Only a couple of
months ago,
Leandro Trossard appeared to be fourth in the pecking order on
Arsenal’s left, but his importance has grown as the season has
progressed.
Given how busy Arsenal
were over the summer, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume, as the
transfer window came towards its close, that Leandro Trossard’s
time at the club might soon end.
Gabriel Martinelli hadn’t had his best campaign last season but
there remained hope he could rediscover his electric form from
2022-23, while Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke had both been brought
in for upwards of £50 million. Although neither is most comfortable
on the left side of attack, they can both play there and added
further depth in the position when they arrived. They both
certainly seemed like more exciting options there than the reliable
but rarely showstopping Trossard.
The 30-year-old former Brighton man was, it appeared, falling
down the pecking order, and with Arsenal ultimately spending more
than £250m in the summer and recouping a relative pittance of
approximately £9m, reports of the Belgian’s imminent departure made
some sense.
He was as low as fourth choice in his favoured left-sided
position, while he hadn’t been entirely convincing as the stand-in
centre-forward when Kai
Havertz was injured last season, especially given Mikel Merino
proved himself as an able back-up striker. So, when Arsenal spent
big on centre-forward Viktor
Gyökeres, Trossard’s chances of playing appeared to fall
further.
He wasn’t sold, though. Instead, on 22 August, he signed a new
contract on improved terms. “Leo was very clear from the beginning
that he wanted to be here,” manager Mikel Arteta said. “The club
was very clear that they wanted Leo here, I was very clear that I
wanted him here. At the end, good outcome.”
Trossard has long been one of Arteta’s most trusted lieutenants.
He has made more Arsenal appearances in all competitions (137) than
any other player since his debut in January 2023. Perhaps the
manager insisting Trossard “deserved recognition” with a new
contract shouldn’t have been a surprise.
But there’s no denying that it was a surprise. Trossard
has been consistently been in and out of the Arsenal team
throughout his time there, despite not having many injury problems,
and as a result, he has never really looked like a winger who could
be the difference as Arsenal chase the title. Since the Belgian’s
debut, only Gabriel Jesus boasts a better rate of non-penalty goals
or assists per 90 (0.72) for Arsenal than Trossard (0.67), but the
problem has been game time.
He has completed the full match in just 23 of his 136 Arsenal
appearances. In February of this year, in the depths of last
season’s injury crisis and more than two years since he signed, he
completed 90 minutes in consecutive Arsenal games for the first
time.
This season, after the unexpected new contract, there was even
more confusion as to why he was given it when Trossard was named on
the bench for each of Arsenal’s first four games. Martinelli,
Madueke and Eze started on the left side of midfield in those
matches, and Trossard remained an unused substitute in the two
biggest games, away to Manchester United and Liverpool, only
appearing off the bench at home when his side were winning 4-0
against Leeds and 2-0 against Nottingham Forest.
Against Forest, he set up a
Martín Zubimendi goal with his first touch to make it 3-0 but
barely celebrated. At that point, he looked disconnected from the
rest of the team.
Then, the decision to extend his contract seemed questionable,
but that game in fact became a turning point for Trossard.
A few days later, with a Champions League tie at Athletic Club
still goalless, Trossard came off the bench to set up one goal and
score another to earn Arsenal a 2-0 win. That weekend, he was
starting on the left side of attack against Manchester City. He has
kept his place ever since.
Trossard has now started the last six Premier League games in a
row, meaning if he keeps his spot for the trip to Sunderland on
Saturday, which appears likely, he’ll be on his joint-second
longest run of consecutive league starts for Arsenal. The only time
he has started more than seven games in a row was between 4 January
and 16 March this year, when he started 10 successive games during
a period when forwards Havertz, Martinelli, Bukayo
Saka and Gabriel Jesus all had spells out injured.
The difference this time is that even though Madueke, Jesus and
Havertz have all been injured, Arsenal have depth in attack after
their busy summer. Trossard has been earning his spot, rather than
just keeping it due to a lack of alternatives.
Record-breaking Arsenal
A spate of more recent injuries in attacking positions, however,
could mean Arteta is once again forced to rely on Trossard.
The Arsenal manager said he was “concerned” about the muscle
injury Gyökeres picked up in last weekend’s trip to Burnley, while
Martinelli missed the midweek Champions League win at Slavia
Prague. “We don’t know yet [how long for],” Arteta said. Havertz
and Madueke could be back after the international break, but
neither has played for a decent amount of time and would take at
least a few games to get back up to speed.
Trossard isn’t the most glamourous player in Arsenal’s squad,
but he does plenty of useful work and pops up in important moments
with crucial contributions. He scored the only goal of the game in
last month’s 1-0 win at Fulham – where Arsenal had dropped points
in each of the last two seasons – while last season he scored the
winner in January’s home north London derby. He is a senior member
of the squad, the oldest player who regularly plays, and is growing
into something of a leader.
More importantly, at a time when much of Arsenal’s success is
based on their ludicrously watertight defence and wonderfully
effective attacking set-pieces, they need as much help as they can
get in open play. Trossard has been a big help in that sense.
His assists in back-to-back games – crosses for headed goals
from Declan
Rice at Burnley and Mikel
Merino at Slavia Prague – in the past week have both come in
open play. Of all Arsenal players to play at least 250 minutes of
Premier League football this season, only Saka (0.27) and Eze
(0.15) are averaging more expected
assists (xA) in open play per 90 than Trossard (0.13), and only
Gyökeres (0.29) is averaging more expected goals from open play per
90 than him (0.20).
Mr Reliable, Trossard has grown into a key member of Arsenal’s
first XI rather than just their squad. He is now one of the players
who was rested for the EFL Cup tie with Brighton and withdrawn late
on in Prague only once the game was won, both with bigger
challenges – such as the weekend trip to high-flying Sunderland –
in mind.
He probably won’t be the main man in whatever success Arsenal
have this season, but after appearing as though he might be on his
way out of the club, he is now justifying his position as an
important player in this title challenge as someone that Arteta can
always depend on.
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