Tuesday night’s performance against Leeds left little to be desired, least of all the displays of Martinelli and Pepe. Arsenal fans would have been desperate to see Martinelli shine, especially when commentators announced that he was facing off against Leeds rookie teenager, Cody Drameh. Shine, is not what Martinelli did. For all the desire to get the ball, lacked the intelligence to do anything with it. Pepe on the other hand is starting to resemble another former Lille and Arsenal player, Gervinho.
One game shouldn’t define a player, everyone can have an off day, but for Martinelli minutes are hard to come by, whilst Pepe is severely at risk of losing his place again in Arteta’s XI to Emile Smith Rowe and Saka. It would be easy to say these player’s just aren’t at the right level, if it wasn’t for the fact we Gooner’s know the magic they can produce. For all his inconsistency, Pepe still manages to be one of Arsenal’s best goal creators and scorers over the last 2 campaigns. Injury kept Martinelli out of the game for the majority of last season, but Arsenal fans are desperate to see him reignite that spark he had under Unai Emery.
Pepe and Martinelli are not the only two players to struggle in the wide roles under Arteta. Willian, a player that ended his previous PL campaign at Chelsea with 9 goals and 7 assists could only conjure up 1 goal and 5 assists for Arsenal, most of those coming from his first game of the season. Aubameyang had a rough time on the wing last year, having probably his worst season in the top flight, leading many to believe he was well and truly on the wrong side of 30.
I see a common denominator, and in my line of work as an engineer, the common dominator when fault finding is usually your smoking gun. I began thinking this way when Willian revealed he was struggling to get to grips with Arteta’s setup. If Arteta’s style is to blame I had to take a closer look at what Arteta is asking of his wingers.
Honestly, I couldn’t tell you what Arteta wants from his wingers. Arteta’s set up has left Arsenal too slow at getting the ball up the pitch, too static and because of the slow build play more often than not Arsenal suffocating the space in behind the defence, evident in the statistics that Arsenal were amongst the worst teams on the counter last season. I couldn’t find an explanation as to what Arteta could possibly want his wingers doing other than pressing, running into too many defenders or sideways passing.
Like Man City, Arsenal’s attack is very much influenced by the the abilities of their full backs. On the left side Arsenal shouldn’t struggle to get attacking runs out of Tavares and Tierney. The left touchline is often occupied by Tierney bombing up and down and providing endless crosses, leaving room for the left midfielder to come inside which has suited Emile Smith Rowe a treat. On the right side however, Arsenal decision to bring in Tomiyasu this summer is having a negative effect on the right side in terms of attack.
So that Tierney can keep bombing up the left, Tomiyasu has come in to make up the back three when Arsenal transition into their attacking shape. With no one bombing up the right Pepe is pushed further to the touchline, whilst it is the No 10 who will drift into the space between Pepe and the striker. Although Odegaard and Pepe can interchange, the slow speed at which this happens leaves little advantage of doing so, other than giving Pepe an unlikely chance of scoring by shooting at a distance on his left foot.
In two feel sweeps Arteta has removed both elements of Pepe’s game that made him so great at Lille. Pepe thrived on freedom to move along the frontline and quick transitions from defence to attack, alongside Ikone and Bamba. Instead Pepe is stuck far out on the right side, always with more than one defender in front of him. That’s not to say Pepe is blameless. At times he really does remind me of Gervinho, a player Eden Hazard lauded as the best he’d played with, endlessly twisting left to right before losing the ball instead of making an early pass.
In games like the one against Leeds, where our full backs don’t have the luxury of getting forward often or aren’t good enough to do so, that leaves Martinelli and Pepe with a lot of work to do from the wide positions. Again, Martinelli is not blameless either. Even in the amateur football league (division 7) I have to constantly remind myself to know what I want to do with the ball before I have it at my feet. Martinelli looked like Forest Gump on Tuesday night with the purpose only to run. Martinelli could do with some mentoring from the great Bobby Pires in how to unlock the other strengths in his game, when pace isn’t always your best option.
The attempts of Pepe and Martinelli to “go it alone” at times could be born out of the frustration of an attacking player constantly having to make too many sideways passes instead of doing what they love and getting into the box.
If my explanation as to why Arteta’s tactics could be hampering the performances of our wide players has any flaws, it would be the successes of Smith Rowe and Saka. Although Saka hasn’t quite hit form, some have chosen to blame this on Arteta’s decision to play him on the left to accommodate for Pepe. I would argue that if Arsenal were playing well or attractive football you might find Pepe and Saka are just as good on the left as they are on the right. Looking at the stats, there’s not a lot between Pepe and Saka either this season. If Arteta is to move Saka back over to the right, we might find Saka continues struggle for top form for the exact same reasons I’ve explained might be causing Pepe to struggle?
Where Pepe and Saka differ is that where Pepe relies on quickness of feet and speed, Saka doesn’t need to because his intelligence and strength means he doesn’t have to twist in and out repeatedly as Pepe does to beat a man, much like Pires. Like Smith Rowe, Saka also possesses the ability to play anywhere along the forward line. This is nothing uncommon at Arsenal. Nasri, Pires, Ljungberg, Rosicky, Hleb all had that same ability, which suits the slower build up of possession football, a lot more than those in the style of Overmars, Arshavin and Sanchez who were much more suited to a counter attacking 4-3-3 than a pass heavy 4-5-1.
Although we classify Pires and Ljungberg as wingers, you could easily see that Wenger entrusted them both with the freedom to roam and interchange with Henry and Bergkamp. They were afforded the freedom that No10’s are afforded today, so Arsenal of old played more as if we had three No10’s rather than two conventional wingers. Arsenal might even line up in the oddly familiar 4-4-2 of Wenger’s Invincibles against Leicester this weekend, given the success Arteta has again found in playing both Auba and Laca together. Laca playing the deeper role like Berkamp except approaching the same job in entirely different ways, Saka takes the role of Pires instead playing from the right using their stronger foot to cut inside, Smith Rowe taking the place of his mentor Ljungberg injecting some pace and directness to the midfield and Partey providing the steel as Vieira once did.
Why shouldn’t this be the model or template that all Arsenal teams are built on? Wenger abandoned it and that didn’t do him or Arsenal any favours, but where does this leave our more natural wingers? After all Pepe and Martinelli are not Arteta’s signing’s so if they don’t fit his bill then it does come as less of a surprise, but you would hope a manager adapts to the players he has, rather than adapting his players to a style they can’t.
I often feel like this is partly the reason our other more natural wingers like Walcott and Chamberlain struggled to find consistency in their roles as wingers. Like Maitland-Niles though, all three would claim not be or want to play on the wings despite their natural attributes so obviously displaying the contrary.
The rumours that Arsenal are reported interested in Club Brugge’s Noa Lang only furthers my point. Noa Lang although plays from the wide position is much more likely to work his way into the centre of the pitch where he creates most chances from.
In today’s modern game the role of the winger has become a lot more obscured. At Liverpool their wingers are virtually their strikers whilst the it’s the fullbacks who provide width, City similarly to Arsenal rely on technical players to move inside from the wing and free up space for their midfielders and fullbacks to provide the width. Like I said at the beginning, the style of play is much down the talents of the full backs and the reason Pep has spent 10’s of millions finding his ideal pairing, and where would Liverpool be without Robertson and Alexander-Arnold? It’s easier for me to see how Martinelli and Pepe would suit Klopp’s style much more than Pep’s or Arteta’s, not to say Salah and Mane are any less technical than Foden and Grealish, but because Liverpool are setup to create space for Salah and Mane on the wings and in behind, where as all Arsenal fans are still trying to work out exactly how Arteta wants his team to attack.
Let’s hope that the resemblances I’ve noticed between Arsenal old and new can provide us with some better insight against Leicester over the weekend. I will be very excited to see if Arteta lines Arsenal up in the 4-4-2 that many are speculating. Is the key to opening up Arsenal’s goal scoring chances to give Smith Rowe and Saka the freedom to roam in the final third as Wenger once allowed Ljungberg and Pires? I can’t wait to see. COME ON YOU GUNNERS.