Mikel Arteta is getting a lot of credit as Arsenal manager right now – and rightly so.
Despite having no European football as a distraction last season, the Gunners still wound up finishing fifth behind a Tottenham Hotspur side that changed their head coach midway through the campaign.
Spurs pipped Arsenal to Champions League qualification on the final day of an otherwise poor season for Arteta’s side.
This time around, however, the North Londoners look a totally different proposition.
Arteta has Arsenal flying high at the top of the Premier League standings after Sunday’s 3-2 win over Liverpool, who are 14 points off the pace now.
It was a brilliant win for the Emirates Stadium outfit but one decision from the Spanish manager might’ve got lost in the shuffle – and it deserves a lot of credit.
Mohamed Salah had a stinker against Arsenal yesterday and only mustered 27 touches [WhoScored].
One reason for that is Takehiro Tomiyasu who didn’t give the Liverpool attacker a sniff.
With Oleksandr Zinchenko sidelined, Salah and Jurgen Klopp would’ve been preparing to face Kieran Tierney at left-back.
But Arteta deployed the Japan international – a right-back by trade – there instead and what a tactical masterstroke it proved.
It was a risky decision by the Arsenal manager, but the fact that he played Tomiyasu out of position against one of the world’s finest attackers – albeit one out of form – has proven a brilliant call, it has to be said.
To keep Salah out of a game like this is one thing, but to do it in an unfamiliar position is another thing entirely and both the player and coach deserve all the respect in the world for it.
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