A first domestic defeat of the season for Arsenal does not a disaster make. However, the Gunners’ 3-1 loss to West Ham in the Carabao Cup, when Mikel Arteta rested Declan Rice and only brought him on after the game had effectively been lost, has undoubtedly exposed their greatest problem: a lack of quality in central midfield. They are relatively well stocked in both attack and defence (and of course in goal), but the middle of the park is where most games are won or lost. A Declan Rice absence from the starting rotation certainly exposed an area of comparative weakness.
Rice’s Absence Exposed Arsenal’s Weakness in Midfield
Declan Rice's engine is unbelievable 💨pic.twitter.com/qz6Y8g2EQg
— Gunners (@Gunnersc0m) October 27, 2023
It was no real surprise that Arsenal’s midfield was over-run against West Ham. Jorginho is a fine passer, but for both his previous clubs and his national side, Italy, he has always been at his best when paired alongside a more dynamic, athletic partner, such as N’Golo Kanté or Marco Verratti. Of course Rice provides such dynamism and athleticism, but in his absence Jorginho looked like a rapidly ageing player.
Arsenal’s other central midfielders against West Ham were no better, but that is not surprising because they are not really central midfielders. Both Fabio Vieira and Kai Havertz are really No.10s who do not have the power, presence or sheer tackling ability to compete for balls in a congested centre-field and that was evident again in the West Ham game.
Did Arsenal Really Strengthen In Midfield in the Summer?
The question must be asked as to whether Arsenal really strengthened in midfield this summer, as they had initially appeared to. The signing of Rice has already proved himself to be an outstanding addition and eventually will surely be regarded as a relative steal, even at £100 million-plus. However, his addition has been offset by the loss of last season’s central midfield partnership.
Increasingly, it seems bizarre that Arteta allowed Granit Xhaka to leave for Bayer Leverkusen. Admittedly, for most of his time with the Gunners, the Swiss midfielder was a major disappointment, but in retrospect that was because he was being played in the wrong part of midfield. Following Xhaka’s outstanding Euros 2020 with his national side, Arteta belatedly realised that he was really an attacking midfielder and not a defensive one, as his name had perhaps suggested. He then deployed Xhaka further forward, with extremely impressive results.
Of course, a large part of the reason that Xhaka was so outstanding last season was that he finally had a robust and mobile defensive midfield partner in Thomas Partey. The Ghanaian may have signed for Arsenal in 2020, but he was beset by injuries and it was only last season that he showed his best form. And that form was so impressive that no less an expert than Tony Adams said that Partey at his best was like a one-man version of the fabled Patrick Vieira-Emmanuel Petit midfield pairing with which Adams had won the Double in 1998, at least defensively.
Now, of course, that Xhaka-Partey partnership, which took so long to establish, has gone. Xhaka is top of the Bundesliga and Partey, after a late collapse in form last season, seems to have vanished from Arteta’s plans in central midfield. Most Arsenal fans and probably Declan Rice himself thought that Partey would have been paired with Rice in central midfield. However, even before Partey was injured again (and he remains out for at least a few more weeks), Arteta was bizarrely playing him at right-back rather than in midfield. Consequently, the dream of a midfield pairing of Partey and Rice, which would have borne comparison with Arsène Wenger’s greatest midfield pairings of Petit-Vieira and Petit-Gilberto Silva, seems as if it will never become reality.
Arteta’s Enduring Problem In Central Midfield
Other than Jorginho, the only other recognised central midfielder at Arsenal is Mohamed Elneny, who has barely played at all for several years, to the extent that many Arsenal fans ask: “How the ‘El is he still here?” And even when he did play, Elneny showed nothing to suggest that he can be Rice’s midfield partner.
It is ironic that central midfield has proved to be the hardest part of the field for Arteta to fill, given that he was an outstanding central midfielder himself. Yet he has consistently failed to find a central midfield that works for Arsenal. It took several seasons for the Xhaka-Partey partnership to work, only for it to be dismantled almost as soon as it did. And from his falling-out with Matteo Guendouzi to the failure of recruits such as Albert Sambi Lokanga, who is currently on loan at Crystal Palace (and not even playing much for them), Arteta has consistently failed to identify and develop talent in central midfield.
Possible Solutions To The Problem
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There are possible solutions. If Partey regains full fitness and the form that he showed for most of last season, he is the obvious midfield partner for Rice; he should certainly never be played again at full-back after his travails there in the early part of this season. Alternatively, Arteta will have to buy another, first-team-ready central midfielder in January. That, not another striker, is Arsenal’s priority in the transfer market.
Until then, Arteta must make do with the players he has, possibly redeploying Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays in midfield for Ukraine. However, Arteta’s tactics could also use Benjamin White as a specialist defensive midfielder, allowing Rice greater freedom to attack. White has arguably proved himself to be the best all-round defensive player in the Premier League, capable of filling all five defensive positions, including central defensive midfield, and he might just be a short-term solution for Arteta.
Nevertheless, what is obvious after the West Ham defeat is that Arteta really must strengthen in midfield, whether by buying new players in January or by redeploying defenders in midfield. However, even if he does, the spectre looms of what a Gunners team would be like without Rice if he were injured or suspended for a long period.
Against Newcastle this weekend, who themselves have lost a key midfielder (through suspension for gambling offences) in Sandro Tonali, Arsenal may have just enough in midfield to prevail. But in the longer term they must address this glaring weakness. Even Manchester City struggled without Rodri, losing all three games that he was suspended for recently. But if anything, Rice is even more important to Arsenal than Rodri is to City. And without him, or a decent midfield partner for him, much of Arsenal’s remarkable progress in recent seasons could begin to stall.
