Arsenal: Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey offer perfect pivot

Arsene Wenger is still searching for the perfect balance in the Arsenal midfield. I believe that Jack Wilshere and Aaron Ramsey offer the perfect pivot.

When Arsene Wenger has played a back-four this season, he has done so to add an extra element of structure and control to the Arsenal midfield. The main reason for this is clear when examining the key shortcoming of the 3-4-3 shape that he had used for most of the year prior.

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Although there is an added centre-half, without sacrificing numbers in the final third — there is still a front three present –, it comes at the detriment of the central midfield. The formation allows for only two central midfielders. Often times, they are outnumbered. That is not an equation that yields control.

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And control is what Wenger wants. It is what he always wants his teams to do. He yearns for the domination of possession, the ability to suffocate the opposition because of the relentless, overawing number of attacking waves. Even if such attacks are slower and a little more ponderous than sweeping counters, they wear the opposition down, they grow tiresome, and, eventually, they pay dividends.

But the 3-4-3 formation does not lend itself to playing in that manner. There simply isn’t the numbers to do so in the midfield area. So that is why Wenger has returned to what he knows and trusts. And the shape that he has implemented involves a double-pivot type axis at the heart of it: two central-midfielders, shaded slightly to the left and the right, flank a sole anchoring, holding player, with two wingers and a central striker in a traditional front-three ahead of them.

Up until this point, Wenger has played Jack Wilshere and Mesut Ozil in these roles, as in the 3-3 draw against Liverpool on Friday night. In large part, that is because of the injury to Aaron Ramsey — the Welshman is anticipated to return in January. But it is clear that the role is made for Ramsey.

His marauding, unshackled style naturally fits in a midfield where he is afforded the freedom to roam. In this formation, because of the presence of a natural holding player as well as another box-to-box, creative, technically-sound midfielder alongside him, Ramsey has the license to do exactly as he pleases, making those sometimes maddening, unhinged but unpredictable and potent runs off the ball.

And it is Wilshere, with Ozil being pushed back into a more advanced role, that is ideal to partner him. Like Ramsey, he has the blend of incisive passing, smart, intelligent positioning off the ball, and a soft and subtle touch on the ball, to flourish as an all-action, well-rounded midfielder.

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Partnering them either side of an anchoring midfielder just makes so much sense. I would love to see Wenger to employ this type of system. I think it would serve Arsenal wonderfully.