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Arsenal have signed Real Madrid’s Dani Ceballos, who joins the London team on loan for the upcoming 2019/20 season. And while, at first, this does seem like Unai Emery is picking up scraps of other big teams and claiming their outcasts, Ceballos is still a quality player befitting of Emery’s vision at the Emirates.
Despite only a limited and more of a secondary role at Santiago Bernabeu, tallying only 56 games overall with five goals and two assists, Ceballos is a player who has a lot to offer. If implemented in the right role and at the right system, that is.
But what exactly does that mean for Arsenal and why did Emery choose him of all players? In order to answer those questions, we have to look at the tactical profile of both the player and the team the Spanish coach is trying to build.
Upon joining Arsenal in 2018, Emery already had quite the resume as a head coach but was most notable for his stints at Valencia and Sevilla. And if we take a look at his preferred style of play, we notice specific patterns emerging: highly structured systems, bigger emphasis on possession and finally, high-pressing tactics with a high defensive line.
These are some of the core attributes his teams, in general, like to use. And we could see some of it replicated in the Arsenal team of 2018/19. Emery opted to use the 4-2-3-1 (17 games) system the most throughout his first year at the Emirates, followed by an experimental 3-4-2-1 (seven games). Upon further inspection, we can also see that the tendency to attack through the wings also remained as Arsenal’s attack favoured both the left-wing (42%) and the right-wing (34%) to the central areas (24%).
But despite that being one of his general preferences, at Arsenal in 2018/19 it also appeared to come as a result of defensive fragility. Last season, the Gunners ranked only 11th in goals conceded with all the top teams in the Premier League being more defensively solid. Seemingly for that reason, Emery preferred to have either three centre-backs in the game or deploy a double pivot in front of the defensive line, hence the 4-2-3-1 and 3-4-2-1 formations respectively.
Naturally, this pushed their attacks out wide instead of centrally and players like Mesut Ozil, who excel at being creative as the team’s number ten, were sometimes left out of the team. And suddenly, that high emphasis on the wing-play turned Arsenal into a very one-dimensional team in the attacking sense. Obviously, Emery needs someone good on the ball and creative enough in the central positions to restore the team’s spark once again. And this is where Ceballos comes in.
To fully restore the “Unai Emery blueprint”, Arsenal will have to start putting more emphasis on the short passing involved in systematical build-ups from the back. This is something closely connected to the Spaniard’s traditional plan for how his teams should play. While Arsenal have still been practising possession-based football, a certain decline has been visible in their last campaign.
For example, their overall short passes per game fell from 571 to 499, and the same thing happened to their possession, which declined from 58.5% on average to 56.1%. While this may not seem like a big change, it does indicate that a shift in preferences or a change that was brought about by necessity, as was discussed earlier.
Ceballos excels technically and is also press-resistant, meaning he finds solutions for tricky situations. One main attribute that will help Arsenal find that Emery identity is his ability to drop deeper to help progress the ball forward, having proved himself adept in various midfield roles. This should help the Gunners find more success in building from the back as well as in deploying progressive passes going forward.
Last season, Ceballos averaged 92% passing accuracy in all competitions, which is an extremely impressive figure in itself. If we add the 1.3 key passes per game to that, it makes for a compelling case. Similarly, his defensive contributions should not be disregarded. 1.6 tackles and 0.7 interceptions per game is not really something to be particularly proud of but it does show that Ceballos is neither a fully attacking-minded nor a defensive-minded type of player. Rather, he offers a bit of both styles.
And this will please Emery even more. With Ceballos, Arsenal should be able to retain Emery’s original blueprint without having to sacrifice their defensive solidity as the midfielder can contribute both going forward and backwards.
Finally, Ceballos’ versatility will be just icing on the cake for the Spanish manager. The 22-year-old midfielder can play in a variety of different positions across the midfield, ranging from the more advanced playmaker to the more wide and deeper central areas respectively. This means that Emery can experiment with the formations and choose the one that suits his style the most.
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If he sticks to 4-2-3-1, Ceballos could be deployed in that number ten role but that would also mean that Emery would have to choose between him and Ozil respectively. A switch to a 4-3-3 could also be deployed and the Spaniard could play in basically any of the three roles in midfield.
There’s also an option to play him in a 4-4-2 diamond, which is something we haven’t seen that often with Emery (three games in 2018/19) but would, in theory, let him play four of his midfielders at the same time, including having Ozil and Ceballos on the pitch together.
Either way, it seems that this transfer can go a long way to restoring Emery’s blueprint at Arsenal with improving the ball circulation, strengthening the build-up play and adding to that midfield creativity while ensuring there is some tenacity out of possession.
The ball is now in the Spaniard’s yard – all he has to do it kick it well and the rest of the puzzle should fall into place. Will he be able to do it? Only time will tell.
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