But in the end, for the second week running, thanks in no small part of their bench, Arsenal won. Fireworks in the autumn are for Bonfire Night; titles require relentless accumulation. Since the international break, Arsenal have won three games out of three despite not being in the lead at half-time in any of them.
Hammered at Brighton and having endured a drab first hour at home to Leeds last week, there has been a rare sense, for the first time really since Manchester City dropped points at Everton at the beginning of May, of Arsenal not being quite at their best, needing to reassert their quality. This was not a performance that would terrify any opponent, but it did highlight Arsenal’s consistency and it did demonstrate just how deep their squad now runs. There were long periods when they were extremely flat.
In the first half the ball was moved too slowly, too risk-aversely, for Bukayo Saka and Eberechi Eze consistently to isolate their full-backs. There were very few attempts to play the ball in behind an admittedly well-organised Forest backline. It was all very safe, seemingly predicated more on waiting for Forest to make a mistake than on trying to break the game open with a moment of genius.
The breakthrough, ultimately, was delivered by Noni Madueke who, when he got a run at Daniel Múñoz, took full advantage, albeit with a substantial deflection off the thigh of Jair Cunha. It was Arsenal’s only shot on target – and it wasn’t even on the bit of the target it ended up going in. Arsenal may have been working with Germán Castaños, a creativity coach who has worked in handball, in designing TV gameshows and with his local council.
By challenging the players and presenting them with unusual situations during the week, the theory goes, he can help them to come up with innovative solutions at the weekend. It must take a lot of creativity to make a team as unremarkable as this. Mikel Arteta is a great believer in the sort of team-building techniques that to outsiders might look like high-performance gimmicks but you dread to think how hard a watch his side would be if their collective imagination wasn’t constantly being stimulated.
Castaños got a boxer to fight two opponents and a Japanese football team to play against a side with 16 men. You wonder how a team might prepare to face an Oliver Glasner side in full stifle mode. Running headfirst into a line of three brick walls, perhaps?
Extract — continue reading at the source.
