Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta can be stubborn, all right.
Take the thriller at the London Stadium at Saturday tea-time. The Basque boss picked exactly the same line-up that battered Nottingham Forest – far from unusual, given his penchant for relying on the same players to do different things depending on circumstance.
Often, Arteta will stick with things while others are questioning him – and more often than not, he's correct. But while Arsenal's blitz of the Hammers was further vindication of Arteta's fluid system, and the bench gave an indication that perhaps a U-turn is afoot.
Mikel Arteta added leadership to the Arsenal group for the trip to West Ham – and perhaps a second dimension
Arsenal's style is established, now. Arteta favours a 4-3-3 formation: he originally used Oleksandr Zinchenko as an inverted full-back before being a little more flexible with his players.
These days, Riccardo Calafiori and Jurrien Timber both take turns to invert and support the No.6, while in the first half against West Ham, William Saliba stepped into the second phase to receive at one point, too. Arsenal are unpredictable, now.
This change towards inverted full-backs and do-all ‘generalists’ at the back came about when Arteta deemed that Kieran Tierney wasn't capable of playing at left-back in Arsenal's Phase II.
Tierney went on loan to Real Sociedad – perhaps greasing the wheels for the Mikel Merino deal – but at the London Stadium, the Scot was back on the bench.
Many thought they'd never see Tierney in an Arsenal shirt again, with his injury at Euro 2024 hampering a chance of selling him. The left-back probably doesn't have a long-term future at the Emirates Stadium – two left-backs came on before him against the Hammers, with youngster Myles Lewis-Skelly also probably ahead in the pecking order – but his inclusion in the matchday squad this season is significant.
Tierney gives Arsenal the kind of full-back on the left that they have in Ben White. He's a superb defender but more importantly, he offers excellent overlapping on the flanks to allow Arsenal's wingers to cut inside.
Has Tierney come back into vogue, as Arteta's tactics have shifted? Perhaps – but even if he doesn't get onto the pitch, his influence is far bigger than that. As Aaron Ramsdale told FourFourTwo exclusively in 2022, Tierney is one of the club's biggest leaders.
“I'd tip KT to be captain,” Ramsdale told us. “Everyone respects him, he’s a great player and he wears his heart on his sleeve.
“That’s what Arsenal fans love – and all this talk lately about the defence, in loose terms, the similarities between us and the old-school Arsenal defence, I think Tierney is one player who reminds fans of the old-school Arsenal.”
The next few months are going to be defining in Arteta's tenure. That he's chosen to bring back someone so trusted into the fold says a lot – and Tierney could well have a role, however small, to help this squad whether it's on or off the pitch. Small margins matter at this level.
