The midfield in the Arsenal squad was highted during the 3-0 win over Oxford United to have a clear issue regarding strength in depth. The Gunners struggled to work the ball through the League One side in central areas and instead were forced into solely using the wide channels.
Mikel Arteta eventually became frustrated with the lack of directness in the group and made the decision to make changes to the Arsenal side early on in the second half. Albert Sambi Lokonga and Kieran Tierney were replaced by Granit Xhaka and Oleksandr Zinchenko – moments later, the Gunners took the lead and went on to win comfortably.
Lokonga endured a mostly out-of-touch performance in this game. Despite an early shot which should have led to a penalty were VAR in operation, the Belgian failed to progress the ball enough. In fact he made more backward passes (8) in the game compared to forward (7) passes.
