Control. Fixed planes of movement. Positive metrics. Data victory. Safety in order. Strength through no joy. This is all good stuff. This is a matrix for winning at sport. This is how Mikel Arteta has transformed Arsenal from a flapping bead curtain made up of fun guys and leftovers into a hugely impressive team. You can definitely come second in the league like this.
But then there are other things, the need for a little blood and a little risk. Attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. Very positive underlying numbers in the first half against Liverpool. All these moments will be lost if the moments are not also seized, if a little ragged edge doesn’t enter the programme too. Or in the case of this 3-0 defeat of Nottingham Forest, a little bit of unprocessed Gyökeres.
On a sunny, drizzly, breezy day, Arsenal strolled through a game they might at other times have struggled to win with this degree of ease. Best of all they did so with some interesting notes of variation, most obviously in the shape of Viktor Gyökeres, who was blunt and a little rough at times, but by the end had some great numbers.
Seven passes in 90 minutes. Four shots. One goal. Also: zero dribbles, zero crosses, zero key passers, zero all that stuff. You could quibble and ask for some fouls, but those will come. It felt, even before his goal, just the right kind of bluntness in a team where the challenge for Arteta has been to usher in more of those moments where the brakes slip, where the birds fly backwards through the sky.
This was a very good game for him, sparked by a front-loaded selection, and made even better by the contrast between a first half that felt at times like the football equivalent of watching someone build a Lego replica of Paddington Station.
The second half served up four key moments between minutes 45 and 51, perhaps even key moments in Arsenal’s season. They were up by that point, the goal was a sublime hip-high volley from Martin Zubimendi, which may sadly under the Arteta “magic moments” scale (Szoboszlai coefficient) have to be scrubbed from the record.
The first of those acts was a hard, flat punt from David Raya that ended up skimming out of play, but was also Arsenal’s first long pass from the back. The second, 47 seconds into the half, was a beautifully simple goal. Riccardo Calafiori flighted another pass down that flank. Eberechi Eze took the ball with a lovely cushioned touch and squared it.
In fairness, Gyökeres had to that point spent much of the game running around a like a stray dog in the school playground at morning break. But he was in exactly the right place, doing just the right thing. He scored easily. The PA announcer got to scream “VIKTOR … VIKTOR … VIKTOR”. It was a goal Arsenal might not have scored previously, three passes, the sort of goal teams this good should just rack up as a matter of course.
On 51 minutes, the third unusual thing happened and this was also good because it involved some chaos. Calafiori gave the ball away high upfield with no one behind him. A Forest cross hit Chris Wood in the chest and looped goalward. Raya made a brilliant save, pushing it on to the bar. From the loose ball Cristhian Mosquera made a forensic goal-saving tackle.
This is what Mosquera is good at, one-on-one high-risk defending. Maybe just let him do it. Take a chance. Allow individual brilliance to happen, this time in defence. Arsenal have not conceded a goal from open play with Mosquera on the pitch. Who knows what it means. But he is very good at tackles and blocks.
It is worth dwelling on Gyökeres a little. On 58 minutes, he summoned up the fourth big thing, combining with Eze on the left, running across to the far right and whamming a shot on to the post from a narrow angle, a silly place to shoot from also a great place to shoot from because it is exactly that this team has needed.
Forest were cautious. The question before the game had been how would the players cope with Ange Postecoglou’s free-form nose flute jazz. On this evidence: by sitting very deep in much the same way. But Arsenal did find a way to beat that low block. The full-backs strolled into midfield. Noni Madueke treated his full-back like a spilled yoghurt pot in aisle seven to be tactfully avoided.
Best of all Gyökeres did that simple thing well. The greatest pre-criticism of his signing was that he is Not an Arteta Player. But this is a good thing. Arsenal already had plenty of those. Gyökeres has been called a donkey, but this is also good. They already have enough robot parcel delivery droids. Kai Havertz, underrated as a central striker, may come in for the more fine-margin games. But the season also contains a lot of days like these and here was one of them ticked off.
