As Arsenal fans disembarked their train from Birmingham to Euston on Saturday night a few started a chant with hundreds more soon joining in until it reverberated noisily around the station platform: “Trossard again, ole ole!”
The Trossard love-in followed the Belgian’s latest goal in a statement 2-0 win against Aston Villa a few hours before.
Gabriel Martinelli may not have known about the outpouring of affection for his positional rival from the travelling supporters as he sat on the team bus but the clamour for Trossard to take his starting place is growing.
That would have been unthinkable 15 months ago after the best season of Martinelli’s career.
Arsenal made giant strides in 2022-23 and few players contributed as much as Martinelli, who top-scored for them in the Premier League (with 15, level with Martin Odegaard) and set up five more.
With Bukayo Saka on the right and Martinelli on the left, Arsenal had found their wide forwards for the next decade, worthy successors to Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane as the Premier League’s best wing duo. Between them, they directly contributed towards 45 league goals that campaign with Saka chipping in with 14 goals and 11 assists.
The pair embodied Mikel Arteta’s fearless young team with their direct, driving runs and devastating pace on the counter.
Saka attempted the most dribbles and made more progressive carries – essentially dribbles that move a player closer to the opposition goal – than any other player in the Premier League that season with Martinelli ranked fourth and seventh respectively.
However, while Saka maintained his output in 2023-24 by reaching the 25 mark for goals and assists again, Martinelli’s numbers reduced by half with just six goals and four assists to show from his 35 appearances.
At the start of this season, Saka has registered two assists and a goal from two starts; Martinelli is yet to contribute any of either.
Young players, of which Martinelli at 23 still is, are often prone to periods of inconsistency during their developmental years with Saka a rare exception to the rule.
Martinelli has time on his side to rediscover his blistering best and has a manager who believes in him, but his slump is at risk of slipping into stagnation.
There are a few plausible theories as to why Martinelli’s form has faded, the most compelling of which is that it has coincided with Arsenal’s evolution into a team that can control games and that has located a better balance between defence and attack.
Arsenal’s trajectory mirrors that of the TV show The Bear. With each passing season, the chaos is dialled down and the refinement level goes up. Arsenal were once The Beef, the fast-food restaurant that Carmy inherited serving up feel-good fast food; now they are The Bear, the fine dining establishment that the Michelin-trained chef transformed it into. It was more entertaining before, but the end product now is superior.
A measure of that change is that Saka and Martinelli both dropped out of the top 10 for attempted dribbles in 2023-24 and slipped down the progressive carries charts too. Arsenal dominate the ball more and play less on the counter now. Saka has adapted to the shift in style, whereas Martinelli has struggled to. He is still most effective when he has space in front of him, but Arsenal are less reliant on fast breaks to score goals than they used to be.
Another factor is that Arsenal’s left flank is far less settled than the right. Ben White, Odegaard and Saka are all mainstays of Arteta’s starting line-up, but there is more rotation on the left with Jurrien Timber, Oleksandr Zinchenko and Riccardo Calafiori all competing at left-back and Martinelli vying for position with Trossard.
Arsenal tend to attack teams more on the right wing than on the left. All four of their goals this season and 45 per cent of their attacking moves so far have come down that side of the pitch, compared to 29 per cent on the opposite flank.
It’s a small sample size, but Martinelli has had fewer touches per-90 minutes than any other Arsenal player this season, including David Raya.
Perhaps another reason is that Martinelli faces more intense competition for his place than most in the Arsenal squad and at the moment his competitor has the edge.
Trossard has proven to be an outstanding signing for the Gunners since joining from Brighton in January 2023, scoring 14 goals and setting up 12 more in 56 Premier League appearances, of which half have been as a substitute.
Trossard’s moody reaction to scoring against Villa laid bare his frustration at losing his starting spot after he displaced Martinelli in the spring. It’s easy to see why he was aggrieved given he contributed five goals in his final eight league matches of last season.
Having given Martinelli the nod in Arsenal’s first two games, Arteta has a big decision to make with fixtures against Brighton, Spurs and Manchester City coming up. Trossard has starred as a super-sub and warrants a promotion. Martinelli isn’t currently justifying Arteta’s trust.
It wasn’t that long ago that Martinelli looked destined to become a world-beater but he may need to adapt to the new Arsenal to get back to his best.
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