Arsenal may have missed out on securing their top transfer target this month after being Todd Boehly’d in their pursuit of Ukrainian winger Mykhailo Mudryk, but they have moved swiftly on from that disappointment by signing Leandro Trossard from Brighton instead.
And for a significantly cheaper fee than the £88.5m Chelsea splashed out on Mudryk. The 28-year-old has joined for an initial £20m transfer fee potentially rising to £27m if performance-related add-ons are met, and has signed a three-and-a-half-year deal with the option of an additional 12 months. He will wear the No 19 shirt for his new club.
It looks like an astute piece of business. Trossard’s Premier League experience, versatility and history of working alongside Mikel Arteta’s assistant manager Albert Stuivenberg during their brief time together at Genk, should ensure a relatively speedy adaptation. Arsenal are adding proven quality to a squad chasing a first league title since 2004.
“He is a versatile player with high technical ability, intelligence and a great deal of experience in the Premier League and at international level,” Arteta said.
“Leandro strengthens our squad as we head into the second part of the season and we’re all looking forward to working with him.”
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Although he was used in a variety of positions for Brighton, including at centre-forward and wing-back, Trossard is most accustomed to playing as a wide forward, usually on the left, or else as a No.10, positions that are currently occupied at Arsenal by Gabriel Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard.
Only once this season has Arteta not named that trio together in his starting line-up for a Premier League match, back in September when Odegaard missed a 3-0 win against Brentford due to a calf injury. Martinelli and Saka have started all 18 Premier League games this season. Although Trossard may struggle to break up the triumvirate, he will be a useful option should injury, fatigue or a dip in form affect any of them during the second half of the season.
All three have been pivotal to Arsenal’s impressive ascent to the Premier League summit. Whereas Erling Haaland has scored 15 more goals than any other Manchester City player (22 in total) and contributed to 44 per cent of their overall tally, Arsenal have shared the workload around. Odegaard leads the charts with eight, followed by Martinelli on seven, Saka on six and the currently injured Gabriel Jesus on five.
Three Arsenal players are already in double figures for league goal involvements (goals plus assists): Odegaard (13; eight goals, five assists); Saka (13; six goals and seven assists) and Jesus (10; five goals, five assists), while Martinelli has managed nine (seven goals, two assists). One of Odegaard, Saka or Martinelli has provided at least a goal or assist in 16 of Arsenal’s 18 league games, the exceptions being draws against Southampton and Newcastle.
Those numbers demonstrate that Arsenal’s attack is both efficient and cohesive. Each player is completely intuned to the movements and traits of the others, which is why Arsenal have been so difficult to stop this season and such potency has limited Arteta’s capacity to rotate. Arsenal’s understudies in those roles – Fabio Vieira, Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe – have featured for a combined 358 minutes in the Premier League this campaign.
Leandro Trossard’s Premier League stats for Brighton
- 2019-20: 31 apps (five goals, three assists)
- 2020-21: 35 apps (five goals, five assists)
- 2021-22: 34 apps (eight goals, three assists)
- 2022-23: 16 apps (seven goals, two assists)
- Total: 116 apps (25 goals, 13 assists)
The benefit that Trossard has over Arsenal’s current backups, though, is that he is already in his peak, rather than in a developmental phase. Over the past 18 months, Trossard’s goalscoring output has noticeably increased: after scoring five goals in his first two seasons at Brighton, he contributed eight last season and seven in only 16 games this term. He was one of the most in-form players in the league prior to the World Cup.
His arrival marks a break from Arsenal’s recent transfer policy that has prioritised players with potential over more established names. Since the start of last season, Arsenal have signed 13 outfielders, all of whom were 25 or under at the time of their arrival – including 22-year-old Poland centre-back Jakub Kiwior who is joining from Spezia – with the exception of Trossard. That additional experience can be beneficial to a dressing room that is short of it.
After excelling in a Brighton side renowned for pressing high and with intensity, he should be a natural stylistic fit for Arteta’s system too. Trossard may not be as exciting a recruit as Mudryk would have been, but he is a plug-in-and-play option that improves Arsenal’s squad depth. And with a Premier League title to contest, that could be all important.
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