#60 - Tactical innovations key to fixing attacking injury disaster

How tweaking the jobs of Arsenal's full backs could be the answer to Arsenal's depleted attack

Arsenal have a problem. I’ve said in this newsletter so many times for over a year, that we needed more firepower. Since then we’ve lost Bukayo Saka, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus to long-term injuries, and Ethan Nwaneri and now Gabriel Martinelli have picked up niggles too.

We now have a huge issue in attack. We have no touchline wingers left and no recognised centre-forward or focal point in attack, so the only answer is to innovate and adjust our system.

There are a few tactical innovations that we could do, but I’ve been giving it some thought and here’s what I’d like to see.

Lewis-Skelly and Calafiori have been two of our best players in 2025 and we have substantial cover at left back. They’re fit and firing. Rather than dropping the overall quality level from minute 1, let’s get both on the field.

Lewis-Skelly could play on the left wing ahead of Calafiori with Nwaneri on the right and Trossard through the middle.

You’d need to adapt the way we play a little to make this work. Usually, our wingers hold the width, but with no natural touchline wingers left, we must adapt. In this suggested system the fullbacks offer the width and Timber and Calafiori both have the attaching intensity and athleticism to do this.

We have the likes of Zinchenko and Tierney to come in at left-back and a fit again Ben White to rotate in with Timber on the right.

Nwaneri and Lewis-Skelly can then focus on inverting and creating end product and getting into the box to support Trossard in central attacking zones and Rice or Merino offering height and box crashing.

This leaves Sterling as more of an impact sub, a role better suited to him as I can’t imagine him giving us 90 minutes of top-quality football.

Lewis-Skelly has shown he can play in a few positions and I think with an overlapping fullback he would be an effective option off the left.

Plan B I think needs to be Merino as the centre forward. That gives us a different dimension and crucially some aerial threat in the middle. It also ensures we don’t run Leo into the ground at centre forward.

Tierney being the more overlapping, left-back with brilliant crossing, may be best paired with Merino as the centre forward, whereas Calafiori is more box-crashing, so would suit when Leo is at centre forward.

This is another aspect of the innovations. Arteta will need to find partnerships that work in certain game situations, as we cannot flog the same XI constantly, or it’ll make us very predictable and lead to more injuries.

This is just one possible tactical innovation, but the key thing is that Arteta and his coaching staff will need to find alternative solutions in the coming weeks and months.

We cannot simply keep our system and plug-in lower calibre players, as it won’t work. We don’t currently have the players fit to execute our established game plan. Let’s see what the coaching staff can do.