Arsenal kick off their Europa League campaign in Zurich on Thursday night. While I don’t think Arsenal will completely ignore their first-choice starters for the group stages, it’s obvious that there will be a generous amount of rotation and opportunities for players who are seen as stand-ins for established first-choice players. Here are three players in particular, for whom the Europa League group stage will be instructive.
Albert SAMBI LOKONGASigned from Anderlecht last summer, the Belgian found his opportunities restricted in a season without Europe last year. Lokonga entered the team for the injured Thomas Partey in April and found it difficult to get the rust off the ring after months of watching from the bench. Arsenal were rarely in charge of enough Premier League games to give him soft minutes off the bench before April.
He was exposed during a couple of team-damaging results and was quickly replaced in the starting line-up by the more experienced Mohamed Elneny with Sambi rarely seen again. Elneny’s contract was renewed over the summer and it seems a decision has been made that the deeper midfield position is not suitable for Sambi’s talent.
During last season’s final game against Everton, Sambi was substituted for Granit Xhaka and all of his pre-season minutes were spent in that left-eight role. Generally speaking, this is all good and Xhaka turns 30 later in September, although he is not ready for the skinner yard, there is a potential path for him in the team there.
That was until the signing of Oleksandr Zinchenko, which surely knocks Sambi down the pecking order from the left eight, not to mention the acquisition of Fabio Vieira. Fast forward a few weeks and Elneny and Partey get injured within days of each other. Arteta’s response was to try (unsuccessfully) to sign Douglas Luiz on deadline day.
Whichever way you look at it, all the evidence suggests that Sambi’s talent will win over Arteta. Whether as a left six or eight, he’s the third option at best at both positions. Injuries to Elneny and Partey and Luiz’s inability to land present him with an opportunity in that deeper role.
The Europa League is Sambi’s opportunity to convince Arteta that he deserves a more prominent place in Arteta’s plans and it is also an opportunity for him to relearn some of the fundamentals of the deeper role. He impressed with possession against Aston Villa and Manchester United, but his game without the ball needs work. The group stage of the Europa League is a good opportunity to speed up his education and develop a rhythm of play.
Analysis Sambi vs. Villa.
I agree with much of the analysis here, much of which I tried to explain in my thread the other day.
TikTok video from @Seneziz pic.twitter.com/pEhLFpRPBA https://t.co/qoa32n2xuj
– Gilles ???????????? ???????????? ???? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????????????????????? (@_grimanditweets) September 2, 2022
Fábio VIEIRASIf the injuries to Elneny and Partey opened a door for Sambi Lokonga, they also opened a window for Fábio Vieira. All the talk suggested that a right winger was what Arsenal really wanted in the closing days of the window, but the midfield injury situation altered their approach.
As a player slightly below the starting XI, Vieira’s name is mentioned in the double and triple. His versatility is a big part of the reason that convinced the Gunners to part with the guts of £30m for a player who didn’t seem to be an absolute priority. He seemed like a smart squad addition.
His ability to play as a right winger or right eight means he provides cover for Odegaard and Saka without having to rely on just one of those players getting injured. His chances of being involved and, more importantly, not being isolated from the team for long periods, are increased if he covers two important players instead of just one. This was a problem for Tavares and Sambi last season, who endured long stretches without playing because their elders didn’t get injured until later in the season.
You want your squad players to stay as involved as possible and having squad players that can cover different roles helps and encourages that. The midfield situation probably pushes Vieira up the central midfield carousel in the eighth left position as well. There is a chance to move Xhaka back to the midfield base with Vieira on his left.
Suddenly, Vieira finds himself as a substitute for three important players. Whether his role becomes multifaceted and how that affects his development remains to be seen. He sometimes teaches a player some important fundamentals, sometimes he can make a player too tactically nomadic to secure a place in the medium term (Maitland-Niles, Oxlade Chamberlain).
It will be interesting to see what form Vieira’s Europa League campaign takes. Whose burden will he bear? Xhaka? Odegaard? saka? All of them at different times? Midfield is where the “senior team” has personnel problems at the moment. I imagine we’ll see him play the role of Xhaka and if he impresses I can see Xhaka moving to the base of midfield and Vieira to the left eight role in the Premier League. For his own long-term prospects at Arsenal, Xhaka’s role seems more “available” in the medium term than either Saka or Odegaard.
Reiss NELSONNelson was probably one of Arsenal’s biggest winners in the transfer window. The late window’s shift in focus away from the wing and towards an unsuccessful search for a central midfielder means, in theory at least, that Nelson has a chance to reassert his case and remind people of the qualities that made him so highly rated as a teenager.
Development is rarely linear for young players and it would certainly be history if Nelson could reestablish himself as any kind of option in Mikel Arteta’s offensive rolodex. Of course, a grain of realism is required here, there’s just no chance of him dethroning Bukayo Saka or becoming a bona fide first pick.
However, with a year remaining on his contract, Arsenal are probably not the team he will be looking to impress in the long run. One of the reasons I think the club found it difficult to get a right-sided attacker is the star player syndrome. When a team has an absolute star, it’s hard to persuade a good player to come in and replace him.
Spurs struggled with the dedicated backing of Harry Kane for years, Liverpool have spent the last five years or so fielding one of the most symbiotic front lines in European football in Salah, Mane and Firmino. During much of his tenure as attacking prime minister, his deputies were Divock Origi and Takumi Minamino.
It is not a glamorous role that is at stake for Nelson, but it is much more than seemed available to him a fortnight ago. He should be encouraged by Eddie Nketiah’s run last season, as Eddie seemed to be drifting out the door just to win a new contract. In reality, Nelson is playing for his next contract somewhere else, a Bosman no less. His task will be to rise to prominence in the Europa League group stage, as he did as a teenager.
From there, if he can work his way into a few Premier League minutes to ease Saka’s burden, he’ll be in a much better position to attract attractive suitors than if he’s handing out oranges at half-time. The failure of the Europa League and Arsenal to land another winger offers Nelson a launch pad to reignite his career.
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