Arsenal new boy Vieira says he wants to take Odegaard's number 10 position

James Shearman

Updated: 17 Jul 2022 12:32 BST
4 min read

New signing Fabio Vieira wants to take Martin Odegaard's position in the Arsenal team next season.

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Mikel Arteta is impressed by Vieira's versatility, who signed for £30 million earlier in the window, but it appears he wants to play in one specific position.

''I’m an offensive player,'' Vieira told The Athletic. ''I like to make the last pass, and to help team-mates to score. And I like to score goals too.''

''The manager told me he knows I can play as a midfielder — No 8, No 10 — or on the wing, left side or right side. They know I am a versatile player.''

''I prefer No 10. It’s my real position."

This means that Vieira is looking to take Martin Odegaard's place in the Arsenal team, despite the Norwegian's excellent 2021-22 campaign.

However, the difficulty in doing so is clear, which could lead Vieira to dropping into a deeper role, something he is preparing for.

''I’m an offensive player but I need to work on the defensive side,'' he said. ''Defensive moments are very important in football, especially in the Premier League: it’s more physical, more powerful.

''I am focused on this. My coaches at Porto worked with me last season to improve my physical capacity and my concentration in defensive moments.''

How does Vieira play?

Vieira is an exciting addition, and is capable of becoming Arsenal's craftiest player since Mesut Ozil peaked.

The 22-year-old Portugal youth international spent most of last season as an attacking midfielder when Porto operated in a 4-2-3-1 formation.

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The Portuguese champions mainly used a 4-4-2 system, though, and Vieira did not have a defined role in this.

At times, he played as a second striker next to a more traditional No.9 like Mehdi Taremi, but he was also used on either side of the midfield on occasion.

Primarily, he likes to operate in the right half-space, as his heatmap for the 2021/22 season indicates.

Despite being shifted around positionally, Vieira’s attacking output was very impressive as he scored six goals and assisted 14 others in just 27 appearances.

Just under half of those outings were off the bench, though, so he averaged a formidable 1.15 goal involvements per 90 minutes.

Vieira loves to cut inside form the wing and gets shots away from outside the box but most of his goals have come from inside the penalty area.

As his statistics indicate, though, the main thing he excels at is creating chances for his team-mates.

Looking at his key passes from last season, we can clearly see three patterns: through balls from central areas, in-swinging crosses from the right and set-piece deliveries.

The first of those, through balls from central areas, is Vieira’s trademark move. These are very high difficulty passes that require a great level of ball control as well as vision - Vieira possesses both of those attributes in abundance.

He is a diminutive technician and has great close control, so he excels at finding pockets of space and quickly turning before releasing a pass to one of his team-mates.