PROFIT AND
Gunners boss Arteta sprung a surprise by playing Belgian star up front... but it worked a treat
UP against Leicester’s twin peaks, Leandro Trossard looked more like the mascot, than an Arsenal centre-forward.
With stoppers Wout Faes and Harry Souttar towering over him, the odds of the little Belgian international winning any sort of aerial battle were minimal.
Good job, then, that Mikel Arteta has built a team whose attackers have speed and flexibility, a fleetness of foot and mind, as basics.
The Spaniard sprang a surprise at the King Power – and not just by naming Oleksandr Zinchenko as skipper-for-the-day in a nod to the anniversary of the Russian invasion of the player’s native Ukraine.
Arteta also decided that Eddie Nketiah should be given a rest, and so he asked Trossard to spearhead his attack. It was a wise move.
The decision gives Arsenal’s boss yet more ammunition in his title quest, as squeaky-bum time draws ever closer.
Nketiah has shouldered the burden ever since Gabriel Jesus injured knee ligaments at the World Cup, and it could well be that the Gunners chief will need to mix and match his resources as his club approaches the finishing line.
Perhaps it should be no surprise, given Trossard’s schooling under Graham Potter at Brighton, that he could fit so seamlessly into the position.
It was almost as if he went unnoticed when he cued up the winner, 52 seconds into the second half. While everyone else dozed after a ball was booted aimlessly upfield, the little man was onto it in a flash.
He collected, then threaded a pass through Souttar’s legs, as Gabriel Martinelli raced onto it and slotted home the only goal.
Trossard provided what other brief flashes of skill there were in a game that will be remembered for little else otherwise.
In fact, he found the net in the opening half after collecting a loose ball that was punched clear by Leicester keeper Danny Ward.
He thumped a delicious shot into the roof of the goal but VAR – quite correctly – listened to Ward’s grumblings that he had been fouled, and referee Craig Pawson overturned the strike. Yet time and again the Arsenal man darted off his pair of markers, making space for those around him as Leicester’s rope-adope tactics were found wanting.
Every now and again, Foxes chief Brendan Rodgers orders his men to defend deep.
When faced with what he considers to be superior force, Rodgers opts to concede ground and invite the play onto him. It’s can be a dangerous tactic – and one that he has been known to criticise in the past. And, when facing opponents armed with the swiftness and precision of Arsenal’s approach play, it can come badly unstuck. But Bukayo Saka found Leicester new boy Victor Kristiansen a tough nut to crack on the right, and with Martinelli’s star mostly just flickering, it was left to Trossard, surprise £27million signing of the January window, to create the all-important goal. Otherwise, this was a throwback of a performance more reminiscent of the days when ‘One-nil to the
MATCH REPORT
Arsenal’ was an anthem proudly belted out because the Gunners were capable of strangling the life out of any game. That wasn’t really the case here. They retained the ability to counter at speed but there was no chance that they were going to over-commit chasing a second, when one would do very nicely.
So, Leicester were contained – and with Jamie Vardy now 35, the times when he could stretch defences are firmly in the past.
The Gunners coped comfortably on a day when they ticked more than a few boxes.
Trossard’s role was the icing on the cake. It’s all starting to come together very nicely for Arteta.