Rebuild the team around Arshavin
Written by Chris Michaels on Thursday, May 20, 2010
So it looks like he's going. It looks like we're going to lose Fabregas, in what will be an epochal moment for Wenger's Arsenal.
It creates two major problems for the team, and one major opportunity. To move beyond Cesc, as we did when Paddy and Henry both left, we will have to slightly alter our approach again - if Wenger is capable of doing that.
The first problem is how to replace Cesc's goals. He broke 20 goals last year, and was by some distance our leading scorer in the league. Only Lampard and Gerrard in world football score as many as that from midfield, so we must assume that, like-for-like, there is no replacement. But we need the goals, we have to have them. That means we need either to find a new high scoring wide-man to play on the right of a front three, or we have to revert to a two striker system. Chamakh, we must assume, is the intended answer to that, but slotting him in alone leaves our other major problem unsolved.
That is the problem of assists - how do we make goals? Cesc is absolutely peerless in this for us. Again, it's players we cannot buy - Lampard, Gerrard, Xavi - who offer the same level of quality. And again, we must assume no like for like replacement is possible.
So we might need to think differently and alter the way we focus our attacks.
That means taking the opportunity with Fabreags going, and sorting out our defensive structure.
The option to take YaYa Touré as part of the deal is one we must pursue, if true. Touré's height, strength and quality would allow us to create a defensive midfield duo with Alex Song that would roll us back to the Vieira/Gilberto years. It's a pivot which could be used in two ways - either at the centre of a 442, or in a formation that mirrors that of Inter Milan - a 4213.
That formation feels intuitively right for the squad we have, and for our need to make up for what we lose with Cesc.
In Mourinho's Inter team it's always three out and out strikers in the front three. Strong, powerful, hard-working strikers like Eto'o and Milito and Bolotelli. Not, note, speedy strikers. But strikers who pin back the opporsition defence.
We have that in van Persie, in Chamakh and in Bendtner. We can support that with Walcott, who may come alive pushed right up front in that type of formation, with a mission to drive defenders back.
But it's the 1 in a 4213 who matters most. And who should our playmaker be? Sneijder has done the job beautifully for Inter - in their win over Chelsea he ripped them apart with devastating passing.
We have four options: Nasri and Rosicky, who've both played there before; Ramsey who, injury permitting, is born to the combination of vision and steel the playmaker role requires ... And Arshavin, who comes with risks, but is the most talented, and potentially the most transformatory of our teams fortunes.
Arshavin has been like the engine in a Ferrari caught in traffic: a thing of massive power and beauty constrained by situation. Whether out wide left or as lone striker he's only been able to give a part of what he can be: one of the very very best players in the world. And we've seen him struggle with the situation - his form, mood and finishing are all fragile because of it.
If ever there was a moment to put our money on the best talent we have left, this is it.
That to me is the challenge and the opportunity. Use Cesc's departure to put more steel in defensive midfield and play more outright goal getters up front. Then put Arshavin at the bridge-point between the two and unleash his talent, his passing, his long-range shooting, his dribbling, as the central force in the team.
Right now I see no other way beyond the tragedy of Cesc's seemingly inevitable departure. And in a funny kind of way, I feel quite excited about what a team with Arshavin at its heart might do.
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