Tam It’s been novel seeing Arteta commit to something a bit different with Zinchenko, but he’s another compromise amongst a team of compromises and it’s only really come to the fore in recent weeks when we’ve gone off the boil.
I personally think our use of Zinchenko will have outstayed its welcome by next season. It's also part and parcel with our need to support Xhaka in his adapted role. We've really had to shape the team around Xhaka, firstly moving him forward because of his poor tackling technique and temper issues, and secondly covering for his (relative—he's no slouch) lack of mobility with Zinchenko.
It worked pretty well for a while, but now opposing sides invariably hammer us with width on Zinchenko's outside and there's also a weird phenomenon where Martinelli cops the blame for not protecting the Ukrainian.
To me the answer is to pile a lot of well-directed money into the right new left back. It doesn't matter if the player's more a midfield conversion or a more rugged defender and athlete. But whoever it is must have class, intelligence and be physically supreme.
That way we free up Zinny for a squad role that he's made for, with his technical strengths and versatility, while making the question of the spaces on the left go away by introducing strong runners in place of both Zinchenko and Xhaka. We protect Gabriel more, who's being asked to do too much whenever Zinchenko's a bit off his best. And we simply no longer care about this question of inverting the full back because the player we've got, along with Rice in Xhaka's place, simply cover that whole fifth of the pitch between them.
