The case for the defence is the best case for Arsenal becoming European champions for the first time.
Mikel Arteta’s team has the strongest defensive record across Europe’s top five leagues this season. They have the most clean sheets (19), the fewest goals conceded (27), the lowest xG against (28.3) and the fewest shots on target faced (90). And when they are strong at the back, Arsenal win trophies.
‘Some people don’t like it because we can be ugly and won’t roll over,’ says Nigel Winterburn, a defensive stalwart of the club for 13 years and three times a title winner, twice under George Graham and again under Arsene Wenger.
‘The thing that makes me laugh is that the people criticising Arsenal this season forget five years ago they were saying “Arsenal are a brilliant footballing team, but they’re soft”. What do you want?’
When George Graham’s Arsenal ended an 18-year wait for the title in 1989, it was a triumph forged on the solid bedrock of a settled defence. When they won it again in 1991, they conceded only 18 goals in 38 league games, and lost just once. Four of the defensive unit – David Seaman, Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and Steve Bould – played in every game. Tony Adams missed only eight, including that one defeat while in prison for two months for crashing his car while drunk.
It brought new meaning to the club once known for its wealth as the Bank of England Club. Different times of course. They are a little less English on the pitch and off it. Others are wealthier, and yet they are once again the most secure unit in the land.
Arsenal’s title triumphs in 1989, 1991 and 1998 were built on a rock-solid defence
And their first championship for 22 years was no different as they kept 19 clean sheets, led by centre backs William Saliba (left), Gabriel (right) and goalkeeper David Raya (centre)
Beyond David Raya, whose day off at Selhurst Park last Sunday was the only Premier League game he missed this season, Arteta’s brilliant defence has featured various permutations of a back four.
No defender started more than 30 games and yet seven have made at least 20 appearances. Ben White, injured for parts of the season, only 12.
‘If you go back to look at when Mikel started, look at the players he shifted out to get the players he wanted in, and it is a mirror image of what we did,’ Winterburn tells Daily Mail Sport.
‘When I joined in 1987, George was remodelling the squad. He brought in younger players and used graduates from the youth team and moved on a lot of the senior players and tweaked it around how he wanted.
‘He had a vision of a style he wanted to play. We spent hours on the training pitch, just the back four with George. He’d have a ball under his arm and we’d be walking around on the pitch into positions as if we were being attacked by the opposition, all to get the movements and distances to stay in sync.
‘Then he would introduce six or seven of the youth team against us, and then eight or nine of the youth team with full backs overlapping. With David Seaman in goal, we would end up with the five of us being attacked by eight, nine, 10 of the youth team and we had to defend the goal and win the ball.
‘It was so repetitive, but we came to know what each of us would do in every situation on the pitch. With that came a powerful belief and great bonding, and it seems as if this team is mirroring what George’s first teams were like. They stifle the opposition. Nine times out of 10 the organisation is so good, they frustrate the life out of teams.’
Arteta’s Arsenal squad has depth to rest and refresh players or adapt to the opposition or the state of the game. William Saliba and Gabriel are first-choice centre halves, but Jurrien Timber, White, Piero Hincapie, Riccardo Calafiori and Cristhian Mosquera can all operate in centrally or at full back.
Arsenal have supreme depth at centre back thanks to the likes of Cristhian Mosquera, Riccardo Calafiori and Piero Hincapie
Ben White (centre) and Jurrien Timber (right) can also fill in at centre back too
Like a fleet of London cabs. They have the knowledge and they wait to be summoned by Arteta and sent on their way with instructions for the day. It led to 19 clean sheets in the Premier League and a third consecutive Golden Glove for Raya.
‘You’ve got the two main centre halves,’ says Winterburn. ‘Gabriel is a beast. He looks like he wants the physical challenge and looks like he enjoys it. Pacy as well. Saliba, you might say more of a Rolls-Royce when he moves. The combination is perfect.
‘Hincapie to me is an out-and-out defender. Timber can do everything. Good going forward but for me probably the best defender in the squad. Versatile and so comfortable on the ball.
‘Ben White more of a traditional right back, plays up and down the wing, doesn’t invert like Myles Lewis-Skelly or Calafiori, who is just wandering around the pitch, but if they are caught out of position there is someone filling in or recovering.
‘It’s not just the back four. And this was the same in teams I played in. Everybody looks at the back four, but all players recover and stifle the opposition, making them go sideways and backwards until everybody is back in position. They do it brilliantly most of the time.’
White is out with a serious knee injury, and Timber has not played for two months, though is close to fitness after a groin injury. Mosquera has been deputising ably at right back, but Paris Saint-Germain will supply the sternest test of the 21-year-old Spaniard and his team-mates.
The French champions have scored 44 goals in 16 Champions League games this season with an array of attacking flair including the frontline of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Ousmane Dembele and Desire Doue.
It is a classic showdown between the most destructive attack in the competition and the meanest defence, a defence which has the likes of Declan Rice and Martin Zubimendi sat in front and is protected from the first line by the aggressive pressing of Viktor Gyokeres, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli.
The defence is protected by midfield generals Martin Zubimendi (left) and Declan Rice (centre)
And up front there is a ferocious press, led by striker Viktor Gyokeres
But Arsenal will face their sternest test on Saturday, thanks to the wizardry of the likes of PSG’s Khvicha Kvaratskhelia
Arsenal have leaked only six goals in 14 Champions League games this season. They have nine clean sheets and two of the goals conceded came in a dead rubber against Kairat Almaty with the reserves out.
‘They can keep PSG out,’ adds Winterburn, who will miss the final in Budapest because it is his daughter Abbey’s wedding day. ‘It won’t be just the defence that does it. It will be the whole team. But if Arsenal stifle them, stop the quick counter-attacks and win the ball back, they can create chances against PSG.
‘It will be fiercely competitive and very close but I’m more relaxed about it now. The big one was the Premier League. After three years of finishing second, that changes the perception of Arsenal as a team that doesn’t see the job out.
‘The pressure changes. We can sit back and enjoy it. I’m desperate for my team to win but if they don’t we’ve got the Premier League trophy, and it’s been a very good season.’
