Depth, flexibility, and what to do with Nwaneri

Good morning and happy Friday the 13th to everyone! Hopefully there’s nothing spooky around the corner.

I thought I’d start with Ethan Nwaneri’s performance for the England U21s last night, only to see the teams come in and his name listed amongst the substitutes. Hmm. But he did get on! And it looks like he had a very busy 20 minutes in the 3-1 win.

Most interestingly, he came on and played on the right, tormenting the Czech left-back over and over again. For all the talk of squad building and what needs to be done this summer, a lot of those transfer decisions rest in the hands of what Mikel Arteta actually plans to do with some of players we already have at the club.

There’s some of that in midfield — I’ll get onto that — but it exists massively with Nwaneri. Most of the noise seems to suggest he’s seen as a midfielder, both by those at the club and by himself, but he is still only 18 and I don’t think he should necessarily be pigeonholed in that way. This season (last season? You know what I mean!) the minutes came on the right because that was where we needed him. It could be that we come to the end of this transfer window and we are once again lacking a bit of depth on the right but have found someone to sit in Odegaard’s place from time to time. If the opening for minutes is out wide, that’s where he’ll get his minutes.

Saka himself spent a lot of time at left-back when he was first playing for the first team and he didn’t get regular starts on the right until December 2020/January 2021, after he’d turned 19. There doesn’t have to be some sort of final decision on where Nwaneri’s Arsenal career will happen right now, and asking him to contribute out wide with his ability to beat a man and provide a goal threat has looked, for now, a more effective way to use him at the highest level than sticking him in the heart of the pitch and asking him to run things.

Who knows, maybe he takes a leap over the coming months and looks more at home in midfield in the Premier League, but I don’t think it’s necessary to make a definitive choice on where he ends up long-term this early. I understand calls to maybe use him in that left eight role, but I’d be reluctant to move him away from the right-hand side of the pitch where he can utilise that already-trademark Arjen Robben-esque jaunt inside that allows him to take aim and wrap his left foot around the ball.

If you do keep him out there, that means he’ll only play when Saka or Odegaard don’t, so I think it’s the manager’s job to cook up ways to get all three of them on the pitch together at some point — maybe Odegaard moves across or Saka shifts into another position? Just because he’s world class on the right doesn’t mean he couldn’t contribute world class performances slightly more infield or on the left. I’d understand the reluctance to move him but it’s something I’d be open-minded to.

As I mentioned above, I think midfield is another interesting place if we talk about squad depth. Thomas Partey has spoken to 3Sports in Ghana about his future with his contract set to expire but things still up in the air.

“I think the first thing is where are you happy and where do you feel at home … then it’s about what is your next objective what do you want to achieve next. You still have to look at all this and at the end of the day we all have a family that needs money, this is our mind.

“We are not getting younger. There are a lot of things where you have to look now with a family, where you want them to be happy.

“I can’t decide anything and just have to leave it to my agent and the club. Me, I just want to enjoy football.”

With Martin Zubimendi set to come in and Jorginho going out, obviously keeping Partey around would mean we boost the depth, rather than keeping the same numbers in midfield. But I’m not all that sure we need that.

Declan Rice and Myles Lewis-Skelly would be the backups for that Zubimendi position and we do have a lot of depth in the roles they usually play. Minutes could be hard to come by for Mikel Merino next year if Rice is always in that left eight role — more than a third of Merino’s Premier League minutes last season came up front and that shouldn’t be happening again — and Kai Havertz can also still play in midfield, and may have to at times in order to get his regular minutes if a new striker comes in.

Lewis-Skelly is untested in midfield at this level, that’s clear, but he has all the attributes to play there and we have plenty of alternatives at left-back, with Riccardo Calafiori, Jakub Kiwior, and Jurrien Timber providing we can get more out of Ben White to play on the other side of the defence.

I don’t know, that all feels like adequate cover to me in those areas of the pitch.

Speaking of midfielders who are actually left-backs and vice versa, it seems former Gunner Giovanni van Bronckhorst is going to be making a return to English football to join Arne Slot’s coaching staff at Liverpool. Van Bronckhorst made one appearance at Anfield during his playing career was sent off after just 36 minutes. I don’t know what kind of omen any of that could be, but he knows how to get himself sent off at Anfield and if he could pass any of that knowledge on to the current Liverpool squad, that would be fine by me. Here are the highlights from that game before I quickly touch on something far less palatable:

Ever since Brentford were promoted, I’ve always thought of Thomas Frank as an intelligent, humble, well-spoken, magnanimous manager. He’s struck me for a while as someone who maybe deserved a shot at a club with the capacity to pack a heavier punch than Brentford.

Clearly I was wrong.

For a bit more on depth and squad players, Tim’s got a new piece on Leandro Trossard’s role and importance over the past season.

I’ll leave it there for today and catch you again tomorrow. If anything big happens, we’ll have you covered over at arseblog.news. Cheers all!

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