3 advantages of playing Leandro Trossard as a false nine

Recent victories over both Leicester City and Everton have coincided with Leandro Trossard being presented with a new role as Mikel Arteta has opted to start the Belgian over Eddie Nketiah as a false nine. 

The tactical switch by Arteta appears to have worked and has resulted in two largely impressive performances against the aforementioned sides. The change is harsh on Nketiah, who has done relatively well to fill the void left by Gabriel Jesus. However, the team has undeniably benefitted from the tweak.

3 advantages of playing Leandro Trossard as a false nine

https://twitter.com/Arsenal/status/1629794751653244928

1. Increased creativity

While Nketiah does offer a more distinct goal threat, what Trossard provides is arguably more crucial in this Arteta system: creativity. Similar to Jesus, the Belgian can link up well with others and has the ability to thread eye-of-the-needle passes between defenders to release teammates.

That is vital to this Arsenal team as during the first half of the season, we thrived on a fluid attack in which all players had the qualities needed to share both the goalscoring and creative burdens. With Nketiah up front, that effortless fluidity is harmed, despite the 23-year-old’s obvious improvement in that area.

Arteta was keen to praise Trossard for that very reason after our recent 1-0 away victory against Leicester.

"“I think he was really good, I think he got involved in many situations that could have ended up in many more big chances, he was involved in the incredible goal that he scored that was disallowed, involved in the goal of Gabi, the pass that he played to him, he’s so good in small spaces, tight spaces, with his creativity to open people up and I’m really happy with him.”"

It is somewhat telling that while Nketiah has managed just one Premier League assist this season, Trossard has already registered two in his new role.

Continued on the next slide…