Jurrien Timber marked his return from injury this week with an outstanding goal from left-back for the U23s at Ewood Park. As any sensible person knew when he injured his ACL in August, this campaign was always going to be limited to a few cameos in the dying embers of the season for Timber.
An absolute beauty from Timber 🔥
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— Arsenal Academy (@ArsenalAcademy) April 22, 2024
Arsenal fans should not expect anything significant from Timber this season but his return does invite curiosity as to what his role would have been had he been fit. One of the key strengths of the squad that Arteta (and Edu) have assembled is its flexibility. The Gunners have a core of versatile, adaptable players capable of operating in a number of roles.
Was Declan Rice bought as a six or an eight? The answer, to this point, is both. Was Kai Havertz bought principally as an eight or a nine? The intention was clearly that he was capable of playing both and therefore would play in both roles from time to time. (He started the Community Shield match against Manchester City as a centre-forward).
However, I doubt that Arteta fully planned for Havertz to predominantly play as a nine, with Rice as a left eight and Jorginho behind him. I am certain he saw that scenario playing out on occasion but he probably didn’t plan for it to become such a default theme of his team selection.
But one of the advantages of having such a flexible squad is that the manager can roll with the punches a little. As Arteta himself said recently of Havertz’s long run upfront, ‘I think you have to feel the player. Until he’s in the environment it’s difficult to understand. I thought he could play in three different positions as attacking midfielder or as a nine.
‘And then we started to feel in certain spaces, certain relationships this is everything. Sometimes the players decide, not the manager, where they have to…
Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/04/flexibility-breeds-resilience/
Author : Tim Stillman
Publish date : 2024-04-25 12:00:43
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