Only a couple of months ago, Leandro Trossard appeared to be fourth in the pecking order on Arsenal’s left, but his importance has grown as the season has progressed.
Given how busy Arsenal were over the summer, it wasn’t unreasonable to assume, as the transfer window came towards its close, that Leandro Trossard’s time at the club might soon end.
Gabriel Martinelli hadn’t had his best campaign last season but there remained hope he could rediscover his electric form from 2022-23, while Eberechi Eze and Noni Madueke had both been brought in for upwards of £50 million. Although neither is most comfortable on the left side of attack, they can both play there and added further depth in the position when they arrived. They both certainly seemed like more exciting options there than the reliable but rarely showstopping Trossard.
The 30-year-old former Brighton man was, it appeared, falling down the pecking order, and with Arsenal ultimately spending more than £250m in the summer and recouping a relative pittance of approximately £9m, reports of the Belgian’s imminent departure made some sense.
He was as low as fourth choice in his favoured left-sided position, while he hadn’t been entirely convincing as the stand-in centre-forward when Kai Havertz was injured last season, especially given Mikel Merino proved himself as an able back-up striker. So, when Arsenal spent big on centre-forward Viktor Gyökeres, Trossard’s chances of playing appeared to fall further.
He wasn’t sold, though. Instead, on 22 August, he signed a new contract on improved terms. “Leo was very clear from the beginning that he wanted to be here,” manager Mikel Arteta said. “The club was very clear that they wanted Leo here, I was very clear that I wanted him here. At the end, good outcome.”
Trossard has long been one of Arteta’s most trusted lieutenants. He has made more Arsenal appearances in all competitions (137) than any other player since his debut in January 2023. Perhaps the manager insisting Trossard “deserved recognition” with a new contract shouldn’t have been a surprise.
But there’s no denying that it was a surprise. Trossard has been consistently been in and out of the Arsenal team throughout his time there, despite not having many injury problems, and as a result, he has never really looked like a winger who could be the difference as Arsenal chase the title. Since the Belgian’s debut, only Gabriel Jesus boasts a better rate of non-penalty goals or assists per 90 (0.72) for Arsenal than Trossard (0.67), but the problem has been game time.
He has completed the full match in just 23 of his 136 Arsenal appearances. In February of this year, in the depths of last season’s injury crisis and more than two years since he signed, he completed 90 minutes in consecutive Arsenal games for the first time.
This season, after the unexpected new contract, there was even more confusion as to why he was given it when Trossard was named on the bench for each of Arsenal’s first four games. Martinelli, Madueke and Eze started on the left side of midfield in those matches, and Trossard remained an unused substitute in the two biggest games, away to Manchester United and Liverpool, only appearing off the bench at home when his side were winning 4-0 against Leeds and 2-0 against Nottingham Forest.
Against Forest, he set up a Martín Zubimendi goal with his first touch to make it 3-0 but barely celebrated. At that point, he looked disconnected from the rest of the team.
Then, the decision to extend his contract seemed questionable, but that game in fact became a turning point for Trossard.
A few days later, with a Champions League tie at Athletic Club still goalless, Trossard came off the bench to set up one goal and score another to earn Arsenal a 2-0 win. That weekend, he was starting on the left side of attack against Manchester City. He has kept his place ever since.
Athletic Club 0-2 Arsenal xg race
Trossard has now started the last six Premier League games in a row, meaning if he keeps his spot for the trip to Sunderland on Saturday, which appears likely, he’ll be on his joint-second longest run of consecutive league starts for Arsenal. The only time he has started more than seven games in a row was between 4 January and 16 March this year, when he started 10 successive games during a period when forwards Havertz, Martinelli, Bukayo Saka and Gabriel Jesus all had spells out injured.
The difference this time is that even though Madueke, Jesus and Havertz have all been injured, Arsenal have depth in attack after their busy summer. Trossard has been earning his spot, rather than just keeping it due to a lack of alternatives.
Record-breaking Arsenal
A spate of more recent injuries in attacking positions, however, could mean Arteta is once again forced to rely on Trossard.
The Arsenal manager said he was “concerned” about the muscle injury Gyökeres picked up in last weekend’s trip to Burnley, while Martinelli missed the midweek Champions League win at Slavia Prague. “We don’t know yet [how long for],” Arteta said. Havertz and Madueke could be back after the international break, but neither has played for a decent amount of time and would take at least a few games to get back up to speed.
Trossard isn’t the most glamourous player in Arsenal’s squad, but he does plenty of useful work and pops up in important moments with crucial contributions. He scored the only goal of the game in last month’s 1-0 win at Fulham – where Arsenal had dropped points in each of the last two seasons – while last season he scored the winner in January’s home north London derby. He is a senior member of the squad, the oldest player who regularly plays, and is growing into something of a leader.
arsenal squad profile
More importantly, at a time when much of Arsenal’s success is based on their ludicrously watertight defence and wonderfully effective attacking set-pieces, they need as much help as they can get in open play. Trossard has been a big help in that sense.
His assists in back-to-back games – crosses for headed goals from Declan Rice at Burnley and Mikel Merino at Slavia Prague – in the past week have both come in open play. Of all Arsenal players to play at least 250 minutes of Premier League football this season, only Saka (0.27) and Eze (0.15) are averaging more expected assists (xA) in open play per 90 than Trossard (0.13), and only Gyökeres (0.29) is averaging more expected goals from open play per 90 than him (0.20).
Mr Reliable, Trossard has grown into a key member of Arsenal’s first XI rather than just their squad. He is now one of the players who was rested for the EFL Cup tie with Brighton and withdrawn late on in Prague only once the game was won, both with bigger challenges – such as the weekend trip to high-flying Sunderland – in mind.
He probably won’t be the main man in whatever success Arsenal have this season, but after appearing as though he might be on his way out of the club, he is now justifying his position as an important player in this title challenge as someone that Arteta can always depend on.
Premier League Stats Opta
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