Arsenal’s PLAN B proving a smash hit
Trossard and Jorginho keep Arteta at No1
IF you can stay top of the Premier League while saving £120million, the team off the field deserve as much credit as the one on it. Arsenal were quick to revert to Plan B in January when Chelsea beat them to the punch for Mykhailo Mudryk and Brighton refused to sell Moises Caicedo.
Instead they brought in Caicedo’s former team-mate Leandro Trossard and moved for Jorginho from Chelsea — even though supporters were unconvinced by the latter deal.
But here we are a month later and despite a wobble, Mikel Arteta’s side are still top of the league.
And rather than spend about £160million on Caicedo and Mudryk, the Gunners picked up Jorginho and Trossard for less than £40m combined.
‘Really happy,’ said Arteta. ‘ We were very clear what we wanted to do but we couldn’t do it and we had to adapt. In the window you have to do that and not feel sorry for ourselves. We were first there to get the options we wanted.’
Trossard is a classic modern forward who can play all across the front line — he tormented Leicester as a false nine here — while Jorginho’s career speaks for itself.
The Italy midfielder has always been treated with suspicion in England, where his relative lack of pace and power mean he is undervalued.
But this is football, not rugby, so — thank goodness — brains trump brawn at the highest level of the game.
For a club chasing a first Premier League title since 2004, it is surely better to have a player who can make the right pass at the right time, than a headless chicken who is great at crowd-pleasing tackles and geeing up the fans but gives the ball away at crucial times.
‘All the signings we’ve done have been great additions to the squad,’ said Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard. ‘You see the impact they have on the pitch and we see it every day in training. They’re great players who bring a lot of quality.
‘Jorginho is a great player, we saw that from the first day he came here. He brings a lot of quality, he’s very calm on the ball, finds the right passes and dictates the game. He’s nice to play with. He’s won a lot of things, brings that mentality into the team and helps the young players. It’s great to have him on board.’ Just look at how the absence of a proper technician affected Leicester. James Maddison is one of the best players in the league and his knee problems are a constant worry for the Foxes as they try to stay in the top flight.
He has missed five games since the league restarted after the World Cup and Leicester have lost all five.
Take Maddison out of this team and you lose more than 50 per cent of their threat — they average 1.3 points per game when he has started, but only 0.5 when he has not. Leicester insisted that the 26-year-old missed this one because of illness rather than injury but whatever the reason, it is clear they cannot afford to be without him. Even if he feels better, boss Brendan Rodgers may decide to rest Maddison for tomorrow’s FA Cup quarter-final against Blackburn, given what follows it.
Leicester travel to Southampton on Saturday and given they have only a three-point cushion to the relegation zone, it is a game they dare not lose.
‘James Maddison is one of the best players in the country and when we don’t have him the difference is obvious, but whether he plays or not, you can’t just rely on him to be the catalyst,’ warned Rodgers.
Arsenal have the wealth — and therefore depth — not to have to count so heavily on the health of one man.
They have been without Gabriel Jesus since the World Cup and even though Eddie Nketiah is probably not good enough to be first-choice centre forward for a team with Arsenal’s aspirations, it has not cost them too much.
And even though they have dropped points without another injured key player, Thomas Partey, they are still top of the league now the Ghanaian is back.
‘To win at Aston Villa and Leicester is an extremely difficult thing to do but we deserved to win both games,’ said Arteta. ‘Thomas was injured for a few weeks but to have a replacement like Jorginho is a different level.’
Now Arteta must figure out whether he should squeeze both into his starting XI. Yet thanks to Arsenal’s business in January, they have answers to nearly every question.
LEICESTER (4-2-3-1): Ward 6; Castagne 5 (Pereira 85min), Souttar 6, Faes 6.5, Kristiansen 6;
Ndidi 6 (Soumare 76), Dewsbury-Hall 6.5; Tete 4 (Tielemans 62, 6), Praet 5 (Daka 76), Barnes 6.5; Iheanacho 6 (Vardy 62, 6). Booked: None. Manager: Brendan Rodgers 6.
ARSENAL (4-3-3): Ramsdale 6.5; White 6, Saliba 7, Gabriel 7, ZINCHENKO 8.5 (Tomiyasu 90); Odegaard 8 (Partey 84), Jorginho 7.5, Xhaka 6.5; Saka 6.5, Trossard 7.5 (Nketiah 70, 6), Martinelli 7. Scorer: Martinelli 46. Booked: Martinelli. Manager: Mikel Arteta 7.
Referee: Craig Pawson 6. Attendance: 32,227.