How do Arsenal replace Hector Bellerin and what are they losing? 

Hector Bellerin
Hector Bellerin faces a race against time to be fit for next season Credit: Twitter: @HectorBellerin

One wonders how many black cats and cracked mirrors Unai Emery passes on his morning commute to London Colney, with Hector Bellerin the third Arsenal player lost to a season-ending injury in his debut campaign as head coach. 

Bellerin, Danny Welbeck and Rob Holding were three players who seemed particularly receptive to Emery's methods and equipped with the attributes to fit his vision - speed, intensity, or comfort playing from the back. 

Arsenal confirmed Bellerin will not play again this season after rupturing his cruciate ligament against Chelsea, as he begins a six to nine months rehabilitation period.  

The tactical and physical demands on full-backs in modern football also make it more difficult for a dependable reserve to step in and 'do a job'. Bellerin's qualities are not easily replicated in Arsenal's squad. 

With that in mind, it might take more than Stephan Lichtsteiner and a prayer for Arsenal to prosper without their Cockney-Catalan favourite. 

How big a loss is Bellerin?

Emery's Arsenal have relied heavily on their full-backs (or wing-backs when they play three centre-backs) for width, penetration and attacking production this season. The intriguing question for Arsenal fans is whether this is fundemental to Emery's philosophy or a compensation for the lack of natural wingers in squad. 

Listening to Emery speak, it seems to former might be the case. 

“Wing-backs for us, and I think for football generally, give us the opportunity to get wide, and sometimes also the surprise of getting deep,” he told Arsenal's official website.

“They give control with the ball when you have players inside. They can go outside, keeping wide and going deep for the last attacking moment. But also it's very important for every team, and for us as well, for them to defensively and tactically have quality.  

“Maybe they can be runners and have the capacity to add the attacking moments when the team needs it. They can offer a surprise with an attacking moment. But not forgetting that for every defensive player, the first work from them is defensively." 

Combining right-winger, right-sided midfielder and right-back is an exacting athletic task, and Bellerin's physical capacity to perform this role is possibly the hardest thing to replace. Thanks to his education at Barcelona's La Masia as a fledgling midfielder, he is also very secure on the ball and comfortable receiving it in tight spots against the touchline. With Emery committed to building play methodically from the back, this is a crucial part of how Arsenal progress play. Having full-backs pushed forward also enables Arsenal to stay compact centrally and out-number the opposition in midfield.

Arsenal's encouraging 1-1 draw with Liverpool in November - the first of three impressive home performances against members of the 'Big Six' - was a fine illustration of this. The advanced positioning of Bellerin and Sead Kolasinac was bold given Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mane's potential devastation, but was key to Arsenal controlling the game for long periods. Bellerin and Kolasinac stretched Liverpool's midfield three horizontally, attracting James Milner and Georginio Wijnaldum, thus leaving Fabinho overwhelmed in the middle against Granit Xhaka, Lucas Torriera and Mesut Ozil. 

Average touch positions: Arsenal 1 Liverpool 1, November 4 2018

Emery's long-term ideal for this Arsenal team is not yet clear, but having numbers or density through the middle seems an intrinsic part of it: two-centre-backs, two deep-lying midfielders with two more attacking midfielders tucked in off the flanks look to be his favoured default set-up. 

Arsenal's attacking midfielders feeding overlapping full-backs has been their best route to chance creation this season. Cut-backs from the bar-line typically result in a higher quality of chance than crosses tossed in hopefully from wide. Only Aaron Ramsey has more Premier league assists for Arsenal this season than Bellerin's five. 

Bellerin's importance as a defender should not be under-estimated either. Collectively, Arsenal's defence lacks recovery pace and players comfortable defending in one-against-one situations. Bellerin is better in these scenarios than he is given credit for. He is perhaps guilty of not closing down opponents fast enough to prevent crosses, but that can be a safe tactic against diminutive attacks like Chelsea's last time out. 

Assessing the replacements

Stephan Lichtsteiner 

The words '35-year-old former Juventus defender' would ordinarily be a source of comfort, but Lichtsteiner has looked every one of those years in his scratchy performances for Arsenal. In fact, since a semi-competent first outing against Manchester City, Lichtsteiner has got progressively worse. 

There are mitigating factors. It is difficult for a veteran player to stay sharp and at the pace of Premier League games without, well, playing any Premier League games. Arsenal's defence was in flux due to injuries over Christmas, so the Swiss was not stepping into a settled unit. Furthermore, Lichtsteiner has also spent time playing out of position at centre-back in both a three and a four. It is worth remembering that he played most of his best football at wing-back for Juventus, in front of three of the best centre-halves in world football in a dominant team domestically. Energy and stamina were his strong points, defensive positioning less so. 

Stephan Lichtsteiner Arsenal
Stephan Lichtsteiner has enjoyed some torrid outings in English football  Credit: Getty Images

Emery speaks regularly about the importance of Arsenal achieving 'imposing positioning' to control games. Like many of his statements it is difficult to decipher, but getting his full-backs up the pitch is a key component of pushing opponents back. In games such as Crystal Palace and Brighton away, Arsenal have found themselves too easily pinned back with Lichsteiner at right-back. Lichtsteiner did not feature, but Emery bemoaned Arsenal's lack of territorial control at West Ham when he said: “We didn’t concede a lot of chances but we conceded metres on the pitch and these metres took a lot of corners." 

Without the pace to get in on the overlap and consistently support attacks, Arsenal's attacking threat would be diminished. Lichtsteiner is diametrically opposed to the player he would be replacing. 

Ainsley Maitland-Niles

Far closer to Bellerin in profile than Lichtsteiner, Maitland-Niles would enable Arsenal to stick to the same principles with minimal compensation. Whether he has the consistency and focus to see Arsenal through half a season at this stage of his career is the doubt. Maitland-Niles' best game is certainly at the required level, but the standard of your worst game is sometimes the measure, especially for defenders. 

Maitland-Niles was talked up by Arsene Wenger as a potential defensive midfielder, and a few weeks ago expressed a desire to develop as winger, but a 21-year-old at a club of Arsenal's size cannot turn his nose up at regular starts. Incredibly composed in possession with soft feet and clean touch, Maitland-Niles has the technique to settle into Arsenal's passing patterns as well as the pace to get around the back for those all important cut-backs.

Ainsley Maitland-Niles 
Ainsley Maitland-Niles could his chance for a run of starts in the absence of Hector Bellerin Credit: Getty Images

The Englishman also potentially adds something Arsenal currently lack - the ability to dribble past opponents in the final third. Maitland-Niles has arguably more tricks and changes of direction than Bellerin, who generally runs in straight lines looking to play wall passes and one-twos. Picking the right moments to dribble and the right moments to pass will test his decision making, especially when Arsenal face deep-lying defences at home. 

Getting Maitland-Niles up to scratch defensively will take work on the training ground, although his electric pace offers a margin for error should he make tactical mistakes (which is more than you can say for Lichtsteiner). Opponents will look to challenge his defending of the back post on crosses. 

Honourable mentions...

Carl Jenkinson is a good athlete and willing runner, but will likely be used in a 'break in case of emergency' scenario. Shkodran Mustafi played at right-back for Germany earlier in his career, but has not been considered there since joining Arsenal in 2016. His hamstrings withstanding the extra running would concern. 

Other potential tweaks

Struggling to attack down your right flank? Just attack down the left! 

It sounds simple, but Arsenal are already tilted towards the forceful runs of Sead Kolasinac, who has had more touches in the opposition penalty area than any Premier League defender this season. It might therefore suit Arsenal to have a more conservative and functional full-back on the other side. Back-up players tend to approach games in this fashion and focus on the basics. Xhaka rarely embarrassed himself defensively during his spell at left-back for example, but offered little going forward. 

This lop-sided approach was a feature of Arsene Wenger's Arsenal teams, with Wenger favouring one thrusting full-back and one who operated more like a third centre-back: Lauren and Ashley Cole, Bacary Sagna and Kieran Gibbs, Nacho Monreal and Bellerin. Such a set-up might be the order of the day again to compensate for Bellerin's absence. 

Emery might ask one of the attacking players to hold their width on the right. In home victories over Tottenham and Chelsea, he deployed Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette as split strikers breaking into wide areas. Henrikh Mkhitaryan is due to return imminently, and he might be asked to player slightly wider than he was before his injury as a more orthodox wide player.

Denis Suarez, heavily linked with a January move from Barcelona, could provide another option. "He was playing as a left or right winger for Sevilla when he was with me," said Emery, although most of his football at the Nou Camp has come centrally. 

License this content