For any professional football manager, picking young players for the first team is an achievement in itself. Fans invariably love seeing ‘one of their own’ – players who have come through the club’s youth development system, and who are therefore much more likely to identify with and even support the club than players who are simply bought in at a later stage in their career – and will applaud their manager for giving them their first chance to play. Of all the greatest managers in football history, Jose Mourinho is probably alone in not having made youth development one of his priorities, instead preferring to rely almost exclusively on seasoned professionals. Unlike Mourinho, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta has belatedly recognised the importance of injecting youth into his team and it is probably the single biggest reason that the Gunners’ season has been transformed over the Christmas and new year period.
Mikel Arteta’s Apprentices See Arsenal Form Turn
Change May Have Been Forced on Arteta
It is arguable that Arteta was forced into it by Arsenal’s horrendous run of form before the first of those holiday fixtures, against Chelsea on Boxing Day, when the Gunners went seven Premier League matches without a win. A combination of the team’s terrible form, injuries and the unavailability of more experienced players because of Covid meant that he was forced to rebuild his team completely for that match. He not only adopted a conventional back four and reshaped the midfield and attack to play three primarily attacking players behind a central striker (Alexandre Lacazette, in the absence of the then injured Pierre-Emerick Aubamayang), but populated that new attacking trident with three very young players: Bukayo Saka, who was already a first-team regular, if not always as an attacker; Gabriel Martinelli, the brilliant young Brazilian who had excelled in his return from injury in the Carabao Cup quarter-final defeat against Manchester City a few days earlier; and, most importantly, finally selecting the highly touted Emile Smith Rowe as the number ten, playing directly behind Lacazette.
The result was a commanding 3-1 win against Chelsea, notwithstanding the late wobble that would probably have become an earthquake if Jorginho had scored a penalty to make it 3-2. Tactically, the inter-passing and rotation of positions between the four forward players, including Lacazette, made life extremely difficult for Chelsea’s already fragile defence. However, even more important than the tactical shift was the change in attitude, as Arteta’s apprentices (which they will surely come to be called if they can retain their places in the first team) literally brought new purpose and vigour to what had become an almost entirely static and moribund Arsenal team in the six weeks before Boxing day.
Smith Rowe is an Attacking and Defending Number Ten
After the Chelsea game, numerous writers, pundits and commentators pointed out that Smith Rowe, in particular, had been instrumental, not just for his attacking play but for the number of tackles and interceptions that he had made as a number ten, which is something that Mesut Özil either would not or could not do in all his years in the role. Henry Winter of The Times even went so far as to say that the 20-year-old Smith Rowe had been too much for N’Golo Kanté, the French World Cup-winning defensive midfielder who is probably still the world’s best player in that position.
Over the course of the next two games, against the two Albions of Brighton and West Bromwich, the Arsenal youngsters continued to demand a place in the first team. Saka brilliantly set up Lacazette’s winner at the Amex Stadium and then both Saka and Smith Rowe played superbly against West Brom, especially when they combined at lightning speed to set up the Saka tap-in that put Arsenal in complete control against the Baggies. Eventually, the young Gunners achieved a 4-0 crushing of a Sam Allardyce team that even the greatest Arsenal teams of Arsène Wenger rarely, if ever, achieved.
The Only Premier League Team to Win All Their Holiday Fixtures
Consequently, Arsenal became the only Premier League team to win all three of their holiday fixtures, although it should be emphasised that the Covid-caused cancellations of other games prevented other sides, notably Manchester City, from matching that achievement. They are still only 11th in the Premier League table, but for the first time since the very start of the season, when they similarly won three league games in a row, Arsenal can finally look upwards towards the European places rather than downwards towards the relegation battle.
This weekend, of course, attention turns to the FA Cup, the competition in which Arsenal, for all their manifold faults of recent years, can legitimately claim to be kings, having won it four times since 2014. It would be fascinating to conduct a survey of Arsenal fans to see whether that consistent acquisition of silverware between 2014 and 2020 is preferable to the period between 2005 and 2013 when the club won nothing but still qualified for the Champions League by finishing each season in the top four. The likelihood is that most Arsenal fans would want both – the winning of trophies and consistent high placement in the league – and that is the desire that Mikel Arteta must try and meet over the next few seasons.
Can Arteta’s Apprentices Go the Distance?
Nevertheless, Arteta’s addition of young players to the first team, whether it was forced upon him or not, has completely changed the atmosphere around Arsenal. There is still much to do when it comes to moving up the league table, but at the very least the recent performances of Saka, Smith Rowe and Martinelli, not to mention the sustained brilliance of the still-young Kieran Tierney at the back, have given Arsenal fans renewed optimism for what had threatened to be the most depressing of seasons, as they foresaw a relegation battle in the midst of a global pandemic. ‘Arteta’s apprentices will have to go some to match the genuine greatness of the Busby Babes (the gold standard of alliteratively nicknamed youthful sides), but for now, they have given Arsenal and Arteta himself the lift that they so desperately needed.
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