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LONDON – Arsenal’s rebuilding is still far from complete, but new signings Willian and Gabriel are already at home. As the first days progress, this excursion to South West London could not have been better for Mikel Arteta, as Arsenal beat Fulham 3-0 in their first game of the 2020-21 season.
– Report: Fulham 0, Arsenal 3
– Ratings: Willian, Gabriel superb for Arsenal
Willian scored all three of Arsenal’s goals – his trio of assists is already more than Mesut Ozil achieved last season in the Premier League. First, a scrambled shot from the Brazilian international inadvertently prepared Alexandre Lacazette for Arsenal’s first goal; His precise cross found Gabriel’s shoulder for Arsenal’s second, and then his delicious cross ball hit Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, who kept the Fulham defense on their heels before firing into the far upper corner after having cut through. inside the side.
The three goals were perfect representations of Arteta’s style: the first to the sober and determination, precision from set pieces for the second and for the third, finding space, taking the rivals out of position and finishing them off with a wonderful shot.
Willian, who signs a three-year deal after a free transfer from Chelsea, is a difficult player to score. He delighted in knocking Fulham left back Joe Bryan and center back Tim Ream out of position, floating from the right wing and dropping deep as he tried to pick up the pace and quality of the ball towards Lacazette or Aubameyang. His set pieces are also lethal: he hit the post with a free kick in the first half on the edge of the Fulham area, while his corners, as Gabriel discovered to his delight, were on the money.
Another new signing, defender Gabriel, had a shaky opening, an early mix with Bernd Leno almost allowed Aboubakar Kamara to jump, but he grew in safety and is undoubtedly a notable improvement at the rear. He has increased Arsenal’s resistance to any high ball, earning his headers and keeping his baseline high up the field. It was a promising performance in his first game since March 6 and you can see why so many of Europe’s top clubs wanted the 22-year-old Brazilian; the £ 27 million spent to bring it from Lille appears to be money well spent. Arteta wanted to give him more time to adjust, concerned about the risk of injury, but he was delighted.
“I knew Willian would do a performance like that right away. Gabriel was fantastic. It doesn’t get better than that,” Arteta said afterward. “The commitment they showed, the new guys, was tremendous.
“It was really good. Obviously for Willian. He knows the league, the country and is very settled here, so he knew his performance would take hold right away. For Gabriel, it was a big challenge for him to get in today. He hadn’t played football. in the last six months and had an excellent performance. “
And despite all his teamwork on the field, Arteta is the heart of this Arsenal team. Now promoted to coach of the first team, it is fascinating to hear. The absence of crowds, as Fulham might have done with some of the claustrophobia created by fans here, means you can hear Arteta’s relentless sideline communication. He talks to players about their passing options, effortlessly switching between a host of languages, and establishes himself as a twelfth man. You can feel the players learn, even in the middle of the game.
Ainsley Maitland-Niles, receiving interest from the Wolves, is essential to Arteta’s system. On defense, Arsenal fall into the bottom five, with Hector Bellerin and Maitland-Niles in, but on offense Bellerin falls back to form a four-man defense and Maitland-Niles offers a third pass option in midfield. They’re basically “overlapping” full backs, and once they develop this to avoid momentum-killing cuts and racing becomes more intuitive, Arsenal’s three forwards will have more crosses to enjoy.
There is also more bite on Arsenal under Arteta. Dani Ceballos and Eddie Nketiah proved it in their mild fight during the warm-up where the frustration during a pre-game round boiled over; Silently, Arteta would have loved that, although he declined to comment on it after the match.
Although Saturday’s victory was impressive, Arsenal is still a work in progress. Their squad is still unbalanced, as Arteta said this week, and while their defense held firm against their promoted opponents, they are still prone to allowing crosses into their penalty area from dangerous areas. Fulham had Aleksandar Mitrovic on the bench, but how he would have reveled in the space and time Bryan and Denis Odoi enjoyed in the first half as they found the gap between Arsenal’s three-man central defense and the two full-backs. There is an opportunity there for a sharper opposition and Arteta will have to shore up this.
With 23 days left in the transfer window, Arsenal still have room for maneuver. But with a player like Bellerin and his key position in the Arteta system, they need to keep him happy and away from the advances of Barcelona or PSG. When Arsenal fall into a more conventional 4-3-3, there is room for a more creative midfielder to complement Granit Xhaka and Mohamed Elneny.
“They have to level up and the performances will improve,” Arteta said after the game. “This is what I demand. I am very happy with the boys, the way they train, but the national team is getting complicated, having 18 players in the squad again makes it more difficult.”
To their credit, Fulham looked confident in the first half, with none of their new signings selected from the start, but lacked a cutting edge up front. They badly need a creative presence at No. 10, and although Ivan Cavaleiro dropped into this position and did his best to create some havoc, they found space and opportunity, but lacked the firepower to turn promising areas into clear opportunities. .
As the first few days progress, this was perfect for Arteta, but he knows as well as anyone that Arsenal remains unfinished. With the time remaining in the transfer window, there will be more exits, but no movement can destabilize this ever-developing understanding of Arteta’s wonderfully effective system, which proved too good for Fulham.
