Arsenal have a deep, experienced group of midfielders. Hopefully the summer addition of Bruno Guimaraes combined with Myles Lewis-Skelly becoming more trusted in his natural central midfield position means that Arsenal won’t break Declan Rice nor run Martin Zubimendi completely into the ground. There will be plenty of minutes to go around and Mikel Arteta needs to do a better job of sharing them, otherwise the club will find themselves in the familiar position of an early spring dip and searching
around in the couch cushions for spare change to buy gas to refill empty tanks.
If this bunch can stay fit, it’s among the best midfields in the Premier League and Europe. Pay no attention to the average age of the position group. That’s not a problem. For now.
Declan Rice, 27, CDM – two-thirds of the globe is covered by water, the rest is covered by Declan Rice. Arsenal’s freak-of-nature, unicorn midfielder is the best in the world at what he does — wrecking shit. He’s not your traditional destroyer who puts in thunderous tackles. He reads the game, anticipates where the ball is going to go, and is almost always there on-time to break up the play. When he’s not there, he relentlessly hunts the ball down. When Arsenal are at their very best, they are suffocating and smothering the other team in the attacking and middle third without the ball, and Declan Rice is a big part of that.
Rice is best-served by having an adept passer (or two) in the midfield with him because while he’s a capable distributor, he’s not the guy that’s going to open up a defense with a line-breaker. He can and will, however, take space on the dribble, gobbling up seemingly impossible amounts of ground with his long, powerful strides. His set piece delivery is a big part of why Arsenal are the best team in the world from dead ball situations. His open play attacking contributions took a step backwards last season but that was a function of Arsenal’s attack overall being less potent. Expect that to rebound this season if guys like Martin Ødegaard, Bukayo Saka, and Kai Havertz player more games.
The biggest concern this season for Rice is whether he’ll break down physically. He’s played a lot of football and doesn’t get much rest. He seems able to manage but the back / hip issues down the stretch last year that he “managed” through the World Cup are concerning. Hopefully Mikel Arteta is able to rest and rotate him a bit more this season.
Martin Zubimendi, 27, CDM – for the first half of last season, Martin Zubimendi was the best signing in the Premier League. His efficient, direct progressive passing kept the ball moving and he rarely put a foot wrong. Don’t let people fool you with the talk of how he (or Arsenal) always pass sideways / backwards. He was moving the ball up the pitch. As the season wore on, you could tell he was tiring. Mistakes crept in. He hit his highest ever minutes total for a season in early March and his play declined markedly. He eventually lost his place (rightly) to Myles Lewis-Skelly.
Expect a bounce-back campaign from him. With Mikel Arteta (hopefully) spreading the minutes around in midfield, he should be fresher for longer and capable of doing the things that made us ooh and aah throughout the fall.
Myles Lewis-Skelly, 19, CDM – the Hale End graduate may finally get to play his natural position for a season! Lewis-Skelly got some run in the middle of the field towards the end of last season when Martin Zubimendi ran out of gas and the youngster hasn’t looked back. He’s an excellent ball-progressor, both on the dribble and with line-breaking passes. He is composed on the ball well beyond his years.
Lewis-Skelly isn’t particularly fast, which is a bit of a worry against sides that will look to hit Arsenal on the counter. He can also get himself into a bit of trouble with his confidence in his ability to use his body-positioning and strength to hold off pressure, particularly if the referee on the day isn’t giving those sorts of fouls.
His brilliant performance in the Community Shield was a sign of what is to come this season. He’s another on-ball technician in a midfield that, mostly because Martin Ødegaard missed a good chunk of the last two seasons, really wants for reliable passers.
Bruno Guimaraes, 28, CDM / CAM – the experienced Brazilian is Arsenal’s big signing of the summer, joining for £75M, the largest ever fee for a midfielder older than 26. He adds another technical, creative player to the center of the park and plenty of steel. His flexibility is tremendously valuable — he can do a fair number of the defensive things that Declan Rice does and provides much of the creative passing that Martin Ødegaard supplies — he can cover for either or play alongside them.
He’s likely to be the riskiest with the ball of any of Arsenal’s midfielders and is comfortable operating under pressure. He is always looking to make a chance-creating play. He’s happy to take an extra touch to better find the window to play a long ball over the top or slide a killer pass between defenders.
Like Myles Lewis-Skelly, pace isn’t his strong suit, which is something Mikel Arteta will be aware of when deploying the pairing together as he did in the Community Shield. On the other hand, the technical security of a MLS, Bruno, Ødegaard trio is the stuff of dreams. You can add Martin Zubimendi to that mix, too.
We’re going to love having Bruno at our club.
Martin Ødegaard, 27, CAM – the Arsenal captain has had two injury-plagued seasons in a row. I’d bet he’d be the first to tell you that he’s not been at his best for a while. For what it’s worth, his underlying numbers last season were pretty darn good when he played — he was one of the best midfielders on per 90 stats in several creative midfielder categories — it’s just that he missed so much time that the overall numbers were low.
He had an excellent World Cup and has looked great in preseason. When he’s at his best, he’s world class. There aren’t many players with his combination of creative passing, attacking capability, press-leading tenacity, and tactical / defensive intelligence. He’s equally capable of operating in and around the box as he is of dropping deeper to be a primary ball-progressor.
Many are predicting a big, bounce-back season from him. I’m with them. His injuries have been mostly bad luck — a weird fall, a bad step — and not the worrying soft-tissue stuff that keeps cropping once a player has had them. He’ll be a big reason why Arsenal’s open-play attack looks significantly better this season.
Eberechi Eze, 28, CAM / WF (wide forward) – Eze’s spurning Spurs to come home to Arsenal story and big performance against Tottenham masked what was kind of a disappointing campaign. There’s no denying his talent. He’s attack-minded, creative, and an excellent ball-striker. He has the rare ability to create a goal out of nothing and nowhere, which is tremendously valuable. But he struggled with consistency and turnovers and it’s not 100% clear what his best fit is in the formation.
This season, I think we’ll see him play both through the middle and on the left “wing” drifting inside. He seemed to get more comfortable as the season wore on. Like all players, he played better when he played consistently. The issue is that there are a lot of good players at Arsenal and it can be tough to find the right balance of spreading minutes around.
Mikel Merino, 30, CAM / CF / WHATEVER – you don’t really notice Mikel Merino when he’s on the pitch until he’s scoring World Cup knockout winners. He has an uncanny knack for being in the right place at the right time. He goes to where the ball is going to be. He finds pockets of space to knit the play together. He might be the best striker at the club.
He missed February, March, and April of last season, and the impact of his absence was neither properly appreciated nor discussed as part of why Arsenal’s play slid and Manchester City were able to close the gap. He’s an on-field glue guy that does correct, positive things with and without the ball and maintains the overall level of play whether he’s starting or coming on as a sub. He’s an important, unheralded player for the club.
Ethan Nwaneri, 19, CAM / WF – Nwaneri is listed as a midfielder on the club website so that’s where he’s included for preview purposes. He’s more of an attacker but his usage is most often in the Martin Ødegaard spot. I wouldn’t mind seeing him get more time as a false nine-esque player but that doesn’t seem on the cards. Mostly because he’s probably not going to spend this season at Arsenal. From what Mikel Arteta has said, the club prefer to loan the Hale End graduate again this season, but they’re not categorically opposed to selling him should the right offer come along.
He’s a talented player with an eye for goal but he’s not quite been able to break through in North London, despite scoring 9 goals in all competitions two seasons ago. A large part of that is he’s not reached the demanding out-of-possession level Mikel Arteta requires of his players. That’s not a knock on him, it’s a tough part of the game to learn. It’s not a question of effort, either. He’s just not effective enough yet.
The other part of that is opportunity. Players need to play and minutes are hard to come by at Arsenal. When every point matters, there isn’t much room to risk a young player making a “learning moment” mistake to develop his game. But there is some room and Mikel Arteta could do a better job of finding those kinds of opportunities, particularly for a player that, in Arteta’s own words, is a special talent.
Fabio Vieira is still with the club for the time being, but he’ll be loaned / sold before the close of the transfer window. He’ll probably head back to Hamburg, where he had a solid season on loan. I don’t think we’ll see any other business before the close of the window as far as midfielders are concerned. As this piece was being written, Mikel Arteta confirmed that Myles Lewis-Skelly was “100%” staying at Arsenal. Hooray!
