Arsenal grabbed 3 points against Newcastle United this Saturday as Lucas Torreira made a case for a starting spot and Ozil netted on his 200th game for the club. Apart from all this, there were a few things that need attention. We shall have a look at few of the things that were overshadowed by the events of Saturday.

3 Carcedo’s importance

It has been 5 games under the very industrious Unai Emery and his team. One of the most important members of this team is Juan Carlos Carcedo. In every game, we see him much more vocal than the likes of Pat Rice and Steve Bould. Arsene Wenger famously asserted his dominance at the very beginning of his Arsenal career and liked to have complete control on the touchline. With the new management model, the coaching staff has apparently been asked to take up more responsibility.

Every week, we see Carcedo barking out orders, jumping out of the dugout and being consulted by Emery. The presence of a second strong voice leads to a more dynamic approach to the game. Halftime substitutions and switching positions have been a more common sight for Gooners than the last few years. This is one development that can potentially have a great impact in the future.

2 Mustafi HORRIBLE

Arsenal did look very good in the second half and almost all of the players improved by a mile when Lucas Torreira came on and the goals started coming. Shkodran Mustafi, however, did not improve and was a mess. On a number of occasions he messed up and Sokratis or Bellerin had to cover up for his mistakes throughout the game.

https://twitter.com/afcstuff/status/1040969747448381445

At one point of time, he slipped and had Sokratis not tracked back- Petr Cech would have been picking the ball up from the net. He was largely at fault for the goal. Giving away goals like this has been one of Arsenal’s biggest problems before and this needs to be checked. Come the Europa League games, Rob Holding will start playing and may even throw Mustafi out of the starting lineup.

1 The Cazorla effect

When Granit Xhaka joined Arsenal 2 years ago, he was a huge hit- people compared him to Paul Pogba. He was tall, rough and scored some occasional screamers. Then his performances slowly deteriorated and he fell out of favor with the fans. However Arsene Wenger kept playing him and Unai Emery gave him a new contract immediately after joining.

Xhaka is not a bad player- he broke the record for most passes completed in a Premier League season last term. The thing that made Xhaka look so poor was the loss of Cazorla.

An agile midfielder with a high work rate, outstanding body balance and good footwork is what he needs to prosper. Xhaka is a master at passing and long-term positioning. The moment he gets that, he comes to life. Lucas Torreira gives him that spark. This is the reason why Arsenal improved to such great extents after the introduction of the little Uruguayan.