THERE was a point this season at which Arsenal looked every bit relegation candidates. This was largely down to their toothless attack. Indeed, the numbers the Gunners put up in the final third were entirely in line with the teams fighting for survival near the foot of the Premier League table, going a full eight hours without an open play goal over October and November.
The attacking display put on by Arsenal in their 4-2 win over Leeds United on Sunday underlined the progress the North London outfit have made since then. Mikel Arteta’s side are very much still a work-in-progress with the Spaniard still moulding the squad in his own image, but they at least seem to have remembered where the goal is.
Sunday was the first time Martin Odegaard and Emile Smith Rowe had started in the same lineup together. A lack of creativity through the centre of the pitch forced Arsenal into the January transfer market, with the Norwegian signed on loan from Real Madrid until the end of the season, but it was not immediately clear how Arteta would field him alongside Smith Rowe.
Against Leeds, Odegaard played through the middle with Smith Rowe on the left, while Bukayo Saka was deployed on the right and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang up front. However, all four players were fluid in the areas they occupied on the pitch, interchanging and switching positions countless times over the course of the match.
It was the sort of exhilarating attacking performance many envisaged Arsenal would produce under Arteta. Billed as a modern, forward-thinking coach with different ideas having worked alongside Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, the Spaniard initially struggled to get the Gunners going as an attacking proposition. At their worst, Arteta’s Arsenal were downright insipid.
☺️ Good morning, Gooners – waking up with that W! pic.twitter.com/OctOO1MYei
— Arsenal (@Arsenal) February 15, 2021
Now, though, Arteta has found something that works. The emergence of Smith Rowe as a creative proved to be a turning point for Arsenal, but the Spaniard has continued to build around the 20-year-old. With Aubameyang, Odegaard and Saka forming the rest of the Gunners’ new attacking unit, the goals will continue to flow as they did on Sunday.
Tactically, the challenge for Arteta will be to maintain the link between the attack and the midfield, but with Odegaard and Smith Rowe both comfortable dropping deep to help out and drive the ball forward this shouldn’t be much of an issue. A central pairing of Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka will give Arsenal that security.
One of the biggest benefits of this new four-man attacking approach for Arsenal could be the effect it has on Aubameyang who scored his first Premier League hat trick in the win over Leeds United. Having struggled for much of the season, the 31-year-old was back to his best, scoring one with his right, one with his head and one from the penalty spot.
“He had a great performance not only for the goals, but the way he worked without the ball,” Arteta said of Aubameyang afterwards. Indeed, it wasn’t just in the finishing touch the Gabonese forward provided, it was in the way he performed his duties as one part of a greater structure. Arsenal didn’t just feed Aubameyang the ball in the hope he would conjure something out of nothing, as they have been guilty of doing in the past.
This season has been a challenging one for Arsenal. It’s entirely feasible that Arteta could have lost his job so underwhelming were the results and performances before Christmas. Now, though, there are signs of what the Spaniard is trying to build. Arsenal’s defensive progress has been clear for some time. Now, they are developing something further up the pitch.
