Arteta made one brave call in Arsenal’s win over Man Utd

Sometimes decisions are made and they backfire. Other times they work. There is no reward without risk, they say, and Mikel Arteta is well versed in the idea from his time at Arsenal.

Making calls that have an uncomfortable air of Pep Guardiola overthinking in Champions League knockout games, as well as those that proved to be masterstrokes, such as bringing Mohamed Elneny into the first team fold, Arteta isn’t afraid to stick his neck on the line.

It was three years before his time but Arteta may well be familiar with one Emmanuel Eboue. What the manager did, or more fittingly didn’t do, in the 3-1 win over Manchester United may have been with an eye on events dating back to 2008.

Everyone remembers the Ivorian’s disasterclass against Wigan, where he came on after 32 minutes but had the most inexplicably detrimental performance imaginable. Tackling his own teammate Kolo Toure and carelessly giving the ball away at an alarming rate, such was the calamity that Arsene Wenger withdrew the substitute before the end.

Arteta made one brave call in Arsenal’s win over Manchester United by opting to keep Nuno Tavares on the pitch despite being calamitous

For large spells of the second half against United, the supporters were making their feelings known on Nuno Tavares. Despite opening the scoring, he had a nightmarish second half (in particular) with countless giveaways in possession, and calls for him to be taken off were echoed on sofas around the world. He was everywhere except the right place, and inflicting severe and unnecessary pressure on his teammates at a critical moment in the match.

Against what must have been an overwhelming urge to bring him off, Arteta stood firm. He changed the shape, added solidity in front of the left-back, and rode out the wave that had put the Gunners’ chances of three points firmly at risk.

It is one of those situations where you’re d*amned if you do and d*amned if you don’t. Take Nuno and you could destroy his confidence. Keep him on and the team’s chances of victory are at risk, as is the player’s well-being, who is clearly struggling.

Perhaps he wanted to avoid another Eboue-esque moment. One likes to think the fans have learned from that despite the tension in the stadium and the mess of a performance, though. Furthermore, just a few minutes later when the score was 3-1. there was a point where Nuno shielded the ball out of play and the crowd all cheered his name in response.

In either case, Arteta took a risk. Keeping Nuno on in those circumstances was the minority ruling. Yet his focus is on ‘helping’ him and letting him ‘understand’ why his display erupted into chaos as it did. It may be the sign of the manager learning from his own decisions, having withdrawn him twice already this season when he’d been having difficulties.

What will be interesting is to see whether he keeps his place in the Arsenal team. The decision to leave him on would indicate that, and with Takehiro Tomiyasu returning to stabilise the team it allows Nuno more freedom to express in the half of the pitch where he causes more groans than shrieks. As things stand, groans are more welcome than shrieks.

Nuno’s unquestionable physical strengths, including his immense ball carrying ability, need to be harnessed. His exceedingly concerning defensive capabilities, including general positioning, need to be seriously refined. On this occasion, Arteta saw the glass half full and may just have been the right call for the sake of the rest of the Premier League season.