Arsene Wenger’s habit, when doubts about Arsenal’s title credentials, have been raised has been to turn to irony. “So long as we are five points clear,” he said after Sunday’s draw against Everton, “you cannot write us off.”
By the time his side’s game at Manchester City is over on Saturday, that lead could be eight points and the doubts would have burned away.
Arsenal are the best travellers in the Premier League, having picked up 16 points from seven away games, but City have by far the best home record.
Not only have they won all seven games played at the Etihad, but they have scored 29 goals and conceded just two.
Away from home, the defensive vulnerability of the pairing of Yaya Toure and Fernandinho, neither of them a true holder, at the back of midfield has been exposed, as has the tendency of Alvaro Negredo and Sergio Aguero to operate as a front two, rather than as a striker and an attacking midfielder. Pouring men forward, City have been able to overwhelm sides.
One of Arsenal’s strengths this season is that it no longer has to dominate possession, and has not, ranking eighth in the Premier League possession stats, albeit third among teams playing away.
Wenger’s team are perfectly capable of allowing the opposition time on the ball and holding them at arm’s length – as they did successfully in periods of the home games against Southampton and Everton. Even away to Napoli on Wednesday, Arsenal were relatively successful in stifling their opponents, undone in the end only by two excellent finishes and one pass of absurd precision.
Still, to do that against City, who have such a range of attacking options, is a new magnitude of difficulty, and it may be that Wenger decides to fight fire with fire and looks to take the game to City, targeting that potential weakness in front of the back four. The midfield battle will be both fascinating and decisive.
The first issue is who Wenger selects at the back of his own midfield. Mikel Arteta and Aaron Ramsey would help control possession, but moving Ramsey out to the right would allow Wenger to bring in the ball-winning attributes of Mathieu Flamini.
Mesut Ozil is almost certain to start centrally, looking to find space around Toure and Fernandinho, with Santi Cazorla to the left. The right, though, is more intriguing. If Ramsey is used central and deep, recent selections suggest Jack Wilshere to be used there. That is fine when Arsenal expect to dominate the ball, and one of the features of this season is how Wilshere’s goal threat has increased, but deploying him on the right makes Arsenal very narrow.
Offensively, that is not a problem: their technical ability is such they can play in much tighter areas than almost any other side, and so can make a virtue of overloading in that central attacking zone.
Defensively, though, it could be an issue, as the narrowness makes it very hard to track runs by the opposing full-backs, a potential weakness exacerbated by Jesus Navas’s pace from the right for City. If Arsenal sit deep, though, with Cazorla helping protect Kieran Gibbs on the left and Wilshere/Ramsey covering Carl Jenkinson on the right, Olivier Giroud can become isolated up front.
The solution may be to bring in Theo Walcott, whose pace would allow him to get forward to support Giroud, although he has not started since the Uefa Champions League match against Marseille on September 18.
However Wenger lines up, this has the feel of a decisive game, not merely in terms of points, but in terms of testing the depth and flexibility of Wenger’s midfield.
Win this and the pressure is off the December 23 fixture against Chelsea. Win both, and they may suddenly seem uncatchable.
sports@thenational.ae
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre, 4-cylinder turbo
Transmission: CVT
Power: 170bhp
Torque: 220Nm
Price: Dh98,900
Joker: Folie a Deux
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson
Director: Todd Phillips
Rating: 2/5
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
The years Ramadan fell in May
THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
Hometown: Cologne, Germany
Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)
Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes
Favourite hobby: Football
Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk
The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Price: From Dh359,900 ($98,000)
On sale: Now
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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EElggo%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20August%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Luma%20Makari%20and%20Mirna%20Mneimneh%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Education%20technology%20%2F%20health%20technology%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESize%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Four%20employees%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-seed%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
