Arsenal are by some distance the most right-heavy team in the Premier League when it comes to how they attack. So, do they even need to sign a world-class left winger?
The problem with being as good as Arsenal is that, when it comes to the transfer market, it’s difficult to improve.
There will be few teams who will have any sympathy. The rivals who spent hundreds of millions of pounds this summer, desperately scrambling to try and claw their way back into relevance, won’t really want to hear about how the poor, suffering champions struggled to find players they could sign who would improve their first team.
That’s not entirely true, given Arsenal did bring in Bukayo Saka, who they have based their attacks around for years. It was no surprise that last season they had 41.7% of their touches in the attacking half down their right flank. Only West Ham used their right side more, and they had a similar talisman down that wing in Jarrod Bowen.
Now, this wasn’t only because of Saka. He missed a chunk of last season through injury, and Arsenal didn’t change how they played when he was absent. The right, with Noni Madueke or Max Dowman playing on the wing, was still their focus.
But with Saka 100% fit again and looking back to his best this term, Arsenal have doubled down on their right-sided approach. Over three Premier League games so far, they have had 47.5% of their attacking touches down the right flank, and just 27.4% down the left. Those are perhaps unsurprisingly the highest and lowest respective proportions of all teams in the Premier League this season, and both by some distance.
They have leant into it heavily. Against Chelsea on Sunday, Riccardo Calafiori has been a revelation with his unique, new attacking role, moving inside Tzolis to attack the area and almost provide a centre-forward presence when Havertz moves away from his position. Only Havertz and Saka have made more high-intensity off-the-ball runs ending in the penalty area in Premier League games for Arsenal this season than Calafiori (eight).
The Italian also has two assists to his name, meaning Tzolis and Calafiori, Arsenal’s left flank, account for six of the nine assists registered by Arsenal players in all competitions this season.
But they are not the centrepiece of this Arsenal team. Calafiori is averaging 39.6 touches per 90 in all competitions this season, which is the fourth-lowest of all Arsenal players behind goalkeeper David Raya (38.8) and strikers Havertz (35.7) and Viktor Gyökeres (15.3). Tzolis is slightly further ahead on 52.9 per 90.
Right-back
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