Team cohesion and dynamics are the most crucial foundation for long-term success in elite football. While some fans might get sidetracked by a big signing or an eye-catching managerial change, if the players aren’t all singing from the same hymn sheet, these factors are redundant.
A poor squad dynamic can be the acid test, especially for brand-new managers or those who have firmly established their philosophy at a club. Mikel Arteta certainly falls into the second of these two classifications and is currently the fifth longest-serving manager in English football.
What do the Sportsbooks Say?
Fans will often look toward their favourite pundits and sportsbooks to get an idea of the latest odds. These are usually the two main points of reference when discussing upcoming games or chances of winning the league.
The Gunners are neck and neck with City as favourites for the title this season. It’s a duopoly that has emerged in English football over the last three years, even with Jurgen Klopp occasionally looking to spoil the party. However, now that the German has left his post at Anfield, it feels like there will be a straight shootout between Guardiola and Arteta this season.
These betting odds fluctuate often, but with many new sites looking to capture the vast sports betting market in the UK, expert reviewers now throw in their two cents about which sports betting platforms they rate above the rest—such as askgamblers.com/sports-betting/new, which ranks the best sports betting platforms on a range of variables, whether it’s outright markets in football or the quality of their promotions.
As football fans, we know that pundit predictions can be taken with a pinch of salt and, often, the sportsbooks have a better inkling about how the season will pan out. In fact, only a handful of current pundits could put together a decent analysis of Arsenal’s squad dynamic.
Analysing the Pundits
We’d be sitting around all day if we had to pick out some of the worst things pundits have come out with over the last few years—from Paul Merson’s comment that Kevin De Bruyne’s transfer to Manchester City was unwise and that he “looked out of his depth at Chelsea” to Robbie Savage saying “he wouldn’t pay to watch De Bruyne play”—there’s a fantastic catalogue of pundits talking nonsense. Even recently, Darren Bent has admitted he was wrong about the fee that Arsenal paid for Kai Havertz.
In fairness, we can’t expect them to be right 100% of the time. Football is a very unpredictable game. Nobody thought Leicester would win the league in 2015/16. If any pundit had backed them at the start of the season, they’d have probably been sacked the following day and ridiculed in the media—a double-edged sword.
How Does Squad Dynamic Factor Into Pundit Predictions?
The squad dynamic isn’t the driving force behind pundit predictions. Still, the secondary ripple effect from the cohesion, or lack thereof, that comes from a squad dynamic often influences pundits and their decisions.
Finding a pundit who didn’t think that Arsenal would finish outside the top two this season would be challenging. They’ve come painfully close to lifting their first title since 2004 during both of the last two Premier League campaigns. Still, the togetherness of the squads and the attitude that Arteta has cultivated over the last five years have made them such a force to be reckoned with.
West Ham, for instance, seems to be wavering, and the faith in their manager is becoming an increasingly significant talking point. Their squad dynamic is clearly unbalanced, with their managers and star players having bust-ups, to a point where it needs to be addressed in post-match press conferences. The snowball effect of a manager losing key players in the dressing room can quickly boil over into substandard performances and an unbalanced and toxic squad dynamic.
Arsenal’s Squad Dynamic
Luckily, the Gunners don’t have the same sort of issues with their team. Arteta has them finetuned, and crucially, he has the squad players fully aware of their role, helping them utilise their ability to bring something fresh off the bench. Jurrien Timber and Riccardo Calafiori are two names that have stood out already this season; Timber’s injury blow was significant at the beginning of last season after Arsenal had spent so much money on the Dutch right back.
However, his return from his long-term injury has helped to reshape Arsenal’s squad dynamic, adding another dimension to the defensive unit and improving the quality of the overall squad.
Although Odegaard is out of the squad, it doesn’t look like he will be out for as long, as was initially feared. While this undeniably changes the Arsenal squad dynamic—given that they are without their captain and one of the strongest performers over the last two years—the strength, character, and depth that now exists within the team means they’re better insulated from this type of loss than they would’ve been five or six years ago.
Final Thoughts
There have been examples of too many cooks spoiling the proverbial footballing broth, such as Chelsea’s merry-go-round of fantasy football signings over the last 18 months. While it may pay dividends this season, there is a clear imbalance within the team—with players on mega wages and mega contracts and not seemingly fitting into any type of system.
Again, unlike many other teams in the league, Arsenal does not have this issue. There are leaders and characters, and, more importantly, the players know that they’re singing from the same hymn sheet and are well aware of Arteta’s philosophy. Ultimately, this impacts pundits’ predictions more positively, although there’s not an exact science to getting it right—those squads with a strong dynamic often manifest more positive results out on the pitch.
Since The Invincibles years, Arsenal has developed a reputation as bottlers, or not being able to get it over the finish line. Arteta has done his best to stamp out this reputation they had garnered, and while they might not have entirely silenced these critics yet, the squad dynamic, which is brimming with an excellent balance of youth and experience and skill and tenacity, may be able to get themselves over the finish line this season.