Mikel Arteta made a tactical tweak which unleashed Bukayo Saka for Arsenal against West Ham United.
Bukayo Saka scored twice as Arsenal battered West Ham United 6-0 at the London Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
The 22-year-old was in scintillating form against the Hammers. In fact, in this match, Saka was even able to reach a personal milestone unmatched by any Arsenal player since 1978. The Hale End academy graduate tore the east London outfit apart, and might even have had more goals had his finishing been a little more precise in the first half.
The winger is a talismanic figure for the Gunners, and it is extraordinary how much he has achieved already in his career. However, Saka has faced challenges this season. Having been identified as Arsenal’s danger man, he is now routinely targeted and double-marked by opposition defenders. The England star is rarely afforded any real time or space on the ball, as opposition teams focus a disproportionate degree of their defensive strength on stifling him.
However, against West Ham, Saka faced few such barriers. Partly, this has to be put down to the hosts’ woeful defending. However, Mikel Arteta also deserves plenty of credit, as he made one tactical tweak for this game which helped Saka to shine.
Mikel Arteta unveils tactical masterplan against West Ham
Journalist Sam Dean discussed the nature of this tactical change on The Arsenal Beat podcast. He said, “Arsenal flipped the way they normally play…They had Ben White coming inside into midfield, playing that ‘Zinchenko role’ rather than the left-back, who in this case was [Jakub] Kiwior. As [Oleksandr] Zinchenko himself has explained before, when he tucks in from left-back, it’s designed in part to create space and one-v-ones for [Gabriel] Martinelli on that side.”
“Saka’s never really had that. Ben White doesn’t really do that in the same way normally, so Saka’s got less space and one-v-ones. Yesterday, with White coming in, Ben Johnson who played left-wing for West Ham was going with him, and that meant that Saka has all this time and all this space…and he was just killing West Ham…I think that was an element of surprise for West Ham which David Moyes’ side couldn’t really handle.”
How can Arsenal evolve to suit Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Martinelli?
Ben White has been described as Arsenal’s ‘secret weapon’, due to his versatility and tactical flexibility. Against West Ham, he was able to combine his usual, more orthodox, right-back duties, which see him bombarding up the touchline to offer an overlapping option for Saka to combine with, with being able to drift into the middle of the park to involve himself with the build-up play.
It’s clear that Saka benefited from this change, and he took advantage of the extra space it afforded him. It will be fascinating to see if this is a ploy that Arteta persists with, or if Arsenal revert to type once Oleksandr Zinchenko is able to return to the fold.
It may well be that the natural evolution of Arsenal’s system sees White and Zinchenko, when they are both on the pitch, alternating between one of them coming inside into the midfield whilst the other remains wide to offer an overlapping run. This variance throughout a match would make the Gunners more unpredictable, and would create space for both Saka and Gabriel Martinelli.
Receive a digest of our best Arsenal content each week direct to your mailbox
