Qwiss He's been super consistent all season, no signs he lacks anything mentality-wise. He just doesn't get the "look at this hero working hard to avoid relegation" kudos because he and his team were far better than that all season.
Yep I think there's a big risk of overpaying for Rice due to his "captain courageous" reputation. I think you and I agree on that. We don't need a big hero, we need actual leaders. But who is that? Is it Rice? Caicedo?
In midfield I reckon we have one proper leader, Ødegaard. He's the guy who makes Artetaball tick over, really. Even Xhaka's biggest supporters wouldn't question the blatant wisdom of giving the Norwegian the armband ahead of Granit "Insane in the Albane" Xhaka.
But Ødegaard does lead us a bit like a star pupil getting left up the front of the classroom for five minutes with the chalk and the blackboard duster while the teacher has a quiet smoke.
We've been having this conversation about what the underlying factors are in our recent slump, during which we've dropped a big chunk of all the points we've let slip this season, and really damaged our league charge.
There are people who think it's mostly about squad depth, personally I don't agree. We need more options, but we've only had one match a week and we've thrown away some great situations. I think it's mostly been about season and game management.
By season management I mean a whole season of giving maximum effort with little rotation of the first XI, Arteta's reluctance to get value out of the bench and to acknowledge the weaknesses and varying form of some of our starters.
By game management I mean our somewhat one-note, Plan A football and the way we haven't reshaped or rethought much, even as we make major changes like bringing Holding in for Saliba.
It's Arteta who's shown himself up the most, I think. He's been a step behind in terms of his planning, his XIs and his subs through this whole subarc. Not going to pan him for what's been a great season, we assume he can learn.
In terms of players, though, we need a couple more who are effective, proactive problem-solvers on the pitch, with charisma as well as resilience for themselves. Our current lot of more senior players are a bit given to ineffective theatrics, or they go quiet. We don't need self-heroising types, critics or martyrs. We need a couple of fierce, canny and mature players who are otherwise near automatic starters.
Trossard's got some great difference-making qualities I reckon, for instance he intuitively varies his positioning to generate different possibilities, and he's always super positive and ready to take responsibility when he comes on. He's just not an automatic starter.
