Arsenal: Living within means and understanding restrictions

I recently shared an image on Twitter with a guess as to how I think Arsenal could line up next season, the responses that I received left me stunned.

For those of you who are unaware, I am the Social Media Director for Pain In The Arsenal. I manage the Twitter account, meaning that I am responsible for increasing the following of the account and, consequently, the traffic to the website. With that in mind, I make a concerted effort to promote relevant content and engage with followers on a daily basis.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — The Big Season Review

This is an interesting time of the year in the football calendar. Arsenal’s season came to end on the 29th of May, and since then, we have been at the behest of speculation, ‘in the know’ journalists and scouting reports.

Plenty has been written about Arsenal’s supposedly measly transfer budget and, as per usual, the club has already been linked with a host of players. So, in an effort to promote relevant content and engage with our followers, I shared an image of a mock lineup for the 2019/20 season. The lineup was as follows:

(4-2-3-1) Bernd Leno; Héctor Bellerín, Joachim Andersen (Sampdoria), Rob Holding, Kieran Tierney (Celtic); Lucas Torreira, Granit Xhaka; Reiss Nelson, Dennis Praet (Sampdoria), Alexis Claude-Maurice (FC Lorient); Alexandre Lacazette.

Abuse is, unfortunately, part and parcel of working on social media. It is rife, but I have learnt to ignore it. It does not bother me in the slightest. What was more shocking and concerning to me was that fans thought that the team could (and should) be much better. I agree that the team should be better. Arsenal are one of the most successful clubs in the history of English football. However, the reality is that they have not been successful (winning trophies on a consistent basis) since the early 2000s.

Furthermore, in Stan Kroenke, the club is run by an absent owner who has not invested “a single penny” into the team since he first bought shares. As such, Arsenal have now made a total commitment to their self-sustaining business model. The recent coaching changes are further evidence of this ‘commitment’.

Nonetheless, I was left astounded by some of the responses to the team that I shared. “Average” was a common response, as was “(t)his team would not qualify for the Europa League” and “(d)elete the ****”. Do Arsenal fans really think that we are going to be able to do much better than what I suggested?

Some interesting questions also came along. “Where is Özil?” and “(w)here is Aubameyang?” being the most notable. We have all had the Mesut Özil debate. He and his Arsenal future have been discussed ad nauseam. There is no denying that he is a wonderfully gifted footballer, but in my opinion, he is a relic in the modern game. Furthermore, he is not as influential as he needs to be.

Arsenal have certainly not helped him enough during his time in North London. It goes without saying that he is a facilitator who makes great teammates better. Nonetheless, he is now working with inferior teammates. His strikers are incredible, but his fellow attacking midfielders are not. The best players raise their game when the cards are stacked against them. Özil has failed to do so for Arsenal in recent years. He has struggled immensely since signing his bumper new contract (he has recorded only five league goals and three league assists since his contract was announced). Consistency has been severely lacking, and, while I understand that moving him on will be difficult, I do not think that Unai Emery is a fan. It is time to move on.

I was more sympathetic to the questions regarding Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. One of the three players to share the Premier League Golden Boot last season, I can understand why certain people were asking about his whereabouts in my fictional team. My rationale was simple. If Emery wants to find success at Arsenal, he must revert to what he knows best, otherwise, he stands no chance. In my mind, that means a return to the 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 that he used so frequently in France and Spain.

Inverted wingers have become the norm in the modern game. They are often tasked with being both creators and scorers. Manchester City have Raheem Sterling and Leroy Sane, Liverpool have Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane, Chelsea had Eden Hazard, and Tottenham Hotspur have more than enough quality attacking midfielders.

Furthermore, I think it is difficult to play with two strikers nowadays. By playing with two central strikers, you become heavily reliant upon your full-backs for width and creating chances from wide areas. You are also asking your central midfielders to do a lot of running and to make more goalscoring contributions (goals + assists). However, Arsenal do not have central midfielders who are capable of doing such things. Moreover, signing a central midfielder with a proven goal record is incredibly expensive.

Granit Xhaka, Lucas Torreira, Mattéo Guendouzi, Krystian Bielik, and Calum Chambers are candidates (at present) to play in central midfield for Arsenal next season, but they are not going to be able to replace the goal contributions of an Aaron Ramsey. The only players who I would argue have a chance to replicate such production are Alex Iwobi, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, and Joe Willock, but we haven’t seen enough of them in central midfield to call them reliable.

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While Aubameyang may have been Arsenal’s top goalscorer last season, Alexandre Lacazette won the Player of the Season award. Aubameyang is an incredible striker, but Lacazette is the superior player. He is much better at holding off defenders and bringing his team into play. If Emery is to play with one striker next season, it has to be Lacazette.

Now, Aubameyang has played out wide before. He did so at times last season and it worked well-ish. By starting him out wide, you improve the overall shape and balance but sacrifice an element of width and creativity, and that may be too big a sacrifice to make it worth it. Similarly, by leaving him on the bench, you lose one of your best goalscorers.

Again, if Aubameyang were to start out wide, you are placing a lot of attacking responsibility upon the full-backs. That tactic worked well for large parts of last season, but it became incredibly predictable towards the end. I firmly believe that if Arsenal sign a winger this summer, regardless of how much he costs, he will be in line to start. What would be the point of signing an Alexis Claude-Maurice for the best part of £20m if he spends the majority of next season on the bench?

Perhaps I am being a tad harsh, but when you look at players like Sterling and Hazard, they do so much more than score goals. While Aubameyang is undoubtedly the best goalscorer of the three, Sterling and Hazard are superior dribblers and facilitators. They contribute more goals because they are more complete wide players.

One thing I know for sure is that Arsenal fans need to embrace the unknown. I would much rather have Claude-Maurice, Praet, and Nelson starting than Iwobi, Özil, and Mkhitaryan. The former would be so much more dynamic. Throw Xavier Amaechi, Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, and Joe Willock into the mix and you have an incredibly inexperienced yet exciting attacking midfield.

Things may need to get even worse before they get better. While I was not a fan of everything that I saw from Emery’s Arsenal last season, I respect Emery immensely. He worked wonders with an inferior and imbalanced squad. Nonetheless, I fear that he has an impossible job. Certain supporters expect miracles that will be very difficult for him to produce considering the current predicament he is working under.

By no means am I an expert, but here is my advice for Arsenal fans heading into the new Premier League season: embrace the unknown, understand Emery’s capabilities, recognise the restrictions, temper expectations, and vehemently protest the ownership.