Eze’s England goal shows how he can carve out his own place at Arsenal – Suburban Gooners

So the Arsenal boys did the trick last night for England. Not that I was watching. Now that England have qualified, these matches become nothing more than glorified friendlies and all that leaves me thinking is:

Why the hell is Saka playing full 90?

Rice was taken off in the 65th minute, so that’s good, and Ebs went up and scored a pretty decent goal from that left forward position (more on that in a second), but Saka shouldn’t topple the 90 in a game like this. I hope that during Sunday’s match he will have had some rest time.

I will say that Tuchel seems to be more attentive to the players and their minutes compared to the horror that was Gareth Southgate. He would give Saka the full 90 in an international friendly against Gibraltar, his ego needed stroking (funny how he hasn’t taken any managerial opportunities and is instead content to release a new book, eh?), but at least Tuchel thinks and acts like an elite manager and is keen to charge the players’ minutes. That’s my hope for Saka anyway, as he clearly decided that Rice could sit early last night.

Gattuso and the Italian coaching staff are doing the same with Calafiori, who was left out of the squad to face Moldova but could be in the squad when they play this weekend. There’s seemingly nothing to worry about, but it’s a clear sign that they know he has a checkered injury history, has played a lot of soccer this season and if he can get a few extra days off while training (albeit alone) with the Italian national team, then that’s something. Oddly enough, if he plays over the weekend, that might be a good thing because it shows he’s doing well. Italy play Norway on Sunday night and if he plays a part then he will have Sunday to Sunday to recover and that is hopefully enough time (assuming he doesn’t get injured) to be ready for the North London Derby.

Saliba also played for France in a match in which he will have essentially been a spectator given their dominance over a Ukrainian side who had no attempts on goal or on target and just 33% possession. Talk about domination. I looked at his numbers in that match and it was 62 passes out of 67 for France and 29 of those attempts were in the opponent’s half, so I think he will feel good after this win. He normally averages around 67 per game for Arsenal, so this looks like a pretty standard outing from Saliba, which is good news.

The rest of the players are in action for their first matches tonight and tomorrow and I would have liked Brazil to play their matches a little earlier. Big Gabi left with them and they won’t play until tomorrow and then Tuesday, but here’s the good news:

1. It’s a friendly match and I hope he rotated
2. It’s in Lille, France – on the borders of Belgium

A quick check on Google tells me it’s a one hour and 22 minute flight from London to Lille; it’s like taking a trip to Inverness in Scotland, so he’ll be back and hopefully wrapped in cotton by Wednesday evening, meaning Arteta will be able to see him on Thursday and by Friday he will have had three full days of training before the North London Derby on Sunday. Great stuff. Provided he doesn’t get hurt, of course.

I mentioned that I wanted to tackle Eze today and wanted to get a little insight into where he played for England. He replaced Rashford at left wing and a look at his heat map showed that he really played the kind of positions you’d expect from that position. But during the 26 minutes on the pitch, he was very not playing like a winger who hugs the touchline and asks to drive to his man. If we think about how Martinelli plays this role, Eze feels much more analogous to Trossard as an inside striker in this position and the superb goal he scored last night was also scored from this sort of inside left position.

We haven’t seen much of that this season due to Odegaard’s injury and Eze has obviously been asked to play a bit more centrally, which I think has left a few Arsenal fans feeling like there’s a bit more Eze could give us. But I think part of that is because he plays the “Odegaard role” differently than Martin. Odegaard is a pressing trigger for us and he is quite intense; Eze presses, but not as intensely as Odegaard – remember many times you’ve seen him close down the keeper like Odegaard does when we’re out of possession? I can’t. But in my mind, I can imagine Odegaard doing this every game. Odegaard also drops deeper to receive the ball than Eze, and also collects it in different positions, so when we miss Odegaard it’s great, we have a player like Eze who can look to play that role, but I wonder if he was a victim of the expectations being that he would be similar to the Norwegian. This will simply never be the case.

Eze needs to carve out his own place in this Arsenal team. This means from a central position when playing for an Odegaard, or perhaps even if Rice or Merino are unavailable and he slots into the left eight, or even if Rice slots into the six with Zubi out. We almost got to see this against West Ham, but Odegaard’s injury reduced him to a mere glimmer. So, Odegaard’s return could see Eze put himself in more similar positions to last night and if he delivers an end product like that, I don’t think many of us will be complaining, that’s for sure.

The challenge Eze will face when Odegaard returns is Trossard’s form in the position, as well as competition from Martinelli and Madueke as quick, touchline wingers to offer something different. For my part, I’m happy that we had him and his contribution with all these offensive players has been valuable at the moment. But perhaps he needs to find a way to play the various roles a little differently to others, to absolutely cement his place as a regular in Arteta’s Arsenal first XI.

back tomorrow with more thoughts.

**Quick ‘aside’ from Shakespeare to give some props to Saka for his fantastic goal last night as well. Good job Starboy – keep doing this for us when you get back!**