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While there’s still a lot to play for this season, it’s perfectly understandable that a lot of the discussion recently has centred around next season. Even if we win the Europa League, and that would be a massive achievement and something to truly celebrate, our Premier League campaign will remain a disappointment and not good enough for a club like Arsenal.
We’ve already lost 12 games, and although a barnstorming finish ? if it were to happen ? would make for a good second half of the season, it wouldn’t obscure what came before. As much as we might want to focus on positives and make a case for improvement, we can’t ignore the bits we don’t like. Those defeats are carved into the league table for all to see.
Naturally, we think about how we can improve, and which positions will be most important. Everyone has their own personal preference, whether you fancy a new central midfielder, an attacking midfielder, back-up left back, competition for Bernd Leno, an upgrade at right back, whatever.
Personally, I think the right partner for Thomas Partey and, in an ideal world, the retention of Martin Odegaard (permanently or otherwise) would be top of my list. A reserve left-back has to be on there too, but that shouldn’t be that difficult to sort out. I know a lot of people will be thinking about centre-half too, and the right side in particular. In Gabriel, who is still learning, and Pablo Mari, a relatively experienced option, we have the left side covered, but people are wondering about what happens next with David Luiz, and whether Rob Holding is ever going to be more than decent back-up (in my opinion, he’s a solid squad option and that’s it).
With money likely to be short, and priorities lying elsewhere, the solution to that particular issue seems easy, because we already have the player. If you were laying out the blueprint for what we want, a young, tall, quick, physically capable, strong defender who is good on the ball, pretty much all those boxes are ticked by William Saliba. We’ve already made the investment, it’s now up to Mikel Arteta to get the most out of it.
We can see that playing out from the back is something the manager wants from his team most of the time, so I went to check on what Saliba has been doing at Nice since his loan move there. Comparing him to Luiz, widely considered our best passer, is just to demonstrate what he’s been doing, rather than providing any concrete evidence.
Stats are from this season only (per 90, via fbref).
David Luiz
Short pass completion: 91%
Medium pass completion: 93%
Long pass completion: 65%
William Saliba
Short pass completion: 92%
Medium pass completion: 94%
Long pass completion: 81%
Luiz attempts 18 long passes per 90 on average, Saliba 14, so those are key components to their game, and Saliba’s completion rate is very promising. Defensive stats are a little more difficult to analyse, because those vary wildly d...
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