Saliba is Arsenal’s biggest obstacle to making Timber transfer work

Tom Hancock

• Updated: 7 Jul 2023 16:03 BST
• 3 min read

Jurrien Timber looks set to complete his move from Ajax to Arsenal any day now – but doubts remain as to just how the Dutchman will fit into Mikel Arteta’s side.

A centre-back by trade, it’s been speculated that Arteta could deploy Timber on the right of his back four – but trying to insert him into either role presents various issues.

Much has been made of the 22-year-old’s lack of strength in the air – a criticism levelled at Lisandro Martinez when he joined Manchester United last summer – and that aspect could prove particularly problematic for Arsenal for the Gunners.

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In the Eredivisie last season, Timber contested 95 aerial duels and won just 45 of them – giving him an aerial success of 47.3%, one of the lowest figures in the league among defenders to contest 50 aerials or more.

For context, only one Premier League centre-half won a lower proportion of their aerial duels last term – and it wasn’t Martinez; it was Manuel Akanji, of title-winning Manchester City.

Weakness in the air isn’t the death knell for a Premier League defender, then – although one should note that both Akanji and Martinez both played in back lines with more aerially dominant centre-backs.

That was especially true in the case of Martinez, who formed a strong partnership with Raphael Varane – whose aerial win rate of 72.4% placed him towards the most successful end of all Premier League defenders to contest 50 or more aerials in 2022/23.

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Decisions, decisions...

However, Arsenal got by just fine without an aerial powerhouse at the heart of their defence last season – neither William Saliba nor Gabriel won more than 57% of their aerial duels in the Premier League – which raises in an interesting point: are defensive headers all that important in today’s game?

It would appear that crosses lofted into the box are becoming a thing of the past – although set-pieces are arguably more threatening than ever.

Mind you, only Man City and Liverpool conceded fewer set-piece goals than Arsenal (8) in the Premier League last term – and having a well-positioned aerially strong player, defender or otherwise, back to get their head to the first ball can make all the difference in those situations.

We should point out that Timber’s aerial win rate in 2022/23 was more than 20% lower than that of Martinez in the Eredivisie in 2021/22, his final campaign with Ajax, but he has shown great promise as an inverted right-back option.

It could present Arteta with quite the dilemma – Ben White enjoyed a superb 2022/23 season as a more orthodox right-back – although there are plenty of worse quandaries to have!