Arteta: 'Arsenal used 43 lineups against Man City'
Arsenal spent more than 200 million USD to recruit Kai Havertz, Jurrien Timber, Declan Rice, but the start of the season was not impressive. In the English Super Cup match, the "Gunners" won against Man City in a penalty shootout after drawing 1-1 in regular time thanks to Leandro Trossard's deflected shot in stoppage time. After that, they defeated Nottingham 2-1, Crystal Palace 1-0 and drew 2-2 at home with Fulham despite being superior in the Premier League.
In all three of these matches, Arteta surprised him by leaving Gabriel Magalhaes on the bench, while Ben White played center back with William Saliba. Thomas Partey was pulled down to play at right-back, leaving rookie Kai Havertz in midfield with captain Martin Odegaard and Declan Rice. These tests have not been effective when Havertz did not leave any mark, and Arsenal played inflexibly.
During the press conference before the match against Man Utd, when asked about these tactical changes, Arteta replied: "I think we discuss the formation in a different way. Against Fulham, Arsenal used 36 formations, while Against Man City there are 43 squads. So I don't know which squad you are talking about. I think things can be very different from your perspective."
The Spanish coach emphasized that Arsenal cannot operate like last season, because Oleksandr Zinchenko is injured and Granit Xhaka has gone to Bayer Leverkusen. "Unless Arsenal bring them back, that's not going to happen," Arteta said. "Everything will be different, because this is a different season. That's the beauty of what I like the most, it's new and we can do a lot better at a lot of things."
Arteta said Arsenal will not sign any new recruits on the final day of the transfer window. He admitted that recruiting a defender to replace Timber - a player with an anterior cruciate ligament injury in his right knee and likely out for the rest of the season - is very complicated, because Arsenal has not yet liquidated those who no longer have a future at the club.
Before the transfer window closed on September 1, the "Gunners" had not found an outlet for Albert Sambi Lokonga, Cedric Soares and Nicolas Pepe. On the contrary, Arsenal pushed Nuno Tavares to Nottingham Forest, Kieran Tierney to Sociedad on loan, Rob Holding joined Crystal Palace for a fee of 5 million USD and Folarin Balogun landed at AS Monaco for 45 million USD.
When asked if the result of the match against Man Utd would show the ability of either team to compete for the title, the 41-year-old coach replied: "I don't know, it's too early to talk about the championship. We want to win everything." match and play in the best way possible. But victory against Man Utd will give motivation and confidence."
