Don’t blame Trossard for playing badly, blame Arteta for playing him out of position

Just Arsenal News

·11. November 2024

Don’t blame Trossard for playing badly, blame Arteta for playing him out of position

Leandro Trossard-A Good But Not Great Footballer Set Up To Fail By His Manager

A football manager has many responsibilities, but his main job is to set the team up in whatever way gives them the best opportunity to win. That starts with putting players in positions where they can succeed.

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If that can’t be done, at least don’t put your players in a position to fail by asking them to do things they aren’t capable of. Unfortunately, that’s what Mikel Arteta did to Leandro Trossard in Martin Odegaard’s absence.

In the last few months, the Belgian has gone from super-sub and fan favorite to a player whose name is frequently followed by a lot of NSFW invectives. It’s not without merit, because Trossard’s form has been atrocious for much of the season. The “real” Leandro Trossard taps home that winner today like he’s been doing it all his life. However, Trossard’s confidence is shot, and he has his manager to thank for it.

Yes, he is a versatile, two-footed player. Yes, he has a burst of pace when he needs it, and yes, he can even pick out a good pass on occasion. But no, he’s not Santi Cazorla and he never will be. This is exactly why Trossard should never have been installed at CAM in Martin Odegaard’s absence. It shouldn’t have taken more than 15 minutes to see he was ill-suited for the role.

Yet Arteta persisted with this failing strategy for over a month. Despite the team playing with less creative flair than an architect designing cold-war era housing blocks in Eastern Europe, Trossard was tasked with leading this offense again and again. No matter how poor he was, he went right back into the first XI the following game. The maddening part is that there were (and are) other alternatives that should have been explored.

Mikel Arteta constantly claims to value positional flexibility. In fact, he values it so much that he signed a Central Midfielder named Zinchenko to play inverted LB. Zinchenko is known for his ball skills and creative flair, so much so that he often plays in advanced midfield positions for a solid Ukraine national team. Yet for reasons that are clear to absolutely no one, Zinny didn’t get one start in midfield during Odegaard’s absence.

Sometimes Zinny came on around the 75-80 minute mark, by which point there was precious little time left to impact the game. This is also true of young Ethan Nwaneri (who, by the way, has shown no fear of anything or anyone in his cameo appearances). Understandably, a 17-year-old can’t start every game, but is it not possible this young man could have played in a rotation where Zinny played 60 minutes at CAM and Ethan played 30 or vice versa?

Could they have been any more ineffective as a tandem than Trossard was by himself? Furthermore, if the answer to that question is yes, the next question is why Emile was Smith-Rowe sold last Summer. Worse still, Arsenal still doesn’t have a plan B. If Martin Odegaard limps off the pitch with another injury, Trossard will likely be reinserted at CAM again.

There is no plan B because Arteta stuck with a losing formula for too long. The truth is, Arteta set Trossard up to fail and Arsenal suffered for it. If it’s not fair to start Nwaneri due to his age, isn’t it unfair to put him on at the 80th minute as a Hail Mary substitution and ask him to perform miracles? Because that’s what’s been happening, and it borders on managerial negligence.

The club is now 9 points adrift of Liverpool and has squandered two glorious opportunities to pick up points on the defending league champions. Leandro Trossard’s dreadful form means he gets a slice of the proverbial “blame pie.”

However, the manager who repeatedly put Leandro in a position to fail, despite having other options, deserves more slices of the blame pie than anyone.

EE MC

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