Arsenal: 4 positives & negatives of Arthur loan signing

4. Arthur’s Profile Suits Arsenal’s Style

There are always reservations about how easily a player can just slide into a new team, in a new league and with a new language in the middle of the season. It always takes time.

Purely from a tactical fit and ignoring how long it might take (this is the positive section, after all) Arthur can suit the way Arsenal play. And in turn, Arsenal can suit the way he plays.

With two possession hogging central defenders in Benjamin White and Gabriel, Arsenal have players who like to dominate the spaces in front. Controlling the ball by always keeping it moving side to side with line breaking passes and short zips either side, this automatically gets the midfield closer to the opposition goal where they can control the play centrally.

Arthur’s talents are limited in defensive positions, even if he is excellent at breaking the first line of press with his small centre of gravity used cleverly in these areas. He needs a side that will keep the ball on the ground and rack up high volume passing sequences where his own superb distribution and accuracy can be put to finer use.

In terms of his preferred partner, if it’s a double pivot then one of Sambi or Thomas Partey may suit more due to them usually occupying the slightly deeper role on the angle, whereas Xhaka has been used in the left half-space more often. However, so long as he’s higher, closer spacing between players will allow Arthur to distribute into more dangerous areas. It’s these zones where he played his best football in Europe in during his later spell at Barcelona.

All sounds plausible, right?

From a theoretical sense, it does. Arteta’s brand of positional football with players moving into spaces fluidly can tend to Arthur’s skillset far more than it is now at Juventus. But to expect as much so quickly after arriving (if indeed he does) is a big ask, especially if the Xhaka and Partey combination is unlikely to stop being the preferred duo when both are available.

With all this talk, the deal better come through now. Hadn’t it?