FA Cup draw : Welcome to Saka Central

Morning everyone.

Let’s start with the draw for the 5th round of the FA Cup which took place last night, and we’re going to face Mansfield Town away from home. They currently sit 13th in League One, 9 places above Wigan who we beat on Sunday, and considering some of the sides we could have faced, it’s a pretty kind draw.

The game will take place on the weekend of the weekend of Saturday March 7th, but it has yet to be properly scheduled. It sits between a trip to Brighton in the Premier League, and a home game against Everton, and it’s another tie that will allow Mikel Arteta to use the full extent of his deep squad.

The full 5th round draw is:

• Fulham v Southampton
• Port Vale/Bristol City v Sunderland
• Newcastle v Man City
• Leeds v Norwich
• Mansfield Town v Arsenal
• Wolves v Liverpool
• Wrexham v Chelsea
• West Ham v Brentford

The other one that obviously stands out there is Man City having to face Newcastle again. At the very least, you’d hope that would be a physical, intense game for them, and while we’re only in control of our own stuff, if Mr Joe Linton decides to boot a few of their players up and down St James’ Park with the kind of impunity he gets when we play them, I’m not gonna complain.

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Meanwhile, after Bukayo Saka was a surprise starter in midfield against Wigan, there’s been a lot of chat about whether or not this might be something we see more. We certainly had a big discussion about it on the Arsecast Extra, and I do think it’s an interesting thing to consider. First, yes it was ‘just Wigan’, and that caveat has to be applied, but it was still a solid performance from a player who has barely ever featured in that position, not to mention one who didn’t even know he was going to start there until a few minutes before kick off.

Generally speaking his performance was very tidy. Just one misplaced pass, and he played a part in the third goal with a give and go with Noni Madueke outside him. Asked about what Saka brings in that position afterwards, Mikel Arteta said:

He’s more central, he’s closer to the goal. It’s a bit more difficult for the opponent to get his reference constantly. He can interchange positions with a wide player as well, and he’s so good at picking those spaces. When he’s there, he can really hurt you with the ball.

With Mikel Merino and Kai Havertz injured, Martin Odegaard a doubt, and Madueke in some decent form with 3 goals in his last 5 games from the right, I think Arteta should be open to the idea of using Saka in this position. I know there’s Eberechi Eze to consider, after his good performance against Wigan, but I do wonder if he’s more effective from the left than, ostensibly at least, on the other side. I know there’s room for him to roam, but perhaps part of his struggles since he arrived are about having to influence games from a different area of the pitch

Saka brings that left-footed balance, and the way he plays is worth consideration too. Odegaard, for example, is much more of a facilitator, a player who provides – on his best days – the connectivity you need to exert control in a game. He drops deep, a little too much at times for my preference, but he’s comfortable picking the ball up from the centre-halves and bringing others into play.

I can’t see Saka ever doing that, or wanting to do that. He is first and foremost someone who wants to produce, whose style of play is about driving into dangerous positions. We’ve seen it so often on the wing, there’s no reason why that would change if he played more centrally. He will take people on, he’ll combine, he’ll take shots, and perhaps gives the team something different in that position from any of the other options we have.

And, as we head towards the business end of the season, adding something new to the mix can only be a good thing. There isn’t an opposition manager/analyst who, when preparing for a game against Arsenal, really had to consider the possibility that Saka would play in that position. They probably do now, and to my mind there’s no doubt he has the technical quality and game intelligence to shift inside and be just as effective. The fact that he was able to do it so well at such short notice, even against lower league opposition, tells you that.

I suspect this will be a line of questioning today as the manager meets the press ahead of our trip to Wolves tomorrow, and I’m genuinely curious how seriously he deals with it. Every team needs to find new ways to cause the opposition problems, not just in pre-season when there’s time to prepare and practice, but in the heat of the campaign, which is exactly where we are now. You have to be able to adapt, to evolve, and while this might have been a decision that was thrust upon Arteta because of Riccardo Calafiori’s warm-up injury, that’s so often the case in cases like this. Necessity is the mother of invention, as the saying goes, and I’d absolutely be open to seeing more of Saka in midfield.

Right, I’ll leave it there for now. The Arsecast Extra is below if you haven’t had a chance to listen yet, and you can join us later on Patreon for a preview podcast for tomorrow’s game.

Have a good one folks.

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