'Closer to the game, we start training for the opposition, so this is tweaking what we do to exploit the opposition’s weaknesses or tweak it to negate their strengths'. That’s what Arsenal assistant coach Steve Round said in a recent interview, and it’s probably never been more obvious in practice than it was at Southampton on Thursday evening. Following on from two consecutive post-lockdown Premier League defeats, Mikel Arteta opted for a back five from the start of the game for the first time in his Arsenal tenure. Trained under Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola, you’d be forgiven for expecting the Arsenal boss to be a bit more dogmatic. But Arteta took a leaf out of current Leeds...
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