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If the Gunners are successful in poaching the Belgium international from Everton they would arguably have one of the most solid midfields in Europe, fit to battle any team.
Onana is a huge physical presence in the centre of the pitch. Standing at 6’5” he has a dominance that just can’t be coached. For Everton, he’s a warrior in their midfield.
An aggressive ball-winning defensive-midfielder who loves to battle, Onana reads the game so well. His front-footed style enables him to intercept passes or recover any loose ball, then retain possession and progress forward.
With a long powerful physique, Onana uses his rangy legs to sweep and collect the ball off attackers. Onana’s tackling is top quality because of this.
He’s the type of midfielder who teams hate to come up against because he can dominate you shoulder to shoulder, he’s quicker than most midfielders and he has the power and technique to stride away after he’s stolen the ball off you.
Someone this dominant in duels but also so secure on the ball would be a dangerous weapon for any top team.
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It’s no surprise that Arsenal have made him a top target for the summer. He won’t come cheap, though, with Everton slapping an £80m price tag on his head.
Onana is a big presence on the pitch
Given his height, there’s no surprise seeing how much of an aerial presence Onana has. He’s a colossus in midfield. On set-pieces he dominates aerially due to the combination of his height, strength and athleticism to have a huge leap too.
For Arsenal this would massively come in handy as set-pieces is clearly something they really focus on with set-piece coach Nicolas Jover.
This season in the Premier League, Arsenal have the second-most corners in the Premier League this season with 188 (Man City top with 192). Quite a lot more compared to Everton’s 117 (14th).
Arsenal have the most goals from set-pieces this season (including penalties) with 24 goals. 16 of these goals are from corners/free-kicks, eight from penalties.
In fact, since Nicolas Jover’s appointment in the summer of 2021, they have the highest amount of set-piece goals excluding penalties (48).
Adding a presence like Onana on these corner and free-kick routines (along with a new target man striker like Toney, Osimhen who have been linked) would be another advantage to gain over their opponent.
Onana could revolutionise the Gunners’ midfield
The prospect of putting Amadou Onana next to Declan Rice is almost reminiscent of a Patrick Vieira and Gilberto Silva double pivot that Arsene Wenger would play. A blend of physical dominance and technical brilliance.
One of Onana’s best strengths is his ball-carrying. He’s a transitional monster. When he picks the ball up deep, he can eat up ground so quickly with his long powerful strides and good control of the ball.
His ability to do this and also be a presence when crashing into the box is also why he has potential playing further forward as an eight.
Positionally right now he’s best as a double pivot player, though. If Arsenal were to sign him he could play here and him and Rice could alternate who carries the ball and who sits deep. A good balance and coverage to avoid it being too risky and too many bodies being committed forwards.
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In addition, Onana could develop as a single pivot. Being in a JDP (Juego de Posicion) system would help massively as of the organised rotations and positional discipline needed to play there would give him more exposed to the single pivot role.
Juego de Posicion is a term which in translation means ‘Positional Play’ and refers to the philosophy of utilising positional discipline to create a free man to help progress play and penetrate the opponent’s defensive lines.
Coaches such as Arteta, Guardiola, De Zerbi play with this iterations of this philosophy. A key aspect of JDP football is to have players with a natural ‘gravity’ to draw players to them by carrying the ball.
This creates unfavourable scenarios of 1v2 meaning that there’s a spare man to pass to now. For this reason, quality ball-carriers are valuable in these systems and Amadou Onana is exactly that.
One of the principals of JDP is the planned interchanging of positions to confuse the opponent and beat the press. This type of style would be beneficial for Onana to learn how to play as a single pivot at times in the game but also to be further forward with Rice as the single pivot at times too.
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Arsenal have often lined-up with a diamond midfield 4 in possession. One example was in the first game of the season vs Nottingham Forest.
Arsenal lined up with a 4-3-3 on paper with a back 4 of Partey (RB), Saliba (RCB), Gabriel (LCB), Timber (LB). and a midfield of Rice (DM), Odegaard (RCM), Havertz (LCM).
But when in possession, Partey would invert and become the defensive midfielder, Rice would push up into a LCM position and Havertz would come central to play as a second striker (SS) to create a diamond formation.
This shape enabled Havertz to be more of a ‘pockets’ player where he’d float around behind the striker and connecting the wingers to play off the them. It also allows for combinations between the striker and Havertz.
Havertz can then push up to be the situational striker target-man and Gabriel Jesus up top can drop to play off Havertz’s knockdowns.
There’s a possibility that Arsenal could be looking to sign Onana to play the role of Partey here. Partey so often is out injured for Arsenal and misses the big games.
They need cover for him. Arsenal’s strongest lineup consists of Partey and Rice together in the midfield, however they’ve only started together 5 times this season.
