With Premier League games coming so thick and fast, many teams have been keen to rotate their players, but Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has instead sought a bit of consistency.
Six members of his squad started the games against Manchester City and Brighton & Hove Albion, and it might have been more had some not been injured in the Gunners’ opening restart clash.
However, there’s a small issue for the Arsenal manager as he tries to build a “go-to” group of players - namely that some of them might not be around next season.
It’s difficult laying down foundations for the future when you don’t know what your squad will look like in a few months’ times.
The six players who started both games include goalkeeper Bernd Leno, who seems unlikely to play again this season due to injury, Hector Bellerin, who has started nine league games all season, and Bukayo Saka, who has only started 14 league matches in his fledgling career.
The others - Shkodran Mustafi, Matteo Guendouzi and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang - have all been linked with moves away from the Emirates when the next transfer window opens, and some of them are more expendable than others.
Aubameyang can surely be forgiven for chasing Champions League football at the age of 31, and Arsenal are seemingly prepared to take a financial loss on Mustafi after a challenging four years for the German, while Arteta is also reportedly ready to move on Guendouzi.
Yes, the Gunners have agreed a series of “new” signings, but permanent deals for Pablo Mari and Cedric Soares are not the sort of moves you would point to if trying to claim Arteta is being allowed to build a squad that can challenge at the top of the Premier League.
Building a team in his own image is one thing, and the Mari signing does probably tap into that, but consistency can be key in the Premier League and is something Arteta will want to be able to deliver sooner rather than later.
There are parts of the Gunners’ squad where this can, and will, be possible. Saka is the kind of player the manager and fans will be happy to see at the centre of things for the long term, while the relative lack of options elsewhere should give Rob Holding an opportunity to cement his place in Arteta’s plans.
Similarly, Bellerin and Kieran Tierney can provide consistency in key roles after injury troubles of their own, and if the defence looks after itself then Arteta can begin to focus his attention on improving things further up the field by developing a settled first-team group.
That’s a lot of hypothetical situations, though. It’s the kind of progress which usually would take a few transfer windows to solidify. The problem, of course, is that Arteta might not have the luxury of that time, or even necessarily the patience.
So the forthcoming transfer window feels momentous for Arsenal, even more so than last summer under then boss Unai Emery.
This time it’s not about the individual statement-making deals, either in or out, but rather the overall health of the squad once all the I’s are dotted and the T’s are crossed.
If there’s one positive that can be taken from the defeats by City and Brighton, it’s that Arteta and the Arsenal hierarchy will be under no illusion about the size of the task that faces them. The challenge now is getting things right so they’re not right back in the same spot in 12 months’ time.
