The Arsenal Women provided the dosage of Arsenal football for many Gooners yesterday, albeit through the lens of a somewhat underwhelming 1-0 win over Brighton at home I hear. I say that mainly because I was out and about so couldn’t watch the game, but I kept track on my phone and with Chelsea already five points clear of the ladies after six games, it kind of feels like it might be too much to ask to be getting that title secured. As a reminder, this was a Chelsea Women side who went unbeaten last season, drew just three games and have won the last six titles in a row. Arsenal may have the historical dominance in the Women’s game, but that has long since vanished and that reprehensible football club have a firm grasp on the women’s game.

On the international stage, Jurrien Timber came off after 62 minutes of a 4-0 win over Finland and there doesn’t seem to be any talk of any kind of knock or injury, so hopefully that’s him sorted and he can return to us and prepare for the trip to Fulham on Saturday early evening. It doesn’t sound like he had a load to do, but he was filling in at centre half and so his 66 touches of the ball and 95% passing accuracy hopefully meant a relatively trouble-free night for him alongside Van Dijk. As an aside, I wonder if Van Dijk gets the same pass on fouls, kicks, etc, as he does in the Premier League?

I think Timber was the only Arsenal involvement (Kiwior too, I guess, but given he’s effectively one foot out the door with Porto I’ll not go in to too much detail) from yesterday, but one of the things I forgot to mention was that Calafiori played and starred in the Italians 3-1 win over Estonia on Saturday. SofaScore had him at a 7.7 with a full 90 under his belt and when you don’t bother watching the international matches like I don’t, reading that feels like both a blessing and a curse. The fact he played the full 90 means he came through unscathed (the blessing). But the fact he also played the full 90 means that he didn’t get much rest into those decidedly fragile bones of his (the curse). He played well though, at least, with five clearances, 107 touches and 92% passing accuracy. Looking at his heatmap for Italy you can clearly see his licence to roam like he does at The Arsenal isn’t there. Check these bad boys out:

Sorry for my shoddy cropping on my phone, but this hits home just how much Calafiori is asked to do a different job for his club team as he is for his international team. Part of it is obviously the stylistic set up; Italy play with a back three and he plays on the left of that, so you’d expect less likelihood to roam than as a left back. But I think the personnel makes a difference too. I don’t know who the regular partner is in the centre of that back three, but I bet he ain’t as good as Big Gabi. The way we set up too means that big Gabi effectively covers two positions for us when Riccy goes a’ wanderin’, so the heatmap for The Arsenal obviously results in more licence to drift.

It’s a key feature of our play this season. Calafiori has long talked about how he likes to be in different positions, with him even saying earlier on this year that he wants to learn to be a midfielder. Well he’s certainly going to get that chance playing ‘left back’ in an Arteta team, that’s for sure!

He’s already popped up this season in the right wing slot, he’s scored goals like the one against City from just outside the D just over a year ago and his very specific type of hybrid role he’s been given at The Arsenal often makes him the ‘free man’ when we’re playing. There’s a lot of talk about left eights, right eights, tens, etc, but to ringfence Calafiori at The Arsenal as a ‘left back’ is to call the mounting evidence like the above heatmap Fake News like some kind of mental US sitting President. The things that the Italian game heatmap does show, however, is that he is a very capable – and very good – centre half or left-sided defender if needed. And I think that is to his credit. When Myles came in towards the end of last season I have to admit that I personally wondered if Calafiori’s career would go the way of the Debuchy. We’d seen a young whipper-snapper in the shape of Bellerin come in and make the right back slot his own. I was also very wary of his patchy injury history which appeared to have come true for us last season with his multiple absences for multiple lay-offs during the season. But the versatility of the Italian has already been shown so far this season and (famous football cliche coming up) – if he stays fit – then I think it’s going to be tough for Myles to stake a claim in the same way he did last season. Calafiori’s form has been imperious for both club and country; in this game for Finland I’ve already mentioned the solid stats he racked up and in the West Ham game playing as a nominal left back he had three clearances, three tackles, five ground duels won and two aerials won. But it’s that added extra in an Arsenal shirt (hitting the post from the right hand side of the D just before halftime against West Ham, anyone?) that he’s giving us that is allowing us that extra man in attacking positions that is freeing up space for us to hit overloads so far this season that is so good. Imagine trying to put together a game plan for such a random outlier as Calafiori:

Ok John. You’re up against the Italian left back today. Man mark him. I don’t care if you’re a right winger, if he ends up on the left hand side of our pitch by our defensive corner flag you go with him. Oh, and if the ball turns over and we win possession, here’s a teleporter to get you instantly back into the right wing slot for a transitional counter.

Calafiori is giving us the ‘X-Factor’ that I’ll be honest, I thought most teams had figured out from us since the Zinchenko days. But the Italian does that role differently. It’s further up the pitch, rather than a standard inverting left back that sits deeper. He occupies zones in between the opposition midfield and defence that are, frankly, random and weird to an untrained eye such as me. But it appears to be working so far, so let’s hope it continues for a long time yet to come.

I’d better leave it there today. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more thoughts on the internationals, etc, but for now have a great Monday.