ARSENAL DEFENCE THE STAR AGAIN
‘Ooooh, I wanted prettier football this year’
Grow up. Touch grass. This isn’t a f*cking Disney film, this is the Premier League. You win with an elite defence. Stingy, nasty, focused, best-in-class. Leave your la-di-dah fancy free football to the Ted Lasso fans, we’re Green Street with Elijah Wood. Oh my, I’ve gone off the rails here… let’s wind it back.
Defence wins games in the world of Mikel Arteta and in games where we need to dig deep, our boys show up with magnificent performances that fetch us three magical points on the road.
Aston Villa are the most wrecked team in the league. Unai Emery did his job last season and was slapped hard this summer when the club decided to basically exit anyone of value, and drop a hideous rebuild on him. The crazy thing? He managed to radicalize a group of brand new players in the space of 10 days to absolutely hate Arsenal and drop a filthy deep block on us in a very tough outing.
Don Unai is the poster child of petty, and I have to admit, I kind of admire him. He rolled out a grim starting 11. A child keeper from Parma, Lindelöf in defence, Matty Cash post hair transplant, Ross Barkley and McGinn in midfield, and Nico Jackson upfront. And they were pretty solid all things considered… but they had nothing for us.
Arsenal defended like their lives depended on it. We rode a few waves of semi-threatening attacks, but the team clogged the passing routes, their strategy of doing Benny Blanco with those diagonal switches faltered, and their sharp balls over the top didn’t land with Nico Jackson the way they used to with Ollie Watkins.
Zero shots on target conceded in two games. That really is impressive. We’re doing this without Timber and Saliba in the starting 11.
Attack-wise, it wasn’t our best outing, it had all the feelings of some of our stodgiest games of last season. But, we can gift them our forgiveness because it was away at Villa Park and Emery is very good at home.
Tzolis got his welcome-to-England performance. Matty Cash chased him around like a bully chases the smaller kids around a dressing room with a wet towel. He was having a very good time shoving the Greek around. It was so bad, Arteta took his new man out of the firing line at half time. One did wonder whether that move, along with keeping Gyokeres benched, was a little shot fired in the direction of Berta… who really hasn’t done much to improve our attack.
The change at half time to bring Eze into the wing field reaped rewards, his cushioned touch into the path of Calafiori led to a perfect cross into the path of Saka who bundled it home for his second of the season. His celebration was outrageous. A little unhinged. He pointed to his gold badge and shouted ‘this is our club, we are champions.’
Sometimes a haircut shifts the mindset. Beckham going skinhead, Freddie going red hair… Saka’s new trim makes him look more warrior-like. He looks fitter than he has in a very long time. He was gliding down the right, he was turning Maatsen inside out, there was a freer feeling on the right because the left is now such a threat compared to recent years. I loved that celebration, it spoke to a ferocity we’ve never really seen with Bukayo… is this the year he turns heel? The league is not ready for this…
Our bench was kind of outrageous. Bruno, Konsa, Merino and Zubimendi were brought on to shape things up in that final twenty minutes. An abundance of riches to call upon. Konsa looked assured and steady, a big ask in an emotional debut. Mikel Merino was absolutely sublime, every touch dripping in purpose, he used his movement really well to control the midfield, and he was a threat with his probing passes. Bruno did Bruno things, he was a savage in defence, and very progressive with his attacking passes, early days, but he’s going to be world class for us. I felt a touch for Zubimendi, coming on at the very death was so clearly not cool that Arteta gave him a big hug before rolling him out. I’d love to sit here and say he’s surplus, but with our injury record, and our manager’s approach to player wellness… we should probably be keeping him around.
Arteta spoke about maturity, calmness, and the ability to hold onto the ball (which, at times, was not that good).
It was very different, and that shows a lot of maturity; that shows as well the tools that we have in the players to change momentum and to understand what the game needed. We brought a lot of leadership into the team. People who can hold the ball and really dominate in spells through the ball and in duels and I think they've done it. Ebs comes in, he makes a difference to win the game. Ezri makes a debut in really difficult circumstances; it’s not easy emotionally to come here and play. But he looks so composed, so calm, so in control. For all those reasons, I think that's the reason why we won the game.
There was a lot of AI (Arsenal Induced) slop on the pitch at times; Kai Havertz dropped a few howlers in a drab game by his standards, and there were other players just having ding-dong moments. But this is to be expected; it’s early season, and it takes at least 10 games to get up to speed. But, when we closed out, things did get better, confidence grew, and a lot of that was down to the age of the players on the pitch. Am I selling myself on older players? Maybe.
My fave part of the game was seeing how happy the players were after the win. They made amends for the horrorshow last time around, and clearly, they knew they’d been in a game. These are the sort of early slips that derail titles; three points away from home against Villa won’t be a regular thing for top 6 teams this season, you can bet on that. Zero shots on target for Villa? Won’t happen again.
Calafiori has been my two-game player of the season so far; he’s in rich form, fit as a fiddle, and an absolutely devastating wrecking ball in the final third. Clubs don’t know how to deal with this huge man bursting through lines like Freddie Ljungberg, delivering crosses like a veteran winger. He’s one of the most outrageously unique footballers in the Premier League right now, and he’s making our left-hand side as threatening as the right. What a talent! The big question is can Arteta keep him fit… and will he resist the urge to play him three games a week?
My major concern with the whole Arsenal attack is it lacks pace. We’ve got slower. It feels like we’ve been chasing explosive talent in our forward line for years and we’re just not capable of getting it over the line. Where are our Doku types for games like that? That’s where I’d be focused at the end of the window: someone who can stretch games and make chances from from athleticism.
As for the style of the game? You play what is put in front of you. Arsenal can play the beautiful game, we can play rough; we do turgid… the most important thing is can we win and do it in a sustainable way? The answer is categorically yes.
There are questions about whether we can win the Champions League this way. Do the acquisitions move the needle in tight games against highly technical opposition? It’s a roll of the dice right now. The hope was that we’d add some xG defiers this window and though Tzolis is a nice addition, I think he’d have to do a lot to be deemed at the level we’re looking at. Then you look at the latest links… Fofana of Lyon? I’m not here to criticise a young player, but the fact no one has spoken of him all summer and I’ve never heard someone of note mention him probably suggests we’re looking at a very raw project player at best. There’s just no way to pitch me on the idea that a move like this is where we wanted to be, especially when you see Liverpool rolling out Barcola.
We’re boxed in right now, there’s no obvious upgrade to be had right now, even Ndiaye has ended up at Man City (now I like him and don’t care about his output). So what is the best move in moments like this? Don’t blow money on hope, wait, and see what’s available in January. We have more than enough to get through the next 5 months, let’s not have another Gyokeres/Madueke moment just to fill a spot we’ll struggle to empty at a later date. That’s discipline. You can’t claim very few players can improve Arsenal, then sign a kid who has just had ankle surgery.
Let’s see where tomorrow ends, then we can discuss how we feel about the window at a later day… but regardless of how it goes, we are very much good enough to win the Premier League again. That’s the big picture here, not how much money we’ve spent or did not spend.
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