Arsenal: Starting XI with Sokratis, Bernd Leno and Lucas Torreira

Arsenal have made three signings and are close to a fourth. Here’s how they might line up next season with Bernd Leno, Sokratis and Lucas Torreira in the fray.

Arsenal have not made a slow start to their summer’s transfer work. It has only just turned to July and they have secured three official signings and are on the verge of the fourth. New Head Coach Unai Emery is in the process of assembling his squad, and it’s coming on quite nicely.

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But how will these new signings fit in with the squad that is already there? How will Emery field them in the starting XI, if at all, and what system is the best one to play with all this new talent infused with the players that are already at the club? Well, here is how I think Emery will structure his starting XI to start next season.

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The first thing to say is that I believe Emery will use a 4-3-3 formation that he has used throughout his career. It consists of a flat back-four, an anchoring midfielder flanked by two box-to-box midfielders, and then a fluid and mobile front three that have the freedom to rotate positions in possession and press the opposition high up the pitch. So where do Arsenal’s new signings fit into that system?

Well, for three of the four, is fairly clear. Stephan Lichtsteiner has not been signed to be a starter. Hector Bellerin is the starting right back and that will not change with the arrival of the seven-time Serie A winner. And the other two officially completed signings also slot into the team quite easily: Bernd Leno replacing Petr Cech in goal and Sokratis Papastathapoulos sliding in at centre-half, likely alongside Shkodran Mustafi.

It is the fourth that poses more problems. Although the Lucas Torreira is not officially complete, the deal is all but wrapped up. There is just the medical to complete. It is safe to assume that he will be an Arsenal player next season.

And he will play in the midfield. The point of uncertainty is who he will be joined by, and thereby what structure the midfield will take as a result. For instance, it could be Granit Xhaka in a holding role with Torreira as one of the box-to-box players alongside Aaron Ramsey. It could be Torreira in the holding role and Xhaka or Maitland-Niles or even Mohamed Elneny playing further up the pitch. It could be Torreira in the holding role and Mesut Ozil stationed centrally, not out wide. All these are possibilities for Emery.

I believe that he will play Xhaka, Torreira and Ramsey as the trio in midfield, with Torreira the one sitting deepest, though that will change depending on the state of the game and the style of the opposition. That leaves Ozil to play out wide, with either Henrikh Mkhitaryan on the other wing and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front, or Aubameyang on the other wing and Alexandre Lacazette up front.

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That is how I believe Emery will set up with these new arrivals. Obviously, there are many questions for Emery to answer and he has a whole preseason to formulate his plans. But I will be fascinated to see how he attacks the early stages of his first season in charge. It could be rip-roaring.