Arteta’s Arsenal experiment has ran its course and must end

Bringing Martin Odegaard Back Benefits Arsenal’s Future

Part of the reason for the introduction of Lacazette has been down to physicality: Odegaard is not a back-to-goal player like that.

Him being further forward doesn’t have to constitute that though, and instead will come down to having bodies at the right distances to keep the ball moving within the team. He needs to be influencing the game in the final third.

If you’re asking Odegaard to play a hold up role then you’re using him wrong. Bringing him back in for Lacazette wouldn’t be a like-for-like switch, as the system and shape of the team needs to differ in response.

What Arsenal do have in their possession is a brilliant creative midfielder with a sky-high ceiling. As helpful as Lacazette has been, the long-term solution to the creation issues are there to be solved by the 22-year-old signed over the summer for £30m instead of the 30-year-old set to leave for free in the summer.

This spell of games with Lacazette in the side was not set to last. Even when it was producing the better performances of the season against Aston Villa and Leicester it was never going to survive Premier League football for the entirety of 2021/22: teams find ways to counteract an ageing strikeforce and Lacazette’s inability to play beyond 65 minutes was never sustainable.

Drawing a line under the Liverpool match and forgetting its existence for a minute, this is a change that should still happen. On the quest to be more creative and to score more goals, however that might transpire it has more chance to happen with Odegaard in the team.

Most important of all, it’s more beneficial to the long-term future of Arsenal if it’s him.