Arsenal Vs Nottingham Forest: Unai Emery’s intriguing midfield

Arsenal dispatched Nottingham Forest 5-0 at the Emirates Stadium on Tuesday night with their most impressive performance of the season. And at the heart of it was an intriguing midfield set-up that Unai Emery should look to replicate.

With Kieran Tierney, Hector Bellerin and Rob Holding making their Arsenal returns from injury in Tuesday’s 5-0 win over Nottingham Forest, there was rightly plenty of attention on the impact they can all have on the squad. However, the midfield balance Unai Emery struck was also noticeable in its result, with his side dominant and finally able to pin an opponent back.

Find the latest episode of the Pain in the Arsenal Podcast here — Conclusions in the Chaos

Any analysis of this match must, of course, be tempered by the fact that Forest were pretty listless throughout and are not a Premier League side. Nonetheless, under Emery, control has been a regular issue against even the weakest of sides, notably Huddersfield and Blackpool away last season.

More from Pain in the Arsenal

• 3 standout players from 1-0 victory over Everton
• 3 positives & negatives from Goodison Park victory
• Arsenal vs PSV preview: Prediction, team news & lineups
• 3 talking points from Arsenal’s victory at Goodison Park
• Mikel Arteta provides Gabriel Martinelli injury update after Everton win

However, this time out, with Lucas Torreira and Joe Willock playing in a double pivot and Mesut Ozil ahead connecting the three young attackers, Arsenal finally looked to have found some sort of balance.

Granit Xhaka has received pelters from all angles this season. I think they are slightly unfair, given the talented, committed player he has been for much of his career. Yes, he has made errors, but he has still performed well on many occasions and has a skill set that remains valuable to this squad. However, given the form of Willock and Matteo Guendouzi and the tactical necessity of Torreira, the time has come to leave him on the bench.

Against Forest, Torreira by no means had his best game on the ball, with some sloppy passes in the first half especially. But with Willock and Ozil probing and connecting so well with the front three this hardly mattered.

He acted as a shield, breaking up counter-attacks and playing it simply to the players around him. When you consider the number of ‘basketball games’ Arsenal have been involved in this season, he is this sort of player that is needed more than any other.

Whether Emery chooses to stick to the three-man midfield that has been a feature of his Premier League line-ups this season so far or revert to a double pivot they used against Forest, he should at the very least use this performance as a tactical blueprint.

Rather than fielding a midfield of Guendouzi, Dani Ceballos and Xhaka, where all three players are looking to do similar things, Emery needs to focus on finding players with complementary skill sets. Torreira, Willock and Ozil all offered something unique to the team, which cannot always be said about the XIs that Emery has selected this season.

With the results against Eintracht Frankfurt, Aston Villa and Forest, Emery has managed to give himself a little breathing room. But he must now learn from his early-season mistakes and be prepared to go against his instincts. This may mean dropping Xhaka and trusting Torreira and Ozil, which seemingly goes against his natural judgement. But if Emery wants to rebuild trust among the Arsenal fan base, he needs to take risks and step outside his comfort zone.