Is Arsenal's Best Team Actually On The Bench?

80 minutes into the game against Nottingham Forest and Arsenal, the champions of England, haven't had a single shot on target. That is until Noni Madueke, a half-time substitute for Eberechi Eze, cuts it from the left, hits it with his right and the ball is in the back of the net. Arsenal's only shot on target, all three points in the bag. Eight days earlier, Arsenal are 1-0 down to Leeds. Bruno Guimaraes comes off the bench and scored the winner six minutes later. None of this is new. In fact, Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has a name for these players. finishers. But how does it keep happening? Is it more than just luck? And if so, it begs the question, is Arsenal's best team actually the one that starts the game or finishes the job? It's Rice again! After that win at Forest recently, Arteta said Arsenal's depth would be the key to defending their title. That's a bold claim from a team that didn't have a shot on target for 80 minutes, but last season's numbers actually do back that sentiment up. Arsenal won the league, as we know, and their top goalscorer was Viktor Gyökeres with 14. That is the joint lowest total in Premier League history of a title-winning top scorer. Now, normally when a team wins the title, there's He is a guy, like the main man. 20-30 goals, his own chant, and a statue being readied. Arsenal want it with something closer to a committee. Saka and Eze with seven apiece, Trossard with six, Zubimendi with five, and so on. But the question isn't actually where did the goals come from, it's how did they arrive? Well, part of the answer was, as the premise of this entire video alludes to, sitting in the dugout. They scored 121 goals in all competitions, and 24 of them came from substitutes. Add the assist, and it's actually 40 goal contributions from the bench, a total bettered only by Bayern Munich across Europe's big five leagues last season. That's roughly one goal in every five and it wasn't even just one super sub carrying the load. By March, eight different players had scored off the bench. The point I'm making here is that these substitute goals of late aren't brand new. Since the start of last season, Arsenal have racked up 28 goals from players who have come on. That's eight more than the closest challengers, Brighton and Chelsea. Plenty of clubs have a good bench, sure, but what's the difference? Well, Arsenal were winning the league. Their bench wasn't a late rescue service when their ideas had failed but rather a fully developed thought of plan of how they would go on and win games when the situation called for it. The truth is, Arsenal were never looking to survive the game, they're looking to win it and what that does is bring me to my next question. What exactly is this plan and how does Mikel Arteta account for it when looking at his next opponent? SACA! The finish is delivered because the game changed. That's Mikel Arteta after the Forest game, and it's not a throwaway line. It's the whole plan in seven words. Finishers is a rugby union idea. Basically, players who start on the bench and come on to change the game, not just replace someone for the sake of it. And Arteta has said that they can matter more than the starters. Last season in Bilbao, Gabriel Martinelli scored within a minute of coming on, and the manager said afterwards that he looked at him on the bench and could see in his eye that he was ready. After the West Ham win towards the back end of last season, he told the players at half-time that if the game wasn't going the way it needed, they'd have to change it. And they did, Trossard came on and the finisher made the difference. Having to substitute someone almost denotes that the game has gone wrong, it needs changing. But what Arteta is suggesting is that the finishers are finishing the game rather than starting as they have specific roles in both their tactical efforts and what they individually bring to the team. Forest defended in a shape like a Christmas tree, his words, not mine, with no space to play through. He knew that if Arsenal hadn't scored in the first 30 minutes, Forest weren't going to change because they'd believe that with the clean sheet still intact, they were doing well, so they wouldn't change things. It meant that the plan was then about patience, taking more risks as the game went on, and believing that once the physical level dropped towards the end of the game, that the spaces would open up. And what happened? A big victory on the road on a ground where they haven't won in the past two seasons. However, if this all seems a little bit vague and surface level, let's dig deeper into the actual personnel making the difference once they've been sent on by Arteta, because they fall into three distinct categories. Before we carry on, though, a quick word from today's sponsor, Norton VPN. Whether you're working from a coffee shop, traveling or just browsing at home, you're constantly sending information across the internet. Norton VPN helps add an extra layer of privacy by encrypting your internet connection and helping you keep your online activity more private. It's simple to use, works across your everyday devices, and you can connect to VPN servers in locations around the world, whether you're at home or on the move. So if you want to add another layer of privacy and security to your everyday browsing, click the link in the description to find out more and see the latest Norton VPN offer. Right then, back to the video. The first is the tactical switch. Noni Madueke, being predominantly a right-sided player and left-footed, brought a big tactical change to the left-hand side while replacing Eze. It changed the angle of attack for Arsenal. Maybe it influenced how Calafiori decided to overlap or underlap, and it definitely changed how Nottingham Forest full-back Daniel Munoz decided to deal with it. After the match, Madueke said he'd gone down the outside too many times, so decided to switch up and come inside. If you're Munoz, you probably don't mind showing him onto his weaker foot. Until he scores, that is. The next way these finishers change games is the personnel switch, whereby the incoming player brings something completely different. This is what worked so well for Mikel Arteta in the past, a midfielder sent on as an auxiliary striker with a completely different skillset to Havertz or Jokkares. And the third is a combination of all of these to change the game. A team that has spent an hour dealing with one version of Arsenal, and maybe looking to hold onto a point, then suddenly faces an entirely different game plan due to multiple subs, different runners, different positions, different problems, it's often just too much to figure out on the spot, and none of this is random. Arteta's stated approach is simple, if a game isn't panning out, change it. But how often do they actually get the final say? Do Arsenal really win plenty of games late, or are we just remembering a few season defining goals? I mean, let's count the points recently. In eight days this month, Arsenal won two games through players who didn't start against Leeds and Forest. That's six points from the bench. Is it luck? Or is it a pattern? Last season suggests it's definitely a pattern. Arsenal scored 52 goals in the first half of games and 69 after the break, including 11 in second half stoppage time. That includes Dalman's record-breaking goal and Havertz's late goal against Chelsea in the Carabao Cup semis. Now, second halves do usually produce more goals for everyone, so 57% doesn't prove much. The sharper number's on the bench, though, because 24 of Arsenal's 69 came from substitutes, around roughly a third. Interestingly, Man City were bottom of the table But, a good bench alone doesn't make Arsenal special. Data compiled by Opta Analysis in March of last year found that Villa Brighton and Bournemouth had won more points from substitute contributions than Arsenal. It's sort of like Arteta isn't planning and deciding who is best 11 or who earned the shirt, but thinking to himself, if the game pans out like this, who do I need or want on the pitch when the game is decided? However, there is a big problem with all of this. If the best team, or the match-winning team let's say, is the one that finishes, someone's got to start the game and sit out the ending, and it flips everything we thought about a player's perceived value in the squad hierarchy. So who pays for it? Timber. Yo, Karrasch, what a hit! Last season, Victor Okafor scored 21 goals for Arsenal, more than anyone else at the club, and this season hasn't started a Premier League game. He told Swedish broadcaster SVT that he's frustrated, and since then there have been reports that he could push for a move in January. Questions have also been raised about what Eze needs to do to almost prove his worth to the club, bar his biannual masterclass in the North London derby. Okafor starting and not scoring means he'll more than likely be subbed in order to change the game and won't be the one on the pitch, when they win or even score the winning goal. On the flip side, he might be on the bench when the first half does the job and he isn't needed at all. This all points to the very underrated skill of Mikel Arteta. Keeping an entire squad of highly paid expensive superstars not only happy for the most part, but also buying into what he's doing. That's why these stars can sit on the bench and the system still works. Other clubs would have big names knocking down the And the manager's door demanding to get on from the off. Okafor is frustrated as they've taken off at half-time, but Arsenal still keep winning. So if the stars can sit on the bench and the system still works, is Arsenal's best team really in the dugout? Honestly, no. Because Arteta never picks one team. He doesn't have a best team. He has an entire squad who have two major jobs to combat. Take the lead and if not, survive the first hour, keep the game in range and wear down the opponent. Then get the right players in the right positions to change the game and make it count. The first 11 may be the opening act, but increasingly more often, The finishers are the main event.