, receives the ball, and moves the ball around to avoid detection before making himself available again.
He has been Arsenal’s release valve, moving into the void at left-back. Starting in an already crowded midfield position may not suit him as well, and he feels he could turn too easily towards his own goal. But who knows? Arteta’s tactical adaptability and his desire for unpredictability mean that Arsenal are likely to see different faces for different challenges.
