How Arsenal will line up in the coming season, and being a trends editor.

By Tony Attwood

Here is a line up for the coming season that in popular among journalists and bloggers…

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkordran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal;

Lucas Torreira, Aaron Ramsey;

Alex Iwobi, Mesut Ozil, Henrikh Mkhitaryan;

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

 

And a variant

Petr Cech;

Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkordran Mustafi, Sead Kolasinac;

Lucas Torreira, Aaron Ramsey,

Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil;

Henrikh Mkhitaryan, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

And another variant

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Nacho Monreal;

Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey, Lucas Torreira;

Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Henrikh Mkhitaryan.

And one more

 Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Shkodran Mustafi, Calum Chambers, Nacho Monreal;

Granit Xhaka, Aaron Ramsey, Lucas Torreira;

Mesut Ozil, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette

 

And yet one more

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal;

Lucas Torreira, Aaron Ramsey, Granit Xhaka, Mesut Ozil;

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette.

These have all been published in Football London and apparently come from different members of staff.  The one who devised the last of those has the job title of Trainee Trends Editor, and I must admit to a feeling of having missed out.  How come in my varied life of many jobs, I never became a Trainee Trends Editor?  In my very specialist field I’m thought of by a few people as knowing a bit about the psychology of perception.  But Trainee Trends Editor.  I could have gone for that.  (Actually I have no idea what it means but imagine going into a bar in one’s youth and talking to an attractive young lady and on being asked what you do saying “I’m a trends editor.”   I mean, there is bullshit, and then there is bullshit.

However I seem to have wandered off course a little.  Back to the plot.

There were a couple of things I didn’t like here.  One is that there was no thought of having one primary team for home games and another one for the type of away games we lost last season, which I think is the obvious way to play.

Or put it another way: one line up for when playing teams who will come and attack, and another for when playing teams that will defend.

Or put it another another way, last season Huddersfield Town and Swansea City each scored 28 goals.  Approximately 25% of the number of goals that Manchester City scored.  Seven teams scored half or less than half the number Arsenal scored (we were the third highest scoring club in the league).

So doesn’t it make sense to consider a variant side when playing low scoring defending teams like those noted above or Brighton or Burnley, and a different side when playing high scoring teams?

My suspicion is Stephan Lichtsteiner did not come in to sit on the bench all season, but rather expects to play a few games – games where we need the extra defender, as well as games where the regular defender need a rest.

Maybe in fact we can’t have a first choice line up any more but instead genuinely have a list of players who can slot in and out according to who we are playing and whether we are playing home or away.

Looking at the list of players below, and leaving aside the special case of the keepers, these guys will need games one way or another, so the fixed squad system seems to me to be less valid than ever.  And I’ve deliberately left out the youth players who will clearly get some match time: Nelson, Smith-Rowe, etc.

	Pos.	Name	Age	App	Goals	Ends	Transfer fee
1	GK	Petr Čech	36	117	0	2019	£10.0M
2	DF	Héctor Bellerín	23	162	7	2023	Youth
4	MF	Mohamed Elneny	26	72	2	2022	£7.4M
5	DF	Sokratis Papastathopoulos	30	0	0	2021	£14.8M
6	DF	Laurent Koscielny	32	324	24	2020	£8.5M
7	MF	Henrikh Mkhitaryan	29	17	3	2021	Swap deal
8	MF	Aaron Ramsey	27	329	58	2019	£4.8M
9	FW	Alexandre Lacazette	27	39	17	2022	£46.5M
10	MF	Mesut Özil	29	195	37	2021	£42.5M
11	MF	Lucas Torreira	22	0	0	2023	£26.4M
12	DF	Stephan Lichtsteiner	34	0	0	2019	Free
14	FW	Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang	29	14	10	2021	£56.0M
15	MF	Ainsley Maitland-Niles	20	38	0	2023	Youth
16	DF	Rob Holding	22	44	1	2023	£2.0M
17	FW	Alex Iwobi	22	98	9	2020	Youth
18	DF	Nacho Monreal	32	212	9	2019	£8.5M
19	GK	Bernd Leno	26	0	0	2023	£19.2M
20	DF	Shkodran Mustafi	26	75	5	2021	£35.0M
21	DF	Calum Chambers	23	83	3	2022	£16.0M
26	GK	Emiliano Martínez	25	13	0	2022	Youth
27	DF	Konstantinos Mavropanos	20	3	0	2023	£1.8M
29	MF	Mattéo Guendouzi	19	0	0	2023	£7.0M
31	DF	Sead Kolašinac	25	36	5	2022	Free
34	MF	Granit Xhaka	25	94	7	2023	£30.0M

If I were to pick a team to play at home against moderate opposition yes, I would go with 

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal;

Granit Xhaka,

Mesut Ozil Aaron Ramsey

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette, Henrikh Mkhitaryan

but against a flair attacking side with proven goal scoring ability I wouldn’t leave Xhaka on his own and would certainly want Lucas Torreira or someone else like him to double up.  Which would mean maybe playing just two forwards – while telling Ramsey to focus more on defence than attack.

But isn’t it also interesting that none of the lists above include Mattéo Guendouzi?  Again I would try and use him and probably more than occasionally – and in attacking games with a line up such as 

Bernd Leno;

Hector Bellerin, Sokratis Papastathopoulos, Shkodran Mustafi, Nacho Monreal;

Granit Xhaka;

 Aaron Ramsey,  Mesut Ozil,  Mattéo Guendouzi

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Alexandre Lacazette

There is flexibility in the squad and I am hoping we can make the most of it.  Maybe it does mean grinding out those low scoring away wins and even a few goal less draws away to bring our away figures back to normal.  But I’ll accept that to climb back up to third and give us a good chance in the Cups.

And if you consider it a poor show for me just to be aiming at third, I still genuinely think that the winners of the leagues across Europe could be announced now.   Celtic, Barcelona, Bayern Munich, PSG, Juventus, Manchester City.  It doesn’t make for exciting football, but that’s how Uefa have let it develop and no one seems to want to stand up to them.   We might make second, but I’d take third and a cup as progress.

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