Solutions

In a season of nursing heavy blows to the tender regions, Kai Havertz’s season ending injury feels a little bit like the final Mortal Kombat style ‘FINISH HIM!’ flourish. In a campaign of sly digs and abdominal punches, that really was the kick in the swingers that leaves us gasping for breath on the pavement. If only there was some sort of month-long mid-season ‘transfer window’ or similar to help mitigate against this kind of misfortune.

As much as fans are left to rue, stew and turn the air blue, Mikel Arteta and Arsenal have no choice but to go into solution mode. A few seasons ago I watched Jordan Nobbs rupture her ACL away at Everton with Arsenal top of the WSL table and Jordan in the form of her life. I recall asking then boss Joe Montemurro how he deals with the emotion of such an outcome, and not least the issues it gives you as a coach, especially when he is expected to show leadership and resilience to the wider group.

‘As a coach, you instantly have to go into solution mode and that sometimes protects you from the emotion or getting bent out of shape about it,’ Montemurro told me. I imagine, and hope, the same is true of Arteta and his coaching staff now as they seek to avoid the asteroid hurtling towards them. There is certainly plenty of food for thought.

Because not only have Arsenal lost their two recognised centre-forwards for the season, there is a secondary issue the team have also encountered with the absences of Saka and Odegaard during this campaign- the team is just not used to playing without Havertz as its focal point. The squad does not really have an analogue for his qualities, not least his frame.

Which is probably why early whispers of Mikel Merino being trialled as an emergency centre-forward make some sense. And let me be clear that the intention of this article is not to make light of the size of the issue in discussing potential solutions. Arteta is looking for his least worst options and Arsenal are going to lose points as a direct result of Havertz’s absence, just as they did with the absences of Odegaard and Saka.

Ahead of Arsenal’s rejuvenating (ha!) mid-season trip to Dubai, I hoped that figuring out how a Havertz-less Arsenal might look like would be on the agenda. Dubai was really the first time in a good seven weeks that Arsenal had the opportunity to do more in training than recover from the gruelling schedule.

Even if his hamstring wasn’t wiv da angelz now, Havertz was never going to be able to play every minute of every game for the remainder of the season. Arteta said as much himself recently. So hopefully some kind of contingency was already in the works. It is worth mentioning that, at the very least, Saka and Martinelli are due back in about a month’s time so whatever solution Arsenal do fall on, it is (currently) not going to be needed for the remainder of the campaign.

Because what you usually find when you lose a key piece of your team is that the surprise factor works for you temporarily. As it stands, Leicester and West Ham have little to no idea how Arsenal will line up against them in the coming games. Arsenal do at least have a week between those games to work on some patterns of play in training too.

Over a longer period of time; once teams begin to understand how you have reconfigured, the stopgap solution will often splutter to a halt. The key attribute Arsenal lose without Havertz is his height. None of Trossard, Sterling or Nwaneri really replicate this. Arsenal have a mix and match approach when they build from the back.

David Raya ‘launches’ around 35% of his passes per game which puts Arsenal slap bang in the middle of the Premier League table for number of launched passes from the keeper. The teams ahead of them in that table possess strikers like Beto, Wood, Wissa, Mateta and Delap. Without Havertz, I would expect Arsenal to drop in that table over the coming weeks and months.

When Arsenal lost Odegaard and found themselves without an analogue for their captain, they devised a sort of 442 / 424 hybrid system that saw Havertz and Trossard swapping between deeper and more advanced roles. Usually, they rotated based on when Arsenal wanted to ‘go long’ to Havertz or when they wanted to combine.

My best prediction is that Arsenal try something similar with Merino and Trossard, that Merino moves into those more advanced positions when Raya needs to go long, or Arsenal want to cross, with Trossard dropping in behind him. But when the ball is on the floor and the team is probing in a more considered fashion, I would expect to see Trossard as the nominal striker.

I think there is a fair chance that when Arteta fell upon this solution for Odegaard’s absence earlier in the season, he was inspired by how David Moyes had configured some of his better Everton teams. Strangely, Moyes struggled to juice the best from renowned, fixed strikers like Yakubu, Andrew Johnson and James Beattie. Moyes’ Everton worked better when they rotated Cahill and Fellaini in the forwardmost position.

I know many will roll their eyes at the vague comparison between Merino and Fellaini, but Fellaini was a very dangerous and productive player, the criticisms of him were largely borne of aesthetic distaste. Using Merino as more of a ‘box crasher’ might also make use of Kieran Tierney’s crossing ability from the left because, make no mistake, Arsenal are going to have to use Kieran Tierney on the left wing for at least some parts of some games.

Havertz is also very valuable to Arsenal because of his ability to press and, again, Merino is probably more suited to take on that work than anyone else. The Spaniard has yet to really ‘pop’ as an Arsenal signing but this is an opportunity for him to do so. A frontline built on rotation of positions is probably going to have to become a theme and Merino will need to produce more penalty area threat.

I would not start Nwaneri or Sterling in the centre-forward position but Trossard’s versatility ought to make him reasonably good at a hybrid striker role. If Merino is going to be the moon, Trossard is going to have to be the sun around which Arsenal’s attack now orbits. Trossard assisted six goals in six games when used in this rotational position with Havertz in the autumn, he is a strong facilitator.

Nwaneri is excellent in front of goal, rotations and movements that allow him to get into good shooting positions on his left foot have to be a priority. I must confess I feel a little less hopeful about Raheem Sterling, I just think he has lost that burst over short distances that used to see him explode past defenders, on or off the ball, with a short pitter patter of his feet.

However, he has three months to turn this loan spell around. While a permanent contract at Arsenal is absolutely out of the question, all that awaits him this summer is further purgatory at Chelsea and a slim selection of suitors. The problem is that I am not convinced his is a motivation issue and more a loss of an attribute that once made him so lethal.

This, dear reader, is not intended to be an optimistic article. Had you told me last August that, come February, I would be writing about Kieran Tierney on the left wing and Mikel Merino as our Marouane Fellaini, I would have responded with some ugly crying. But that is where we are and, at least, brainstorming solutions protects you a little from the sheer hopelessness of it all.

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