MIKEL ARTETA had warned us to expect the unexpected when he announced on Friday afternoon that he wanted to make Arsenal more unpredictable.
So maybe we shouldn’t have been quite so surprised when he dropped a major bombshell in their very first game of the new season.
GettyArsenal had a winning start to the Premier League season[/caption]
GettyEddie Nketiah opened the scoring[/caption]
Bukayo Saka added a second for ArsenalGetty
ReutersHe fired a brilliant effort past Matt Turner[/caption]
ReutersTaiwo Awoniyi did get Forest back into the game late on[/caption]
Yet still no one had seen the decision to bench Gabriel Magalhaes coming after the Brazilian international had started every Premier League game for the last two years.
It meant an end to a 73-game run going all the way back to August 2021 and left everyone scratching their heads as to exactly how Arsenal were going to line up at the back.
Turned out it meant Thomas Partey starting the game at right-back, just as he had done against Forest in the penultimate game of last season, which ended in a 1-0 defeat for the Gunners.
But within ten minutes of the delayed kick-off he had swapped positions with Ben White and was playing centre-half.
And five minutes later, Partey was stepping into midfield alongside Declan Rice and suddenly Arsenal were playing with three at the back.
It was all very Pep Guardiola and that certainly shouldn’t have surprised anyone at the Emirates because Arteta has been borrowing from his mentor’s playbook all year.
And to be honest, if you were going to experiment with your tactics against anyone, Forest at home was as good as anyone to start with.
There was one early let-off when Orel Mangala’s clearing header passed right through the middle of the Arsenal defence to send Brennan Johnson haring in on goal.
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But the Forest striker was unable to capitalise on the communication breakdown and shot wastefully over.
And after that it was very much a case of damage limitation for Steve Cooper’s team as Arteta’s men cut loose with goals from Eddie Nketiah and Bukayo Saka.
But Arsenal’s players are going to have to get used to the winds of change whistling around the Emirates from now on because Arteta has so many options that no-one can expect to be ever-present any more.
And if Gabriel was feeling hard done by as he watched on from the subs’ bench, imagine how Kieran Tierney and Rob Holding must have been thinking after failing to even make the 20-man squad.
GettyJurrien Timber was forced off with an injury on his Premier League debut[/caption]
Takehiro Tomiyasu is another who has gone from stalwart to back-up in recent months, but at least he got a 40-minute run-out after Jurrien Timber limped off at the start of the second half.
The £34.5million Dutchman had injured himself making a yellow card challenge on Johnson just before the break.
So when he went down clutching the back of his leg with no one near him just after the restart, it was obvious that he was in trouble.
Timber had initially been signed from Ajax as a right-back, but with Oleksandr Zinchenko still recovering from a calf strain he has so far been operating on the left.
APDeclan Rice was one of three to make their Prem debut for the club[/caption]
APKai Havertz was also handed a start by Mikel Arteta[/caption]
Now it looks as though Arteta is going to have to come up with another defensive permutation.
And it was noticeable that when he needed to see the game out after Taiwo Awoniyi pulled a late goal back for Forest, it was Gabriel who was sent on to shore things up.
That goal had exposed White’s lack of pace after he had been taken to the cleaners by Anthony Elanga before Awoniyi struck.
And it made things far more uncomfortable than it should have been for a team who might just be wondering if they need to go back to the drawing board.
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