A trio of forwards were on target as Arsenal became only the second Premier League side this season to score three goals against Liverpool but none of them can be classed as a traditional striker.
That is unsurprising considering the Gunners began and ended the game without one. Gabriel Jesus’s name was missing from the teamsheet with Mikel Arteta confirming pre-match that he was unavailable due to a knee injury that he hopes will be a “short-term thing”.
Arteta is used to not being able to select Jesus by now. The Brazilian has started just 37 of 60 Premier League matches since joining from Manchester City for £45m in July 2022 due to knee and hamstring injuries. That’s only two more than Ivan Toney has managed and the Brentford striker was banned for eight months.
Jesus is an excellent footballer, but his two flaws are fitness and finishing. The 26-year-old is a four-time Premier League winner but his inconsistent end product meant he was never Pep Guardiola’s main man. His tendency to pick up aches and strains means he is unlikely to ever become Arsenal’s either.
Arsenal will almost certainly buy a top striker in the summer with Toney a potential solution. But for the time being, Arteta has found a workable solution with Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz operating as a floaty front two in and out of possession.
It’s a tactic that Arteta used against Liverpool in the FA Cup last month and one that Jurgen Klopp acknowledged caused his side problems.
“It’s difficult to prepare for what Arsenal did tonight,” he said.
“In the first half it was a different set-up with Havertz and Odegaard more or less as double No 10s – 4-2-2-2 with wingers wide. [A] massive threat.”
With Jesus absent, Arteta repeated the trick; Liverpool can’t say they weren’t warned.
The duo don’t make for a conventional strike partnership. Liverpool’s centre-backs Virgil van Dijk and Ibrahima Konate spent most of the game man-marking no-one but that’s precisely the point. Their job was to search for space, not challenge for headers.
It worked a treat for Bukayo Saka’s opener. Odegaard slunk away from the unsuspecting Van Dijk and played a perfectly cushioned first-time volleyed pass into Havertz’s path after he had freed himself from Konate. Havertz was unable to finish it off, but Saka was on hand to poke home the rebound.
It’s a ploy that suits the notoriously free-spirited Havertz more so than Odegaard, as it provides him with a platform to roam and meander rather than a set role that restricts when and where he can move. Havertz is an unconventional nuisance, neither a sprinter nor a brute, but he is a nuisance nonetheless. His heatmap featured blotches all over the pitch, as though it were tracking an eight-year-old rather than an international footballer.
They had key parts to play off the ball, pressing high and cutting off passing lanes centrally by forming a compact square with their central midfielders. Ordinarily, that might be asking for trouble against a team that contains the crossing qualities of Trent Alexander-Arnold, but he was ineffective and subbed off before the hour. Liverpool struggled to break the lines without Dominik Szoboszlai.
With most teams playing with one striker, centre-backs often take turns dealing with them. Neither Konate nor Van Dijk had that luxury at the Emirates. Konate especially struggled, receiving a late red card after being given two yellow cards for separate fouls on Havertz after being dragged into zones he had no desire to be in.
There was absolutely nothing intricate about Arsenal’s second or third goals. A colossal mix-up between Van Dijk and Alisson presented Gabriel Martinelli with an open goal, before Leandro Trossard was allowed to run half the length of the pitch unchallenged and squeeze a shot through the keeper’s legs to wrap it up.
Arsenal will not face such fallible defences every week and there remains a suspicion that they are a world-class striker away from being truly capable of seizing City’s crown. Nevertheless, beating Liverpool without one shows that Arteta has found different ways to win. That stands them in good stead for a title race they have flung wide open.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/gPNziBF
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