Sport Football
12 1GS Saturday July 18 2020 | the times
Pep Guardiola has highlighted his
semi-final defeats as proof that
Manchester City’s FA Cup tie against
Arsenal at Wembley tonight will be no
walkover.
Guardiola has enjoyed seven straight
victories against Arsenal, four of which
have been by three-goal margins, and
he possesses a squad that is superior to
that of Mikel Arteta, his former assist-
ant. But he reminded everyone yester-
day that his teams have tripped up at
the last-four stage on many occasions.
“I struggled a lot in my career in the
semi-finals,” Guardiola, 49, said. “It was
easier for me in the finals. I handled
them much, much better.”
Guardiola has managed in 14 finals
with Barcelona, Bayern Munich and
City and lost only once, against Real
Madrid in the Copa del Rey nine years
ago. However, he has lost seven of his 21
semi-finals, most recently three years
ago in the FA Cup, against Arsenal.
Guardiola believes the north London
side are improving under Arteta, who
left City to take over at the Emirates
Stadium in December. “Arsenal is one
of the elite clubs in English football for
the last 20 or 30 years, and I’m pretty
sure the right person to bring them back
is in charge,” he said.
Ederson will start tonight as Claudio
Bravo, City’s usual cup No 1, is injured.The vision and philosophy that Mikel
Arteta sold to Arsenal will be on the
other side of the Wembley pitch
tonight.
Arteta has made no secret of wanting
his Arsenal side to imitate the domi-
nance, aggression and passing style
associated with Pep Guardiola’s
Manchester City, whom they meet in
the FA Cup semi-final. Seven months
on from leaving his tutor at City for
north London, Arteta, 38, admits that
to do so, he will need time to impress his
ideas on the players and backing in the
transfer market this summer.
Arsenal have had to be pragmatic in
certain matches. They had only 31 per
cent possession in the 2-1 win over
Liverpool on Wednesday, the lowest
percentage recorded by an Arsenal side
in the Premier League.
Arteta bristled when asked whether
the transition into a team resemblingArteta: I’ll need time to emulate Pep
City was taking longer than he had
hoped. “It is impossible,” Arteta said. “I
need to adapt. I need to win football
games and I need to find ways to do
that. My long-term situation, in how we
want to play, is very clear. You are ask-
ing me if I wanted to play, after a two-
month break, like City right now?
“Look back on the issues we had with
a lot of players, with all the injuries, with
suspensions, with players out. We need
these players but we also need other
players to do that.”
Arsenal have drawn up different
plans for the transfer market depending
on whether they qualify for the Europa
League and what money might be
made available, including from player
sales. There is uncertainty over whe-
ther Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and
Alexandre Lacazette, the strikers, will
stay at the club. Arteta said the shorter
than normal pre-season will make it
more important to do their business
early next month. He has hinted that he
wants to sign Dani Ceballos, themidfielder, probably on loan again. He
also wants a defensive midfielder
although Thomas Partey may now stay
at Atletico Madrid.
“We don’t know exactly what is going
to happen or what we are going to be
able to do, to keep players or not to
keep,” he said. “There are a lot of ques-
tions that we cannot resolve right now.”
The assurances Arteta sought when
he took charge may not come to
fruition because of the financial effects
of the pandemic.
“The context has changed because of
Covid,” Arteta said. “We didn’t know
where we could take the team and it was
a really difficult moment. Sometimes
we were looking down to the relegation
zone and saying, ‘We have won one in
13.’ ”
Arteta expects City to dominate pos-
session but says his team cannot park
the bus as they did against Liverpool. “I
know their strengths and flexibility but
even then sometimes it is very difficult
to stop them,” he said.Gary JacobGuardiola wary of semis
Paul Hirst Pep’s record in semi-finals
Played
21Won 14 Lost 7saying he’s a player of the same
calibre, but he shares some similar
attributes: he has that power, that
intelligence in his positioning, that
strength which allows him to shield
the ball extremely well.
“He loses very few duels. He also
has attributes that are reminiscent of
Raphaël Varane when he was at Lens:
the positioning, the way he almost
never makes a tackle. I think that’s
perhaps the closest comparison.”
Perhaps Saliba’s biggest challenge
will be adjusting to English football:
not only the rhythm and the tempo of
the Premier League but also the
public-facing demands of an
increased profile.
“Saliba needs to learn not only how
to speak English but also how to
communicate as a top sportsman in
the English media sphere,” Maymon
says. “In France, we have a bit of a
problem: our sportsmen, if they
haven’t played abroad, are a bit
amateurish in the way they
communicate with the public.
“But that’s an important part of the
job of being a footballer nowadays
and something he’ll need to get to
grips with.”
Saliba will certainly need patience,
he is still only a teenager after all. But
the expectations on him are clear.
Some of the best players in Europe
have developed under Puel’s hand
during the Frenchman’s long career:
the likes of Thierry Henry, Eden
Hazard, David Trézéguet, Éric Abidal
and Adil Rami. If Saliba proves
worthy of that lineage, Arsenal may
just have found the defensive
mainstay they have been looking for.possession-based style, where the
midfielders are looking to receive
short passes from the centre backs.
Given that Saliba’s one weakness is
his ability to create from the back,
that style might help him. If, as soon
as he recovers the ball — which he
does a lot — a midfielder shows for
the pass and takes that task of
progressing the ball, that could suit
him very well.”
It says something for Saliba’s
potential that the two players whom
Maymon cites as the closest stylistic
comparisons for the young
Frenchman are considered two of the
finest centre backs in the modern
game.
“I don’t want to heap too much
expectation on his shoulders, but he
has qualities that are reminiscent of
[Virgil] van Dijk,” he says. “I’m notlacks the ability to play penetrative,
line-breaking passes out of defence,
but Maymon believes that his skillset
could mesh well with Arsenal’s
philosophy and their present
defensive situation.
“Arsenal are missing a lot of things
in central defence and Saliba can
solve a lot of their problems,” he says.
“He has the pace that Sokratis no
longer has, and he has the composure
that David Luiz no longer has.
“Saliba is only 19 but I can’t
remember a single time when he has
had a lapse of concentration which
has led to a goal. Arsenal’s problem is
that they have very good individuals
but they can’t put together, over the
course of a season, a series of solid
and consistent performances. Saliba is
extremely solid and very consistent.
“Arteta is trying to implement aWith four wins in their past six
games, including Wednesday’s victory
over Liverpool, things are suddenly
looking up for Arsenal. Mikel Arteta’s
high-pressing style is beginning to
take root, and the squad has talent
and depth in goal, midfield and
attack. The defence, though, remains
a worry. No combination from the
central defensive quartet of David
Luiz, Shkodran Mustafi, Rob Holding
and Sokratis Papastathopoulos has
really convinced as the sort of bastion
of solidity that a top-four challenge
can be built on. But next season,
Arteta will have another option at
the back.
The French centre back William
Saliba, 19, was signed last summer but
has remained at Saint-Étienne on
loan this season. But after the Ligue 1
season was abandoned, Saliba has
been training at Arsenal — although
not without a rather messy
conclusion to his loan spell.
Saint-Étienne had reached the
French Cup final against Paris Saint-
Germain, which is due to take place
next week. Saliba had hoped to play
in the match but Arsenal, wary of the
defender suffering another injury
after a disrupted season, did not
extend his loan, which expired on
June 30. It is an awkward start to
Arsenal’s relationship with a player
whom they hope will be
transformative.
Timothée Maymon, a journalist for
the French broadcaster RMC who has
covered Saint-Étienne throughout his
career, believes that the high hopes
for Saliba are not misplaced.
“Between last season, when he made
his senior debut, and this one, he has
shown, at least at the level of the
French league, that he is a player of
the top class,” he says.
“Often, players of his build can be
quick once they get going, but take a
bit of time to change direction, and
can lose a step on a very fast attacker
in those situations. Saliba is very
quick in his movements. He has a
very long torso and relatively short
legs, and that means that his centre of
gravity is relatively low for a player of
his dimensions, which gives him this
ability to change direction quickly.
“His reading of the game, for his
age, is simply exceptional. He is
precocious in his composure, his
sangfroid, his vision.
“He makes a lot of interceptions
and relatively few tackles, he’s always
a step ahead.”
With Arteta still oscillating
between a back three and a back four,
it may help Saliba that he has played
in both systems at Saint-Étienne
under Claude Puel, the former
Southampton and Leicester City
manager. In a back three, he plays as
a right-sided centre back. The one
weakness of Saliba’s game is that heArsenal pin hopes on ‘new Van Dijk’
Teenager William Saliba
could help Mikel Arteta
fix key weakness at the
back next season, writes
James Gheerbrant
How Arsenal might line
up next seasonE MartínezH Bellerín D Luiz W Saliba K TierneyD Ceballos G Xhaka B SakaN Pépé A LacazetteP-E Aubameyang4-3-Saliba, who spent last season on loan at Saint-Étienne, reads the game so well that he is rarely forced into making tacklesANTHONY DIBON/ICON SPORT/GETTY IMAGES