After 22 years, this is the first time Arsenal has led the Premier League title race in May. This is something many "Gunners" fans have doubted after the team had some slips in April, as evidenced by losing 2/3 matches in the Premier League last month.
In the first match in May, Arsenal faced Fulham at home and they won a very impressive 3-0 victory. Then, they defeated Atletico Madrid also at the Emirates in the second leg of the semi-finals to win a ticket to play in the Champions League final against PSG. Then, they defeated West Ham in the most dramatic match of the season to officially lead the Premier League and take control of the championship.
The use of Myles Lewis-Skelly in midfield and Riccardo Calafiori in left-back has created balance, helping Arteta maintain the starting lineup in all recent matches. Those are the second leg of the Champions League semi-final against Atletico Madrid and the match against West Ham last weekend. The match against West Ham is the 3rd time since the beginning of the season that Arteta has maintained the starting lineup.
In the match against Fulham, it was probably a long time since The Gunners fans had enjoyed a match with a true performance and without pressure from the players on the field. Therefore, when the first half ended with a score of 3-0 in favor of the "Gunners", cheers from the Emirates stands resounded to the point that the team had just achieved a very big goal.
Lewis-Skelly and Calafiori continued to play a balanced role in the match against Atletico 3 days later. They were also important factors in Arsenal's play in the first minutes against West Ham, creating terrifying pressure right at the Olympics.
Lewis-Skelly's ability to move the ball forward, Calafiori's bold attacking surges and Trossard's comfort when falling deep to support the left wing have brought flexibility. This is only most clearly seen in the fall of last year, when Calafiori and Trossard started 8 consecutive matches together.
Before the match against West Ham, Mikel Arteta shared that this season, many times he had to use intuition to make personnel decisions. The young coach also shared that decisions from intuition can be right or wrong. Arteta said he always prepares carefully when making decisions, but the reality on the field is a different story. This is true for Ben White in the London Derby last weekend.
Ben White's injury after only 26 minutes was an unintended incident for Mikel Arteta. The Spanish captain at that time had to use intuition to decide to change tactics. He brought Christian Mosquera onto the field and moved Declan Rice down to play as right-back.
However, immediately after Rice moved down to this position and did not play well, Arteta immediately felt dangerous. Letting Martin Zubimendi play in the familiar position but Rice did not play alongside in midfield also made it difficult for Zubimendi himself.
The next adjustment after 22 minutes helped Arsenal win. Once again, it was thanks to intuition when Arteta took Zubimendi off after this midfielder was brought on the field not long ago.
The decision to take Zubimendi out at that time was very difficult, but I felt that the presence of Martin Odegaard and Kai Havertz would be better. Thank God, in the end this worked" - Arteta shared after the match.
It took time to practice on the field for Arteta to find the right formula against West Ham. He deserves praise for quickly recognizing his mistakes and correcting them in time.
In the championship race with Man City many years ago, Arteta made many wrong decisions in important moments. This season, not only bold substitutions in important matches against West Ham, Arteta has also shown this before.
Two months ago, he proved his ability to make breakthrough decisions to bring about a breakthrough advantage by replacing Bukayo Saka, who was playing quite poorly, with Noni Madueke in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 against Bayer Leverkusen. Madueke then earned an important away penalty, creating a premise for the team to win overall.
With the remaining 3 matches of the season, 2 matches in the Premier League and the Champions League final, everything is still not completed for The Gunners. Arteta is facing the threshold of the team's history. Sometimes in this decisive period, all tactical calculations do not bring results with the intuition of a strategist.
