Arsenal: 3 ways Mikel Arteta can exploit substitute rule change

1. Late-game flexibility

Substitutes can change games. For all of his faults in initially setting up the team, Unai Emery understood and exploited this time and again. He made excellent tactical changes to his team that frequently inspired second-half and late-game comebacks. He was a very astute in-game tactician, and he used substitutions to his advantage.

This rule change now provides managers with the opportunity to entirely overhaul their system. Arteta could even train different approaches depending on the state of the game at certain points. Say that Arsenal are one goal down with 20 minutes to go. Arteta could have worked on a specific system and approach for that scenario in training beforehand before than making the necessary changes in the match to implement it.

Arteta’s substitutions were left bare when Arsenal lost to Olympiakos in the Europa League. The team lacked ideas when they chased a winner late on and his changes were peculiar, lacking clarity and a defined plan. The match ended with Nicolas Pepe playing right wing-back.

Perhaps this is still an area of management that Arteta must work on, then. But he is intelligent, self-aware, and tactically excellent. Now with more flexibility to change things throughout a match, expect him to exploit it to his advantage.