Arsenal: 3 improvements for Sambi Lokonga to make

3. Sambi Lokonga Needs to Improve His Physicality

When you spend a summer transfer window investing in players all aged 23 or younger, there are obvious limitations to your purchases. These usually centre around the lack of experience, either in the Premier League or elsewhere, as well as the integration periods, but they also involve physical profile.

Sambi already has good stature standing at just over six foot tall, but he, like Emile Smith Rowe, could do with hitting the gym. Give him a pair of dumbbells to walk around with and strap some weights to his ankles.

This isn’t something he can just improve over night. Building strength takes time and team behind the scenes will have already mapped out his progression in this department from the minute he arrived.

How he uses his body is impressive: his feints and no touch turns are part of his game that are already at a level usually above someone his age, and adding some core strength behind what he does is part of the next step.

Xhaka’s physicality is excellent as he’s rarely knocked off the ball and that’s part of the reason Arteta is so keen to keep him in the side. That bullish presence in the middle pitch is what makes up some of his ‘leadership’ and the sooner Sambi bulks out the sooner he can start imposing himself on fixtures in a physical manner.