Arsenal’s transfer business over the last few seasons suggests that Mikel Arteta knows what the majority of supporters can see. The right-hand side of the Gunners team ticks over very nicely indeed. The trio of White, Odegaard and Saka has been far from an unknown quantity for a few years now. Jurrien Timber has also slotted seamlessly into that framework.
Transfer business on that side of the pitch has been stable. Timber arrived in the summer of 2023. Madueke can be considered senior back up for Bukayo Saka but, unless Saka is injured for sustained periods (!), I would wager we see more of Madueke on the left than the right. Ethan Nwaneri has emerged from the academy as an additional option on that side.
However, we have seen little surgery in the team on the right. Compare that to the left of the team (I promise to resist any obvious political metaphors). At left-back, this summer alone, Kieran Tierney, Jakub Kiwior and Oleksandr Zinchenko have left (maybe you could include Tomiyasu there too). Riccardo Calafiori arrived last summer, Myles Lewis-Skelly emerged during last season and now Piero Hincapie has been signed this summer.
Further up the pitch, Declan Rice and Kai Havertz effectively arrived to replace Granit Xhaka in 2023, Mikel Merino signed in 2024, Eberechi Eze has been signed this summer. We have a good amount of evidence that Arsenal would have been happy to let either one of Gabriel Martinelli or Leandro Trossard leave for a good offer this summer, Fabio Vieira has been packed off on loan for a second consecutive season.
If you really want to go to the basement here, Albert Sambi Lokonga- who usually played as a left eight- and Nuno Tavares finally left the club permanently this summer. In short, it is not difficult to work out where Arteta and his staff have been tweaking things. It is now two and a half years since he tried to sign Mykhailo Mudryk. Arteta wanted Lisandro Martinez before settling on Zinchenko.
In the current squad, Arsenal have three- probably four- senior left wingers in Eze, Trossard, Martinelli and Madueke. In Calafiori, Lewis-Skelly and Hincapie they have three senior left-backs. Declan Rice, Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino are all senior international players who can play in the ‘left eight’ role.
On one hand, I suspect there is going to be some redundancy. On the other, when I look at what Arsenal’s team and their substitutes bench looked like at certain points last season, I am grateful for this amount of contingency. Either way, Arsenal don’t have anywhere near these sorts of numbers on the right.
You could look at that two ways, depending on your perspective. If you were ungenerous, you might say that Arteta doesn’t think he can achieve the sort of clarity and continuity he has seen on the right side and is throwing paint at the canvas Jackson Pollock style in the hope that the right combination of colours may appear.
If you are more generously inclined, you could look upon it as Arteta trying to build unpredictability and that he has pretty ruthlessly acknowledged that the left side is not as productive as it could have been. For example, I strongly suspect that the purchase of Piero Hincapie is directly linked to the purchase of Eze.
Hincapie is more of an overlapping full-back than Calafiori and Lewis-Skelly (though I suspect both to be capable of serving that function) and Eze prefers that inside left area. Whereas for the last few seasons, Martinelli and Trossard have largely been asked to patrol the touchline while play builds. Martinelli himself may even benefit from the arrival of Hincapie by moving to the inside forward spaces where I think he looks more effective.
It will be interesting to see whether Arteta falls on certain combinations of full-back, left winger and ‘left eight.’ For example, when Noni Madueke operates on the left, his natural inclination will be to hold width, which potentially complements a more inverting left-back like Lewis-Skelly or Calafiori.
My strong suspicion remains that Eze has been bought to play on the left wing in the main. That is where the most obvious quality gap is in the team and I just don’t think Declan Rice’s position is available in the same way at all. We are also seeing some rejigging at the base of midfield with the arrival of Martin Zubimendi.
It looks as though Arsenal have moved to more of an interchanging double pivot, with Rice and Zubimendi swapping positions often to collect the ball from the centre-halves. Zubimendi clearly has the freedom to join the press and his distribution is certainly more varied than Partey or Jorginho’s. Consequently, the ‘left eight’ position might not be as fixed as it has been.
Kai Havertz and Mikel Merino both play the role and both have played at centre-forward. Meanwhile, on the right, I think it is pretty obvious that we will see White / Timber + Odegaard and Saka on the right whenever all are available. On the left, there are a surfeit of options and combinations.
The question is whether this unpredictability works against Arsenal’s opponents, making Arteta’s side flexible, difficult to read and able to change things from the bench on demand. Or whether it makes them muddled and confused and internally unpredictable. I think the answer to that question will go a long way to determining whether Arsenal are ready to take the final step to glory.
