Arsenal: Did fab four playing together work?

For the first time since Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s arrivals in January, Arsenal’s fab four — Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette being the other two — played together. But did it work?

When Arsenal swapped Alexis Sanchez for Henrikh Mkhitaryan and then broke their club transfer record just a few days later to sign Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, much of the discussion focused on how they would fit into the starting XI.

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The two players arrived in north London with the expectation that both would start. Their pedigree demanded as such, especially Aubameyang. But with Mesut Ozil and Alexandre Lacazette already in the squad, and both players comparable to the two new signings in position, style and production, it seemed a little difficult to fit all four players into the same team.

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And Arsene Wenger, in the remaining months of last season, failed to do so. Although injuries and player regulations limited the opportunities he had to play all four at the same time, the four did not play a single minute together. Significant, then, that Unai Emery managed to squeeze all four into the same XI for about 15 minutes in the 5-1 win over Paris Saint-Germain on Saturday immediately after half-time. But did it work?

Well, perhaps not. Now, this is just a preseason game and meaningful conclusions are difficult to glean, and it was only for 15 minutes with substitutions being made throughout, meaning that it is both a small and disrupted sample size to analyse. So take everything with a grain of salt. But for the 15 minutes that the four played together, Arsenal looked extremely unbalanced in their shape and structure, with a young, heavily-rotated PSG team controlling the match during this period.

Aubameyang shifted out to the left wing, with Lacazette played through the middle. Ozil continued in the highly advanced central midfield position that he played in the first half, with Mkhitaryan on the right wing. That left two central midfielders outnumbered to try and anchor the team with both full backs isolated, especially Sead Kolasinac, with Mkhitaryan and Aubmeyang playing high up the pitch as the two wide midfielders.

PSG’s goal, for instance, came from Tim Weah being left one-on-one with Kolasinac, burning the Bosnian down the outside and being brought down in the penalty area. There was a lack of protection from Aubameyang in front of him and no central midfield cover with only two deeper-lying players in the area.

This is not to say that playing all four in the same team cannot work. This was 15 minutes in a meaningless preseason friendly. But there were some concerning signs that Emery will have to be acutely aware of if he does intend to play all four together throughout the season.

It would be extremely exciting to see all these brilliant players play in one team. And I do think it is possible. But there are difficulties that come with squeezing so much attacking talent into the same XI. Emery needs to be wary of them.