How will the number 10 position look for Arsenal Women next season?
When Joe Montemurro was in charge of Arsenal, his love of a number 10 was one of his defining traits. He managed to squeeze Jordan Nobbs, Kim Little, Danielle van de Donk and Vivianne Miedema into the same team and all of them rotated with abandon. Miedema would drop and allow others to run in behind, or else Nobbs, Little or van de Donk would slide a ball in behind for Miedema to run onto.
Then in the summer of 2019, he added Jill Roord to this menagerie. I am also informed that he made a big push to sign Sara Dabritz that summer and he twice tried to sign Mana Iwabuchi before she eventually arrived in 2021, during the summer that he left. Under Montemurro, Arsenal were replete with number 10s. That changed under Jonas Eidevall when the tactical emphasis shifted towards more direct play and counterpressing.
Under Montemurro, Iwabuchi would likely have thrived but she was not suited to Eidevall’s style and lasted a single season. Miedema herself was moved into the more withdrawn role because, as a striker, she did not quite mesh with Eidevall’s more direct, physical demands (running channels and counter-pressing). Miedema played well as a 10 but ‘played well’ still represented a reduction in output compared to her utterly peerless play as a centre-forward under Montemurro.
During the 2022-23 season, Eidevall turned to Frida Maanum to play in the position. Maanum had previously been considered a box-to-box number eight. The irony behind Maanum’s signing is that she arrived during the same summer as Eidevall. Jonas did not sign her but in his job interview for the role, when asked of the three midfielders he would most like to sign, he named Frida totally unaware that the club had negotiated with her already.
Frida scored nine WSL goals from the position in 2022-23 and was deservedly voted Arsenal’s Player of the Season as injuries to Mead and Miedema ransacked the Gunners’ attacking options. At the conclusion of that campaign, Eidevall admitted to Arseblog News he had never really envisaged Maanum as a 10 before that.
‘Sometimes it is so hard to just look at statistics when you look at young players. I think when you see Frida in Sweden, you saw she had a great shot but she didn’t score many goals. When you see it from the statistical perspective. That is something we could have held against her when we looked at her in the number 10 position because you ask whether that would contribute enough points for the team.
‘That is where you need to look at the potential when you work with young players, you have to see the qualities and now you see she is contributing a lot of points playing that position.’ Maanum continues to impress in the position, more than people realise, I think. It is true that her end product can be a little ‘streaky’ but last season she bagged six goals and four assists across 937 WSL minutes. That’s just shy of a goal contribution every 90 minutes maths fans.
They are good numbers and Maanum remains a valuable member of the squad. The issue is what else Arsenal do in the position. You can’t have one specialist for any position on the pitch, let alone the attacking positions which are altered more frequently in-game. Renee Slegers tried Victoria Pelova in the role a few times at the beginning of last season but it was not an experiment that lasted.
Eventually, I think Slegers arrived at the calculation that Blackstenius was the player really knocking at the door for more minutes, so we started to see Russo dropped deeper behind Stina. I think this was more to do with Slegers preferring to have Stina on the pitch than thinking Russo is better in the 10 position than her more natural striker role.
More technical 10s like Iwabuchi and Kafaji have lasted a single season at Arsenal. Maanum has the shooting power and the pressing smarts to play the role but it’s too demanding to play 90 minutes in it week in and week out. Shortly before Christmas, we saw Kyra Cooney-Cross force her way into the team with Mariona pushed up into the ‘enganche’ role (‘enganche’ is widely used in Spanish speaking countries for this position, it means ‘hook’).
That was until Cooney-Cross’ tragic family situation intervened. The signing of Georgia Stanway to potentially sit alongside Kim Little, in my view, means we will see more of Mariona in that role (but not exclusively). Mariona and Russo have been asked to ‘eat’ too many minutes over the last two seasons and Arsenal need to be able to find a way to play without one or both.
At the WSL Arsenal media day a couple of weeks ago, I asked Geraldine Reuteler if Slegers had indicated which of the multiple roles she is capable of we might see her in the most. ‘Renee says she sees me as a box-to-box player,’ was her answer. Reuteler is capable of playing as a physical, transitional 10 slightly similarly to Frida. She perhaps isn’t quite as physical in terms of pressing but is quicker across the ground to attack transitions.
Arsenal certainly need greater fluidity of personnel in midfield, Mariona, Little and Russo just can’t be overworked in the same way they have been in the last two campaigns. It does make me wonder whether we see more fluidity and interchange in the midfield unit too instead of having a very concrete ’10.’
If, for example, you have a midfield of Stanway, Little and Mariona, it is not difficult to envisage the 10 position being ‘time shared’ in much the same way the 6 position has been. (And you could slip Reuteler in for any of those names and the same would apply). All Arsenal’s midfield options are hybrids. Stanway, Little and Cooney-Cross are ‘6/8s’ and Mariona and Reuteler are ‘8/10s.’
Having Cerci, as well as Blackstenius, also means Russo’s 10 shifts are almost certainly set to continue in some form. My sense is that we are going to see all these permutations, it is merely a question of how often we will see each one and whether Slegers develops preferences between them.
The 10 position, in particular, is a role of intrigue because it feels like Maanum is the only player who has been a permanent incumbent of the role. More technical options like Kafaji, Iwabuchi and Pelova have not been able to pass their auditions. Russo has played it well but a situation where she is the main 9 and the main 10 simultaneously was unsustainable. I am really intrigued to see whether Reuteler and Mariona become significant roleplayers in the advanced attacking midfield position.