Amidst the sudden objective feast in Eindhoven on Tuesday evening, Arsenal’s seventh objective was in all probability essentially the most extraordinary of the lot. Within the phrases of Mikel Arteta, ‘Calafiori makes a run as a 9 and scores along with his proper foot.’ Not solely was Calafiori making a run, ‘as a 9’, he begins his run from the fitting facet. Crucially, Arteta added, ‘that is the workforce I wish to see.’ Calafiori was not going rogue in his supervisor’s eyes.
For sure, this isn’t actually regular for a left-back. It’s clear that in this era of harm enforced attacking austerity, Arteta has clearly recognized the full-backs as a key space to assist make up for the shortfall additional forwards. Towards West Ham, Arteta experimented with dropping Thomas Partey again between Saliba and Gabriel, with Jurrien Timber and Calafiori pushed on as wing-backs.
It didn’t work it’s honest to say. In truth, West Ham scored their profitable objective by exploiting the hole left by Calafiori within the left-back place (there have been just a few different authors of that exact mishap too). Just a few days later in opposition to Forest, Arsenal didn’t repeat that experiment however tweaked it through the use of Riccardo Calafiori because the joker within the pack. Right here is his heatmap from that sport.
Calafiori had the most effective probability Arsenal produced in that sport, curling a proper footed shot off the within of the put up. Nevertheless, and this has grow to be a theme for Arsenal left-backs of late, Arteta took the choice to take away him at half-time after an early yellow card. Myles Lewis-Skelly has had two pink playing cards within the final month (one subsequently revoked) and had to get replaced by Calafiori earlier than half-time in Eindhoven after being fortunate to flee one other.
That’s two pink playing cards and two early substitutions as a result of yellow playing cards within the left-back place in latest weeks. With a lot of their attacking expertise nonetheless not out of their hospital robes, the full-back areas have grow to be so key in latest weeks as a result of that’s the place Arsenal are healthiest. Ben White, Jurrien Timber, Myles Lewis-Skelly, Riccardo Calafiori, Kieran Tierney and Oleksandr Zinchenko are all beginning high quality full-backs. Arteta has even been in a position to spare Zinchenko for the midfield effort with Mikel Merino wanted upfront.
Nevertheless, even absent the present harm disaster, for all of the discuss of Arteta’s penchant for construction and his love of defenders, his style in left-backs has at all times been fairly outlandish. Whereas the right-backs look a bit extra ‘quick again and sides’ in footballing phrases, the left-backs are very ‘fur coat and aviator shades.’
It’s a part of the rationale that Kieran Tierney has by no means actually discovered a house below Arteta’s premiership, apart from the very outset of the supervisor’s reign when he performed as a large centre-half in a again three. Then it was Ainsley Maitland-Niles, working at left wing-back who was requested to zigzag hither and thither everywhere in the area. Even Bukayo Saka had a protracted crack on the place in Arteta’s early months.
Tierney has simply been too standard for Arteta’s tastes within the place. In the summertime of 2022, Arsenal pursued Lisandro Martinez, whose spell at Manchester United has proven him to be one thing of a unfastened cannon to say the least. When he opted for the profession suicide of a transfer to Outdated Trafford, Arteta introduced in Oleksandr Zinchenko.
Zinchenko briefly revolutionised the best way that Arsenal play by inverting into midfield and sitting alongside Thomas Partey on the base, popping up just about all over the place on the pitch besides left-back. After some time, groups cottoned on to the area he was vacating in addition to his personal defensive frailties in one-on-one conditions.
After a disastrous efficiency by Zinchenko at house to Aston Villa final April, Arteta misplaced endurance and even his tolerance for top jinx from left-back was exhausted. Like all good rock stars, Zinchenko burned twice as shiny however for half as lengthy on this Arsenal workforce. Final season proved to be slightly bit too ‘Be Right here Now’ for the supervisor’s tastes with an excessive amount of pointless riffing and over manufacturing.
We now have seen some pretty rock ‘n’ roll behaviour from Takehiro Tomiyasu from his stints at left-back too. Keep in mind, if you’ll, him popping up at centre-forward to assist lay on the profitable objective for Gabriel Martinelli in opposition to Manchester Metropolis in October 2023. Or his strike in opposition to Everton on the ultimate day of final season, which was very a lot a centre-forward fashion objective scored in open play.
Removed from being deterred by Zinchenko’s descent into inverted left-back extra, Arteta’s tastes within the place haven’t grow to be extra conservative. He was able to spend giant on the subsequent fairly younger factor in Riccardo Calafiori, a person who not solely seems like he may have been in Zoolander, however a defender much more keen to go ‘off street’ than Zinchenko.
Not happy with this continued thirst for loopy at left-back, the supervisor determined to remould essentially the most proficient midfielder within the Arsenal academy right into a left-back. This was really Bob Dylan ‘going electrical’ on the 1965 Newport People Competition territory. Within the meantime, Kieran Tierney and his tucked in shirt will return to Celtic this summer time.
With the concentrate on construction and requirements elsewhere within the system, why does Arteta ask for his left-backs to be so flamboyant? There may be clearly danger and reward baked into this equation. Lewis-Skelly scored in opposition to Metropolis, Calafiori scored in opposition to PSV, whereas each gamers have been hooked early in video games just lately for dicing with pink card conditions.
Good groups do are typically lopsided of their method. Arsenal have much less want for chaos on the fitting facet with Odegaard and Saka stationed over there and both Timber or White can do a extra conventional full-back job. Each workforce wants a little bit of chaos and I think about Arteta’s reasoning is that it’s tougher for opponents to take care of a madcap full-back.
As a result of who do you assign to patrol a zig zagging left-back? It’s troublesome to do with out destroying your individual construction. The difficulty with Zinchenko, I suppose, was that his actions (largely into left central midfield) had been too predictable and later turned too ill-judged. Manchester Metropolis and Pep Guardiola have proven an analogous trajectory with their left-backs.
If Zinchenko was our João Cancelo, then Calafiori would look like our Gvardiol, who has scored 9 Premier League targets in simply over a yr for Manchester Metropolis. Gvardiol’s runs have proved troublesome for opponents to trace just because man-marking a left-back doesn’t appear to be a very good use of a defending workforce’s assets and would certainly simply open up area for a participant within the Metropolis assault.
Regardless of the rime and motive for it, Arteta, a supervisor typically accused of some reasonably trad-con soccer (personally, I reject that criticism however loads of folks have levelled it), has an urge for food for hazard relating to his left-backs. Calafiori, along with his untamed locks, appears to be the newest incarnation and Arsenal’s agent of chaos.
