Under Arsène Wenger, Arsenal were a team renowned for their dedication to playing football the ‘right way’, come rain or shine.
While this approach gave fans some incredible teams over the years, it also led to a lot of frustration and the more than the occasional demolition at the hands of other more physical and defensively astute sides in the latter years.
However, while the club’s DNA of wanting to play attractive attacking football is still present today, Mikel Arteta has worked tirelessly on making his team significantly harder to break down, more physically dominant, and maybe just that bit more fluent in the so-called ‘dark arts.’
The Spaniard’s team is full of solid stars who have helped make the North Londoners perhaps the most defensively impressive team in Europe, such as Jurrien Timber and Ben White. While those two could remain at the club for years to come, the academy might have already produced their long-term heir.
White and Timber’s evolution at Arsenal
Arsenal’s £50m signing of White in the summer of 2021 was not a move met with universal praise at the time, as just a few months later a poll of football agents named it the worst signing of the window, as insane as that sounds today.
That first year in North London saw the former Brighton & Hove Albion ace primarily play as a centre-back, but the introduction of William Saliba for the following campaign saw him shift out to right-back, where he has been incredible ever since.
In all, the Poole-born star has now made 95 appearances for the Gunners on the right of the back four, where he has scored five goals and provided ten assists, and 39 appearances in his original position, where he unsurprisingly has not produced a goal or assist.
