51. A number associated with paranormal activity, and I’m sure that some of the 51 goals which we conceded last season still haunt Gooners everywhere – incidentally, the second time in consecutive seasons which we’ve conceded more than 50 goals, and also 12 goals more than both Spurs and Chelsea. Throughout the season – and especially towards the end of the campaign – it became clear that the feebleness of our defending was making our job at the other end of the pitch doubly hard – we not only had to score, but out-score most opponents.
A few of our defensive personnel took a lot of the ire for that; Shkodran Mustafi’s Arsenal career is in tatters after two calamitous seasons, Maitland-Niles struggled at times to fill in for the injured Bellerin at right-back (not wholly his fault), and Lichtsteiner was quite simply a mistake. More importantly though, Arsenal defended poorly as a team, committing full-backs forward who couldn’t make it back to defend the counter-attack (Kolasinac), failing to apply the high press with the requisite consistency and intensity after experimenting with it early in the campaign, and exhibiting a general lack of effective communication throughout the defensive unit. This was epitomised by (dare I mention it) Mustafi allowing Zaha in to put Crystal Palace back in front at the Emirates in late April – a shocking lapse in judgement and abdication of responsibility, and an obvious symptom of a wider malaise.
The Task at Hand
To put it simply, Emery failed to sort the defence out last season. This time, he must succeed, at least to some extent. He has to do that without the former captain Koscielny, whose performances somewhat held together a defence more stretched than the Frenchman’s Achilles tendon. His acrimonious departure from the club cast a shadow over the summer which, thankfully, was lifted by the arrival of David Luiz & Kieran Tierney amongst others. Eventually I hope Koscielny will be remembered as a great defender and captain, but the anger right now is not without justification.
On a happier note, it looks like Mustafi might also be leaving, this time more due to the will of the club than his own: Emery has publicly declared his willingness to let the hapless German go. The arrival of Tierney might also see the departure of one of the incumbent left-backs; Sead Kolasinac is the likeliest candidate given that Nacho Monreal is now vice-captain and would hardly fetch a transfer fee anyway. The big Bosnian is a decent player and a bit of a cult hero with his wrestler-style physique, but his slightly haphazard defending, sluggishness in tracking back down the left wing and slightly bull-in-a-china-shop approach to attacking could certainly be improved upon. Add to that the terrible situation surrounding the recent threats to his (and Mesut Özil’s) personal safety by London gangs, and it all points to a possible departure for Kolasinac. Lichtsteiner, meanwhile, is long gone.
Assuming these transfers happen, that leaves us with Tierney & Monreal at left-back, Bellerin & Maitland-Niles at right-back, and Sokratis, Holding, Luiz & Chambers at centre-half (William Saliba – another new summer arrival – is on loan at his former employers St Etienne this season and will likely be part of the first-team picture at Arsenal from next season). Of these, Emery must find a (probably rather makeshift) set of players which can hold the fort for the early part of the season with some of the others still returning from injury, and then work out his best combination going forward – perhaps being a little stricter about maintaining continuity in the defence than last season, when we chopped and changed between a back 4 and 5.
I think that if Emery can find a settled set of first-choice personnel within a definite defensive system by January, then the likelihood of conceding 50 goals again becomes that much lower. The set of players we have now is still a way from perfect, but it looks younger, more talented and more promising than last season, and that’s at least a step in the right direction, even if there will surely be some bumps along the way.
New Bhoy, old flame
In my view, every signing a club makes fulfils at least one of three key motives:
- The player is of about the average level we have at the moment (or is ageing/on loan) and will backfill in a position where there’s a deficiency in numbers and we need them to do a decent job for now
- The player is above the average level we have at the moment, and should be an immediate, significant improvement to our team over the next 2-3 years and we’re prepared to spend plenty to get them in.
- The player represents a strategic investment and has enough potential to be significantly better than our current players in that position within the next 5 years, or at least make us a good profit. They may also be good enough already to contribute or even be a star player from the start.
Clearly, a player who fulfils both criteria 2 & 3 is the ideal, and carries the biggest cost; Pepe is an example of that. Signings like Saliba & Martinelli are both designed to fulfil category 3, and David Luiz’ age means that he is in category 1. The idea behind Arsenal’s recruitment strategy since we started planning the move to the Emirates has been that if we can make enough successful signings which fulfil category 3, we won’t have to splash out on a category 2 player or too many category 1 players for squad depth, since that will be provided by young future 1st XI players.
Things haven’t quite worked out like that, due to poor decisions and execution in the market. Kieran Tierney from Celtic, though, represents a return to form. He’s already shown that he’s a talented and competent player, and can contribute to the team now, and at age 22 he should have a decade of top-level performance in him (injuries permitting, of course). Despite my ancestral obligation to support Rangers, I’ve never watched much Scottish football, and have seen very little of Tierney beyond the fact that he’s already an Arsenal legend on my Football Manager save. Lots of the following paragraph therefore relies on what I’ve read and heard of him from Celtic fans and other Scottish football aficionados.
The left-back position has largely been the domain of Nacho Monreal since he arrived from Malaga in 2013, and with the Spaniard now ageing a little, Tierney should hopefully exhibit some of the same dogged, indefatigable battling qualities, as well as hopefully a little more energy & dynamism going forward. One Celtic fan on Arseblog’s Arsecast described him as ‘typically Scottish’, which suggests to me that he should tackle strongly, win headers, and run down the left wing baying for English blood at the top of his lungs. At the very least, he shouldn’t be fazed by the proverbial wet, windy night in Stoke, or Burnley, or wherever it happens to be. As much as I dislike the concept of ‘British grit’ in football, these are all good qualities in a backline which has rightly been accused of lacking backbone and decisiveness.
The fact that he has already captained both Celtic & Scotland also suggests that he’ll be vocal on the pitch, and a potential leadership figure for Arsenal, another thing we desperately lack right now. There’s no doubt that he’s a Celtic man through and through, and we’ll never mean quite the same, but if he can transfer at least some of the passion and rapport with the fans he displayed in Glasgow to the Emirates, he’ll be an important part in restoring the emotional connection between the team and its fans. In terms of his attacking, he appears to be both very enthusiastic and pretty composed going forward, with solid technique and a more considered delivery than Kolasinac.
The caveats, of course, are that he’s had quite a few injuries – always worrying in a young player – although this is apparently in part due to opposition players targeting him in Scotland, perhaps less likely in a league where he won’t stand out quite as much. Speaking of which, there is also some scepticism about his experience at the top level, given the SPL’s lack of quality. Fair point – but he has also shown quality in the Champions League against the likes of Bayern Munich, and Celtic is still a huge club with a massive weight of expectation in the context of Scottish football – to play with such assurance from such a young age is a sign of a strong character, and hopefully a genuine ‘winning mentality’. I for one am more excited than anxious to see how he fares in the Premier League.
What of the centre of our defence? This was the area which presented the gravest concerns going into the summer, concerns which grew graver when it became clear Koscielny would not be a part of the set-up this season. Arsenal acted by selling the captain to Bordeaux, bringing in William Saliba as a long-term investment and then loaning him back to St Etienne, and with the clock ticking and moves for Juventus’ Daniele Rugani and RB Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano not coming to fruition, eventually spent £8 million on David Luiz in a rather out-of-the-blue manoeuvre. Emery also made it clear to Mustafi that he could leave, promoting the returning Calum Chambers ahead of him in the pecking order to start at Newcastle last Sunday. Decisive stuff, and certainly a refreshing contrast to the indulgence shown towards underperformers and wantaways in the past.
It will be a big season for Calum Chambers. With Holding still returning from injury, and David Luiz getting integrated into the squad, the former Southampton man has a small window of time to stake a strong claim for inclusion in Emery’s plans going forward. Having looked reasonably promising in pre-season, he was solid against Newcastle on Sunday, and looks likely to start again against Burnley this weekend. If he can impress, it gives us some much better competition at centre-back than Mustafi was able to provide last season. I liked what I saw of Rob Holding last season, but the absence of long-term casualties does tend to make the heart grow fonder, and we should be careful to manage expectations around his comeback. Some consistent showings from Chambers would help make that reintegration a lot more seamless.
Now to the man himself. David Luiz was a shock signing in many ways, but on a second appraisal it makes a lot of sense. We essentially needed someone to replace Laurent Koscielny; Sokratis, despite being a good defender and a tough personality, probably can’t do it on his own. Luiz provides a wealth of Premier League experience playing for a top club, he understands the expectations at Arsenal, he is used to the styles of play and physicality within the league, and over the years he’s matured from an erratic, ‘Playstation’-style defender into a pretty consistent centre-back. He’s clearly a passionate guy, and if he buys into the Arsenal spirit despite his Chelsea past, he could become a vital leadership figure and on-pitch personality. He’s also pretty tall, strong and aggressive in the air, which in a team otherwise full of shorter centre-halves could make a crucial difference.
Finally, one of the key differentiators between him and any other centre-half at Chelsea or Arsenal is his ability in possession, in particular, passing the ball over a long distance out wide or over the top of the defence; he created a huge number of chances for Chelsea considering he’s a centre-back, and with the intelligent movement and pace of players such as Aubameyang, Lacazette & Pepe, he should have the opportunity to exhibit those qualities again in North London.
Of course, there was always going to be the part of us Arsenal fans, who, having occasionally made Luiz a figure of ridicule over the years, that thought ‘what the flying fuck’ when the deal started to look real. There’s no doubt he has a mistake in him, but having spoken to Chelsea fans who have followed his development as a player it seems that mishaps in possession are no longer such a problem in his game; instead, his lack of mobility, agility and the odd positional rush of blood to the head. He’s certainly vulnerable to people running at him, in contrast to Koscielny for whom 1-on-1s with attackers was a real strength. He’s also liable to being caught out of position when the game is stretched and the opposition counter-attack, particularly when playing in a back 4.
These are both potential causes for concern, given that Emery seems to be set on a back 4 going forward, and how little protection our midfield offers our defence in transition – although the additional recovery pace of Sokratis might help mitigate that impact. Really, it’s all about whether they build a partnership with a better understanding and greater sense of assurance than some of our other motley crews of recent times.
Buckle up – it’s going to be an eventful season!
N8 Romantic 