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A week is really a long time in football, especially at Arsenal. Last Saturday, the Gunners prepared to face Chelsea with a deep sense of dread, with Emile Smith Rowe poised for his first taste of Premier League action this season.
Fast forward a week, into a new year, and Mikel Arteta seems to have a new Arsenal on his hands, one transformed from the side devoid of confidence and cunning that dragged the club through its worst start to a season in the top flight since 1974. .
Then beating and beating Chelsea in the Emirates, the Gunners have recorded two more victories: a 1-0 win at Brighton and this win over West Brom by Sam Allardyce – who have brought Arteta out of his misery and ‘suffering’ in a very different way than many might have anticipated before Christmas.
Smith Rowe’s presence is not a coincidence. The movement and creativity of the young man have added a new dimension to the single and unique they previously possessed: width crosses.
One of the biggest criticisms of Arsenal during their terrible seven-game winless streak was their abject lack of positivity in midfield. Granit Xhaka, Dani Ceballos and Mohamed Elneny will undoubtedly offer a lack of options for mitigation – lack of confidence will have been a factor as well – and the evidence would support them. On the occasions when midfielders looked elsewhere than square, especially when Arteta was using one of the numerous formations he tried with three up front, all they saw were teammates pinned to opponents’ hips.
Smith Rowe, who was entrusted with the 10th role behind a lone center forward, has filled that huge gap between midfield and Arsenal’s attack. Proof of this was the Gunners’ second goal, the climax of perhaps the best 45 minutes with Arteta.
Bukayo Saka applied the finishing touch but Smith Rowe was the architect. Taking the ball from Héctor Bellerin halfway to the middle of West Brom, rather than bouncing it front or back, the 20-year-old knocked two opponents out of the game with a penetrating pass around the corner to Saka. before continuing into the arc run, which no Baggie thought to track. Alexandre Lacazette showed for Saka and in four touches, Smith Rowe had broken two lines. His two subsequent touches were, dare we say, Ozil-style to hit Saka for the tap-in.
Vintage arsenal! 🔥
An excellent team move completed by Bukayo Saka ✨
That was great! 👏 pic.twitter.com/jQKtlQlJ4Z
– Football at BT Sport (@btsportfootball) January 2, 2021
It was the second quality moment that highlighted the confidence gap between pre-Christmas Arsenal and this week’s flying Gunners. Five minutes before Saka called home, Kieran Tierney reached the top Roberto Carlos in the Black Country snow to embarrass Darnell Furlong and pass Sam Johnstone with his right peg.
Tierney flew forward at will, as he usually does, but with Smith Rowe pulling on defenders and midfielders who no longer regard a look forward as a futile act, the Scotland star enjoyed the space in front of him.
The exuberance of Arteta’s young gunners also appears to be rubbing off on his senior teammates. Lacazette, remembered instead of the rested Gabriel Martinelli, suddenly appears more willing to stretch his defenses. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang is showing similar enthusiasm, but the final touch from the Arsenal captain is still missing. Its form remains one of Arteta’s diminishing concerns.
A word for another rookie too, at least in Premier League terms. Pablo Mari came in with Smith Rowe in his opening minutes in a domestic competition against Chelsea last week and in the three games since then, he has yet to be wrong. The Gunners are suddenly and remarkably determined from behind and dangerous in attack.
West Brom, however …
All praise for Arsenal must be written with the misery of the hosts to provide the proper context. Allardyce is famous for asserting the warring sides, but the Baggies are sinking deeper into the mud. Especially in defense, they were abject as individuals and as a unit. They have lost their last four games by an aggregate score of 17-1, and a dozen of those goals have gone unanswered on Allardyce’s clock. Keeping Liverpool at Anfield six days ago is a notable outlier, one that perhaps offers a glimpse into the immediate future for the Baggies: five months camping on the edge of the Johnstone area in hopes of taking a break.
Already 24 home goals conceded by West Brom. The worst in the Premier League in the last five years is Cardiff City with 38. It will pass it in February at this rate.
– Daniel Storey (@ danielstorey85) January 2, 2021
Big Sam will no doubt answer that he has been in charge for only a little over a fortnight before throwing some of his beaten up boys under the bus. The 66-year-old now has a fortnight before West Brom’s next Premier League game, a Black Country derby, to put his beleaguered Baggies in shape, literally and metaphorically.
For Arsenal, a 12-day break in the Premier League could stop their resurgence. But after a perfect week that stopped a record momentum of the worst kind, Arteta will be expecting his youngsters to bounce back in their FA Cup showdown with Newcastle and onwards in the Premier League table.
Ian Watson
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