Arsenal Vs Angers: The Unai Emery striker conundrum… again

In Arsenal’s 1-1 draw against Angers on Wednesday night, Unai Emery again trialled a 4-4-2-type shape. It didn’t work. This is the striker conundrum that the Spaniard faces, and it is causing a problem.

Throughout the pre-season, Arsenal head coach Unai Emery has attempted to field a 4-4-2-type shape. He did so against the Colorado Rapids to open the United States tour. He then replicated it on Wednesday night in the 1-1 against Angers.

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As these pre-season matches are for experimenting, this is precisely what Emery is attempting to do. He is trying out a new system that could benefit his team throughout the normal season. The reason he is trying this new shape is obvious: he wants to play with both a back four and Alexandre Lacazette and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang as centre-forwards.

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Last year, to squeeze his two best players into the team, Emery eventually settled on a 3-5-2 formation. But as he has said repeatedly this summer, and his coaching record throughout his career illustrates, he prefers a back four and would rather feature a back four throughout the year, only using a back three during certain matches and periods. And so, the conundrum arose: how do you fit both Lacazette and Aubameyang into the same team, as centre-forwards, while also playing with a back four?

Emery’s solution to this problem is to play with a 4-4-2 where one of the centre-forwards drops off the other. Eddie Nketiah and Tyreece John-Jules conducted this system against Angers on Wednesday. It is reasonable to think that Lacazette and Aubameyang could replicate the same approach. But the problem with this shape is that it leaves the central midfield areas rather sparse.

It is no coincidence that once Emery shifted away from the 4-4-2, introduced a third central midfielder, and used the modernised 4-3-3 with two box-to-box midfielders flanking a holding midfielder and just one centre-forward, Arsenal immediately looked more balanced, able to progress the ball through the pitch with more options in midfield areas, bringing the wingers into play as they were pushed higher up the pitch.

Emery seems fairly insistent on trying to find a way to play both Aubameyand and Lacazette as centre-forwards. But in the modern game, having two strikers causes more problems to the balance of your own team than it does the defence of the opposition. You lose control of the midfield, the wings are also either too deeply positioned in a 4-4-2 or outnumbered in a 3-5-2, and there becomes a gaping disconnect between the backline and the front two.

The solution to Emery’s striker conundrum is to not have the conundrum in the first place. Quite simply, the answer to Arsenal’s problems is right in front of them: just don’t play with two strikers. And that will mean one of two things, both of which are difficult decisions. The first is to play Aubameyang out wide, which brings with it it’s own deficiencies, and the second is to drop one to the bench, which also seems a little foolish given their superb qualities in comparison to other options.

Unai Emery has a striking conundrum. This pre-season, he has tried to solve it the easy way. But now it might be time to have a go at the hard way, because so far, his attempts have failed.