We have witnessed plenty of full-backs “inverting” in the Premier League since the tactic was introduced to English football by Pep Guardiola almost a decade ago. It has been a common feature of the leading teams, and especially of Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal over the past few seasons.
In the 0-0 draw at Nottingham Forest on Wednesday night, though, Arteta took that approach and dialled it up to a new extreme. You might have seen full-backs “rolling into midfield” (as coaches like to describe it), but here you could see the rare spectacle of a full-back doubling up as a striker.
One can only imagine the thoughts of Riccardo Calafiori, Arsenal’s Italian defender, when this latest strategy was revealed to him by the club’s coaching staff. The 22-year-old has spent most of his career at centre-back or left-back, but here he was asked to spend much of his game in the extraordinary position of centre-forward.
Evidently, this is not the role that Calafiori was expecting to play when he joined from Bologna last summer, in a deal worth up to £42 million. But desperate times call for desperate measures and these truly are the most tactically challenging moments for Arteta, who is frantically searching for solutions to the absence of his four best forwards.
It meant that, for large sections of the first half at the City Ground, Arsenal lined up with a strike partnership of Calafiori and Mikel Merino. One left-back, and one battling central midfielder. Together, they were two players operating a long way from their comfort zone.
Arsenal’s average positions in the first half show that Calafiori was the second most advanced player in Arteta’s team. And that is despite the Italian lining up as a more traditional left-back when Forest had the ball. In possession, Calafiori (No 33) was often the most attacking player in Arsenal’s team, by some distance.
For a brief moment in the first half it looked like the plan might have been a masterstroke. After producing a fabulous turn to lose his marker in the penalty box, Calafiori struck the far post with a curling effort. In that action, he looked for all the world like a man who was born to play up front.
Indeed, Calafiori looked rather more comfortable going forward than he did running towards his own goal. Against Forest winger Callum Hudson-Odoi, the Italian appeared anxious. When those two players first came up against each other, after just two minutes, the Arsenal defender was shown a yellow card for a cynical foul.
It is a remarkable illustration of Calafiori’s defender-striker hybrid role that he took almost as many touches in the opposition penalty area (three) as he did in his own half (four). Rarely has a television channel’s pre-match lineup graphic, which had him on the left of the defensive back four, been so misleading.
Calafiori’s early booking, and the threat of Hudson-Odoi on the flanks, ultimately led to his withdrawal at half-time. In his place came Kieran Tierney, and he too played a much more aggressive role than would usually be expected (albeit not quite as aggressive as Calafiori).
It was remarkable to see Tierney, who has spent almost his entire career as an overlapping left-back, receive the ball on the half-turn in the No 10 position, and then spray a gorgeous pass to the right wing.
The problem for Arsenal is that the strategy, ultimately, did not work. Aside from Calafiori’s shot against the post in the first half, Arteta’s side once again struggled to create chances from open play. Merino toiled hard but did not have much of an impact in the penalty area.
This is simply their reality at the moment, as they look to adapt and evolve without Kai Havertz, Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Martinelli and Kai Havertz. It is proving to be a desperately difficult task: two full matches have now passed since they last scored a goal. Clearly, there is no chance of catching Liverpool if they cannot find the net.
As well as Merino and Calafiori’s redeployment, there were other experiments by Arteta. For the second game in a row, Oleksandr Zinchenko came off the bench and played in midfield — a role that Arteta has never previously given the Ukrainian. Never before has the Arsenal manager felt compelled to tinker as dramatically as he did here.
The worst part for Arsenal? There might need to be more tinkering in the weeks to come. Saka and Martinelli are not expected back until April, which means they will miss the upcoming Champions League tie against PSV Eindhoven. In the desperate search for goals, Arteta will probably have to shuffle his pack all over again.
“I think we have many more options still to explore,” he said. “We certainly can do better with the situation that we are in.”
How they can do better, and who will play in the attacking positions, is currently anyone’s guess. Arsenal have no choice but to continue their extraordinary tactical experimentation.
