Since our return to the Champions League it’s become clear that a few things have changed.
Football is still football, of course, and nobody has re-invented putting the ball in the back of the net but there are some changes that, if we’re being honest, have caught us out. Both the team and the manager have shown a little naivety.
Perhaps the most obvious change, at least as I have seen it, is just how cynical everyone is now. The deployment of the so-called ‘dark arts’ from the first minute to the last seems to have become widespread. You need look no further than our trip to Internazionale just a few weeks back.
It’s not simply getting yourself into the lead and wasting a little time for the final 10 minutes – it’s time-wasting at 0-0 from the start, it’s feigning injury after every tackle, looking for fouls at every set play, rotational fouling out of possession. And this is not some spontaneous, player-led initiative, this is obviously coached and co-ordinated, part of the game plan.
Perhaps I am myself being naive in thinking this is a new phenomena but, in 30 years of watching Arsenal at a level where I can understand what’s going on, I don’t remember seeing it at the scale it is now.
For all their bravery and ambition, Arsenal and Mikel Arteta have been deaf to this reality up to now, or have at least declined to partake. I think we may see an end to that this season. Pragmatism is the order of the day in this new Europe. Performance is now firmly secondary, the result is everything.
But I don’t mean Arsenal should abandon everything they stand for – their principles, their style, their patterns of play – but they should find a way to adapt to the reality on the ground. Sporting represent an opportunity to just that, to measure what we have learned and how we’ve evolved.
We can be confident, even without Ruben Amorim at the helm, Sporting will offer a real challenge – a side that has won 11 from 11 in its domestic league and which is as yet undefeated in the Champions League this season, having notched three wins in four. You don’t do that through luck alone.
We go there as favourites but I wouldn’t buy into that for a moment and I don’t think the manager does either. We go there with a great deal to prove. We have to show that we have learned from last season’s campaign when we were buffeted by Porto and then eased out of it by Bayern. Indeed, we have to show what we’ve learned even from our last fixture, when Inter dived, tricked, and bluffed their way to victory while we fired nothing but blanks.
On paper, we should have had enough to get past Inter, and even Bayern last season, but the reality of the competition now means we can take nothing for granted. The best teams now are the smartest teams, those that use all of the tools at their disposal.
I think the opportunity to rest the likes of Kai Havertz, Gabi Martinelli, Declan Rice and Thomas Partey was welcome at the weekend and, hopefully, those minutes off the pitch will see them in better shape to put in 90 good minutes tonight. It’s a luxury I don’t think we’ve had at any point under Arteta so it will be important to maximise it.
And I think we will see all of those players restored to the starting line-up for tonight. You might be able to make a case for Leandro Trossard to retain his place, and perhaps even Mikel Merino if Rice is still half-fit but I still think both are unlikely. For the first time in a while, I think the manager will be able to field what he sees as his first-choice XI. That’s great for our prospects but it also means there’s nowhere to hide if things don’t go as planned.
When asked about Arsenal’s chances at Sporting and their away form in Europe of late, Mikel told the media:
It’s certainly something we have to improve. We have the right steps, and looking back at the way we played against Inter, against a team that has been so dominant in the league, were in the Champions League final and should have won it. We played and dominated the game we should have won. But the reality is you have to make it happen, and we didn’t. Those steps are what we have to take next, be ruthless and be much more efficient in the opposition box, and when we get there do what we have to do to take the three points away from here.
And for all that has changed about the Champions League now, the manager highlights the one thing that most certainly hasn’t: taking your chances.
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