Summer Transfer Temps and Journeymen

[I am invisible]

it's as much about Arteta's use of the squad as it is the quality - if he keeps playing Xhaka instead of Ceballos and Luiz instead of Gabriel and having players like Saka warming the bench then yes it's gonna be a shit season

over to you Mikel...

Yeah, if the players he wants don’t come in then we’re going to have to be a little braver with what we have at some point. I totally get the safety formation in the short-term as we looked to steady the ship, calm nerves and restore a bit of confidence, but we can’t go through a whole season playing 343 - it’s not bold enough, and opponents will eventually start to suss it out.

Everything hinges on finding a defensive pairing who are comfortable in a back 2. Not only do we need that extra attacking midfielder to add creativity through the middle, that player would also reduce the need for the CF to keep dropping deep to get involved with the build up (meaning we could move Auba back central and get someone more creative like Saka on the left), and I think we’d also get more out of Pepe / Nelson on the right if they had someone in that ACM spot to play off. Lots we can still try, but it all starts from the back...